Abstract

In the present paper, we present results from an experiment about the regulation of anger in a sample of 26 volunteers (f = 14, mean age = 24.9, mean education = 17.4). In a social interaction task, participants were presented with verbal stimuli either anger provoking or emotionally neutral associated with neutral faces of simulated participants. After each anger provoking and neutral situation they were asked to rate the level of perceived anger and to choose between three different options to regulate the emotion: reappraisal, suppression or no strategy. Results indicate that participants correctly perceived anger provoking stimuli and that suppression was the most used strategy for anger regulation. Notably, previous studies using self-reported measures, reported that reappraisal was the most effective strategy to regulate anger. This study thus expands previous findings and point toward the direction of a shift toward suppression based strategies when confronted with real social interactions that elicit anger.