EXAM PROJECT

OVERVIEW
People have different ways of improving their mood when angry. We have all seen
people punch a wall when mad, and indeed, previous research has indicated that some
people aggress to improve their mood (Bushman, Baumeister & Phillips, 2001). What
do the top athletes do when angry? Striegel (1994) found that anger often hurts an
athlete’s performance and that capability to control anger is what makes good athletes
even better. This study adds to the past research and examines the difference in ways
to improve an angry mood by gender and sports participation.

The participants were 78 Rice University undergraduates, ages 17 to 23. Of these 78

participants, 48 were females and 30 were males and 25 were athletes and 53 were
non-athletes. People who did not play a varsity or club sport were considered non-
athletes. The 13 contact sport athletes played soccer, football, rugby, or basketball,
and the 12 non-contact sport athletes participated in Ultimate Frisbee, baseball, tennis,
swimming, volleyball, crew, or dance.

The participants were asked to respond to a questionnaire that asked about what they
do to improve their mood when angry or furious. Then they filled out a demographics
questionnaire.

DESCRIPTIONS OF VARIABLES
Variable Description
Sports 1 = athletes, 2 = non-athletes
Gender 1 = males, 2 = females
high scores demonstrate that people deal with anger by
Anger-Out (AO)
expressing it in a verbally or physically aggressive fashion
Anger-In high scores demonstrate that people experience anger but do not
(AI) express it (suppress their anger)
high scores demonstrate that people control the outward
Control-Out (CO)
expression of angry feelings
high scores demonstrate that people control angry feelings by
Control-In (CI)
calming down or cooling off
index of general anger expression:
Expression (AE)
(Anger-Out) + (Anger-In) - (Control-Out) - (Control-In) + 48

E XERCISES
Note: (From point 1 to point 13= 01 Mark each, point 14=07 Marks)

1. Is Anger-Out a quantitative or qualitative variable?

2. What are the mean and standard deviation of the Anger-Out scores?
 3. Is there a difference in how much males and females use aggressive behavior
to improve an angry mood? For the "Anger-Out" scores: Compute a
significance test on the difference between means.
4. What is the range of the Anger-In scores?
5. Calculate the difference between mean Anger-In score for the athletes and
non-athletes. What can you conclude?
6. Plot a histogram of the distribution of the Control-Out scores.
7. What is the overall mean Control-Out score? What is the mean Control-Out
score for the athletes? What is the mean Control-Out score for the non-
athletes?
8. Determine if the difference in the mean Control-Out score for athletes and
non-athletes is statistically significant.
9. What is the variance of the Control-In scores for the athletes? What is the
variance of the Control-In scores for the non-athletes?
10. Do athletes or non-athletes calm down more when angry? Conduct a t test to
see if the difference between groups in Control-In scores is statistically
significant.
11. Plot parallel box plots of the Anger Expression Index by gender.
12. What is the correlation between the Control-In and Control-Out scores?
13. Would you expect the correlation between the Anger-Out and Control-Out
scores to be positive or negative? Compute this correlation.
14. Find the regression line for predicting Anger-Out from Control-Out.
a. What is the slope? (01 Marks)
b. What is the intercept? (01 Marks)
c. Is the relationship at least approximately linear? (04 Marks)
d. Construct trend values (02 Marks)

RAW DATA

Gender Sports Anger-Out Anger-In Control-Out Control-In Anger_Expression
2 1 18 13 23 20 36
2 1 14 17 25 24 30
2 1 13 14 28 28 19
2 1 17 24 23 23 43
1 1 16 17 26 28 27
1 1 16 22 25 23 38
1 1 12 12 31 27 14
2 1 13 16 22 31 24
2 1 16 16 22 24 34
2 1 12 16 29 29 18
1 1 12 13 24 25 24
1 1 17 23 24 22 42
1 1 18 19 29 30 26
1 2 27 10 23 27 35
2 2 18 14 17 11 52
1 2 9 20 28 24 25
2 2 13 25 27 24 35
2 2 20 21 15 18 56
2 2 16 24 26 26 36
2 2 23 16 15 14 58
1 2 12 21 29 15 37
1 2 15 29 29 23 40
2 2 26 21 14 13 68
2 2 17 30 16 18 61
2 2 20 19 17 14 56
2 2 9 24 21 21 39
1 2 24 20 18 13 61
1 2 12 21 26 24 31
2 2 23 14 17 14 54
2 2 14 12 22 22 30
2 2 23 26 28 23 46
2 2 13 11 27 21 24
2 2 18 19 21 19 45
2 2 11 22 25 24 32
1 2 15 27 21 16 53
1 2 20 22 16 18 56
2 2 11 26 24 25 36
1 2 16 15 30 26 23
2 2 11 19 22 16 40
2 2 15 31 21 22 51
1 2 17 22 22 19 46
1 2 18 17 27 24 32
1 2 16 21 30 30 25
2 2 14 18 20 17 43
2 2 18 13 27 20 32
1 2 11 22 32 22 27
2 2 12 13 24 22 27
2 2 18 14 19 19 42
2 2 21 22 25 19 47
1 2 22 20 17 18 55
2 2 22 17 22 23 42
1 2 26 24 15 16 67
1 2 11 15 29 19 26
2 2 17 18 28 20 35
2 2 16 18 24 22 36
2 2 9 14 32 32 7
2 2 11 23 24 16 42
2 2 17 11 21 24 31
2 2 13 22 21 21 41
2 2 18 19 27 22 36
1 2 19 15 19 19 44
2 2 15 21 25 26 33
1 2 15 22 25 24 36
1 2 18 18 20 19 45
2 2 12 16 31 32 13
2 2 15 18 30 29 22
1 1 14 14 27 23 26
2 1 14 22 30 29 25
1 1 15 15 27 27 24
 1 1 21 19 21 17 50
1 1 18 19 24 23 38
2 1 17 10 18 17 40
2 1 24 19 18 23 50
2 1 14 11 18 15 40
2 1 10 18 30 32 14
2 1 11 14 29 24 20
1 1 15 17 20 18 42
2 1 15 17 24 26 30