Investigation of the relationship between high school students' anger expression styles and psychological needs

The aim of this research is to examine and reveal the relationship between anger expression styles and basic psychological needs in high school students. The research was conducted using a relational survey model. The sample of the study consisted of 536 students (241 girls, 295 boys) studying in high schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Kırıkkale during the 2022-2023 academic year. A simple random sampling method was used in the sample selection process. The "Personal Information Form", "Basic Psychological Needs Scale - High School Form" and "Anger Expression Style Scale" were used as data collection tools in the research. To determine the differences of research variables according to gender, the Independent Samples t-Test, one of the parametric tests, was used; and to determine the differences according to grade level, school type, and socioeconomic level, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used. The Levene Test was used to determine the multiple comparison tests to be used in the ANOVA process and to determine the assumption of homogeneity of variance. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Analysis (r) was used to determine the relationships between variables. Multiple Regression Analysis was used to test the interactions between variables and to examine the research models. As a result of the analyses, it was found that the level of controlled anger differed according to gender; and that the levels of controlled anger, expressed anger, and suppressed anger did not differ according to socioeconomic level. It was observed that girls had higher levels of the need for competence and autonomy than boys, while the level of the need for relatedness did not differ according to gender. It was determined that the levels of the need for relatedness and autonomy differed according to the type of school. It was found that the levels of competence, autonomy, and the need for relatedness differed according to socioeconomic level. Within the scope of the research, it was determined that the variable of the need for autonomy predicted the level of controlled anger, the variable of the need for competence predicted the level of expressed anger, and the variable of the need for relatedness predicted the level of suppressed anger.