Psychology Students - Measuring Anger
 

I have recently been planning an experiment for my Social Psychology class and it has been smooth up to the end, in which I have to find an objective(not necessarilly absolutely so) way to measure anger.

Let me introduce you to my experiment first of all:

1. The experimenter will ask the participant to read an article about 'How Terrible America/Americans Are'.

2. Half of the participants will be asked to write a small essay by hand on a page of loose leaf reacting to the essay they just read.

3. The other half will be asked to write a small essay on the computer reacting to the essay they just read.

4. ****** This is where I am stuck. I would like to objectively measure the level of anger expressed by each of the groups. Any ideas on the best way I can do this?

I expect the participants that are writing this by hand to display more anger. It is known that body position/movement affects emotion. The motion/position of writing by hand involves clenching a pen in a fist type formation (which may prime anger), while typing on a computer involes almost a caressing motion (which may in turn prime tranquility).

The real question I am asking here is, how will I measure anger here without any real technology?

Re: Psychology Students - Measuring Anger
 

hmm..that's difficult to say. Most of what I'm thinking of involves 'real technology'. Perhaps you could devise a scale (e.g. ratings from 1-5) based on the occurrence of negative prose, descriptors, or words in the essay.

It's difficult to say...I haven't thought this through but hopefully I've given you something to work with. Best of luck! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Psychology Students - Measuring Anger
 

Umm yeah some scale to grade the writing, and then maybe have them answer some questions on a Likert scale type deal about how they feel after writing out or typing essay.

Re: Psychology Students - Measuring Anger
 

i might do a likert scale questionaire (10-18 questions) right after they read the article, and one right after they write the essay. (since im guessing they will get a few minutes to write the essay). make sure the questions are randomized in order when askin the likert questions.

then take the averages of the two tests to find a score for that person. hopefully that gives u an idea of things to think about...

gl on it