Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding

Do people aggress to make themselves feel better? We adapted a procedure us ed by G. K. Manucia, D. J. Baumann, and R. B. Cialdini (1984), in which som e participants are given a bogus mood-freezing pill that makes affect regul ation efforts ineffective. In Study 1, people who had been induced to belie ve in the value of catharsis and venting anger responded more aggressively than did control participants to insulting criticism, but this aggression w as eliminated by the mood-freezing pill. Study 2 showed similar results amo ng people with high anger-out (i.e., expressing and venting anger) tendenci es. Studies 3 and 4 provided questionnaire data consistent with these inter pretations, and Study 5 replicated the findings of Studies I and 2 using me asures more directly concerned with affect regulation. Taken together, thes e results suggest that many people may engage in aggression to regulate (im prove) their own affective states.