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What factors contribute to the angry feeling of young people?
University of Toronto sociologist Scott Schieman [SHE-man] has made a career of studying angry people. He's dedicated his research to finding out what makes people explode in a rage, or simply feel annoyance. Schieman, an American, conducted extensive surveys of about a thousand Americans of all ages. He asked about many factors that can contribute to feeling angry and he found three main reasons why younger people - those in their 20s and 30s --reported being angry more often than older respondents. He says
"The big one was being rushed for time. And this comes out of, in a way, theory and evidence about people saying, 'Look, I feel rushed... I feel too many demands at work, I feel too many demands in family life,' and they don't have any hours left after all of the demands being placed on (them). So that feeling rushed for time was the strongest predictor of anger, and it was much more frequent among people in their 20s and 30s."
Schieman says the other two big stressors for young people were financial strain and problems at work. He also found that people who had young children at home tended to express anger more frequently. Schieman says the findings make sense. As people age, he notes, they tend to cope a little better with the pressures of life.
Schieman also found that people with more education tended to experience anger less frequently. He says:
"When well-educated individuals do experience anger, they tend to be more likely to act pro-actively.In other words, they try to change the situation, they try to talk it over with others. And so some of the theoretical thinking behind that is just that education equips individuals with more cognitive flexibility, they can think through a variety of different options, potentially control emotions better, think through different opportunities for resolution, that kind of thing."
One thing Schieman found respondents of all ages and education levels had in common was the experience of being annoyed. He says everyone faces annoyances -whether it's a traffic tie-up, a balky appliance or the rudeness of a stranger? , and neither age nor education seemed to protect people from these everyday frustrations.