The effect of impulsivity and anger expression on health risk and protective behavior of adolescents

Abstract

The presence and the amount of health and risk behavior influence the occurrence of healthy habits and emergence of the disease, especially in the adolescence. Personality theories sustain that in the development of health behavior various individual components, such as cohesion, aspirations, impulsivity or anger expression manifest as key determinants. Participants were 385 Romanian high school students, 182 boys (47.3 %,) and 203 girls (52.7%), aged between 16-18 years, with a mean age of 16.8 years. The measures were the Anger Expression Scale and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale adapted for adolescents, beside the reported adoption of health protective and risk behavioral components. Statistical procedure include the cluster analysis of the examined behavioral risk (such as smoking frequency, consumption of carbonated drinks, alcohol or drug, school stress and fighting, and perceived level of quality of life) and protective factors (such as the frequency and the amount of physical activity, the reported decision making skills and the health status). The results show significant differences in high and low level of health protective behavior components regarding the nonplanning factor and its factors (self-control and cognitive complexity). Furthermore, the high level of health risk behaviors significantly influenced all the factors of impulsiveness scale and anger expression components (anger in, anger out and general anger expression). Variables, such as attentional and motor impulsiveness, and anger out had a relevant role in predicting health risk behaviors (R square=.31). The study underlies the relevant effect of impulsivity and anger expression on health risk behavior in adolescence.