عصبانیت و رفتار های خشونت آمیز: یک بررسی فراتحلیلی Anger and aggression treatments: a review of meta-analyses

Introduction The phrase anger management has become commonplace in the Western culture. In the U.S., the term has been used in the media and was the title of a 2003 movie and a television series. A recent Google search resulted in approximately 30 000 web pages (February 27, 2017). Those arrested for assault or domestic violence in the U.S. and other countries are frequently referred for anger management classes as a condition of their release, plea, or probation. Given the widespread use of anger management and the mandate for such treatments in legal systems, knowledge about the effectiveness of these interventions is much needed. Most mandates for anger management assume that a direct relationship exists between anger and aggression, and that targeting anger would reduce or eliminate the aggression. While the number of studies on this relationship is remarkably small [1
], the limited literature suggests that anger does not always lead to aggression, nor is anger a necessary cause of aggression. A recent metaanalytic review, however, found a robust relationship between anger and violent behavior [2], and a recent evaluation of an individually-delivered anger treatment found that reductions in aggressive behaviors were associated with decreases in anger [30]. This emerging literature provides support to the supposition that treatment of anger will result in reduction of aggression. However, some anger management interventions have failed to produce positive effects in prison samples [3]. Given the context in which most people are referred or mandated to such interventions, both anger and aggression serve as related yet distinct outcomes of interest. We reviewed the literature on anger and aggression interventions to shed light on the effectiveness of anger management programs. Not long ago, the amount of literature on this topic was thin. However, in preparation for this review, we uncovered a large number ofstudies.Asreviewing them all would be beyond the length of this article, we focusedour attentiononmeta-analytic reviews of anger and aggression treatments. A literature search revealed 21 such meta-analyses, most of which focused on specific populations. These meta-analyses represent a substantial database from which to assess whether such treatments work and which treatments appear to be most successful.