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 Anger
Research
Summary of Research Program
Sandra Thomas, PhD, RN, FAAN
Anger and violence are significant problems for individuals, families, and
society. Over a decade ago, I discovered a shocking lack of research about
anger in women. I formed a 14-member team that included master's students,
doctoral students, and other faculty, and we embarked on an ambitious program
of study. To date, we have studied more than 600 women, examining the causes
of their anger and its consequences for their physical and mental health. Members
of the team have changed somewhat over time, and with various colleagues we
have examined anger in Turkish and French women as well as African American
and EuroAmerican women. We have looked at anger's link to self-esteem, depression,
and health indicators such as blood pressure.
Eventually, we turned our attention to men's anger because there were unanswered
questions in this area, and most recently I am devoting attention to violent
girls and boys. We have also examined anger in specific occupational groups
(such as nurses) or special life circumstances (such as childbirth and caregiving
to AIDS patients).
This program of research has generated more than two dozen journal articles,
3 books, and considerable publicity in the popular media, including two articles
in the New York Times by Jane
Brody, articles in USA Today and
many women's magazines, and a number of national television appearances, including “Good
Morning America.” Our research showed that few men and women learned healthy
anger management skills while growing up, and neither sex really feels good about
what they do with their anger. Therefore, I have been conducting workshops and
classes in this community, and across the nation, to spread the word about healthy
anger management. I have written a training manual, so that other professionals
can be trained to deliver anger management classes that are based on research
data.
The other aspect of my work that some people may find interesting
is that now I primarily use a phenomenological research method.
I became dissatisfied with structured questionnaires to measure
human experiences such as anger, stress, and pain. I became convinced
that such measures did not adequately capture the depth and complexity
of such experiences. So I now use a research method that is grounded
in existential philosophy, focused on grasping the essential meaning
of these experiences. We use in-depth face-to-face interviews to
accomplish our work. Together with my coauthor Howard Pollio from
the psychology department, I have just published a book explaining
this research method, “Listening to Patients: A Phenomenological
Approach to Nursing Research and Practice” (Springer Publishing,
New York, 2002).
A recent example of using phenomenological method involves a multidisciplinary
research team. Members of the team include Howard Pollio, Kathy Greenberg and
Chuck Thompson from the College of Education, Gary Klukken from the Student Counseling
Center, and my colleagues Mitzi Davis and Yvonne Dias-Bowie from Nursing. Funded
by a grant which I obtained from Phi Kappa Phi, we are studying the experience
of African American undergraduate students on this predominantly white college
campus. Our first paper is in press at “The Journal of Higher Education.”
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