Components of Hostility and Verbal Communication of Emotion

Understanding how hostility may affect health risk is predicated on articulating its core physiological, psychological and social features. Barefoot [Barefoot, J.C. (1992). Developments in the measurement of hostility. In: Friedman, H.S. (Ed.), Hostility , Coping and Health , pp. 13-31. American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C] emphasized the importance of cognitive, affective and behavioural components. The present study examined whether hostile people differ from non-hostile people on measures of emotional verbal behaviour. Forty participants were interviewed about an anger-eliciting experience. Interviews were transcribed and evaluated for the use of emotional language using the Dictionary of Affect in Language [Whissell, C.M. (1989). The dictionary of affect in language. In: Plutchik, R. and Kellerman, H. (Eds.), The Measurement of Emotions. Emotion : Theory, Research and Experience . Vol. 4. Academic, San Diego]. Independent judges read the transcripts and rated the amount of anger experie...