Anger is eliminated with the disposal of a paper written because of provocation

Anger suppression is important in our daily life, as its failure can sometimes lead to the breaking down of relationships in families. Thus, effective strategies to suppress or neutralise anger have been examined. This study shows that physical disposal of a piece of paper containing one’s written thoughts on the cause of a provocative event neutralises anger, while holding the paper did not. In this study, participants wrote brief opinions about social problems and received a handwritten, insulting comment consisting of low evaluations about their composition from a confederate. Then, the participants wrote the cause and their thoughts about the provocative event. Half of the participants (disposal group) disposed of the paper in the trash can (Experiment 1) or in the shredder (Experiment 2), while the other half (retention group) kept it in a file on the desk. All the participants showed an increased subjective rating of anger after receiving the insulting feedback. However, the subjective anger for the disposal group decreased as low as the baseline period, while that of the retention group was still higher than that in the baseline period in both experiments. We propose this method as a powerful and simple way to eliminate anger.


Introduction
The need to control anger has been of importance for a long time in human societies, as inferred by a philosopher in Imperium Romanum who had already explored how to cease being angry 1 .However, it can still be challenging to suppress anger effectively.Frequent, unregulated anger often leads to violence towards children 2 , which has become an increasingly prevalent issue.One study found that the global estimate for children experiencing any form of violence (physical, sexual, emotional, or a combination) in the past year is one billion children aged 2-17 years 3 .The number of child abuse cases in Japan has reportedly doubled in the past decade 4 .Children learn about appropriate emotional expression and behaviour from their parents 5 , and children who have been maltreated may lack the opportunity to learn how to regulate anger.Consequently, these maltreated children may have difficulty controlling their own anger 6 , recognising anger in others 7 , and tend to exhibit externalizing behaviour problems 8 .These studies suggest that parental anger regulation issues negatively affect children's emotional competence.Therefore, an effective way of reducing anger has been examined throughout the years 9 .
However, simply attempting to suppress anger is usually not effective 10 .Both cognitive reappraisal and distraction (i.e., thinking about something other than provocative comments) could reduce anger; however, distraction could suppress anger only for a transient period of time 11 .Cognitive reappraisal refers to the reinterpretation or modification of the meaning of an unpleasant situation.Although reappraisal is considered as an effective way to reduce anger 12 , it requires greater cognitive effort 13,14 .Therefore, reappraisal under stressful situations which require cognitive load was not found to be effective in reducing anger as compared to non-stressful situations 15 .Self-distancing, which may be responsible for the anger-reducing effect of reappraisal 12 is also considered as an effective way to reduce anger.Nevertheless, self-distancing or reflection on one's provocation from a distance is often not feasible, especially in the heat of the moment 13 .
Failure to reduce anger can lead an individual to think about a provocative event repeatedly.Such ruminations are often produced in a self-immersed, experiential manner 16 .Self-immersed experiential rumination can lead to reliving past provocative events 17 , thus maintaining or even increasing subjective anger and vascular responses 18 .

Materials and method
Participants A total of 57 students (women = 21, mean age = 21.11,SD = 1.05) from a local university participated in this experiment.The data from seven participants were excluded from the final analysis because they correctly guessed the purpose of the experiment and they did not express induced anger by insult (subjective ratings of anger were lower or the same compared to those of the baseline), as was the case in a previous study 36 .Our final analysis included 50 participants (women = 16, mean age = 21.10,SD = 1.08).A sample size of 50 participants was determined by G*Power 3.1.9.4 37 using the a priori procedure for repeated measures ANOVA, within (periods)-between (disposal and retention) interaction with the parameters of 95% power, an expected effect size of 0.25 (defined as a medium effect by Cohen 38 ), alpha level of 0.05, a within-subjects measurement correlation of 0.5, and a nonsphericity correction ε of 1.The calculation suggested a sample size of 22 participants in each group.Based on these analyses, we concluded that the sample size was appropriate for this study.

Materials
Angry feelings were assessed with five adjective items: angry, bothered, annoyed, hostile, and irritated.These adjectives were previously used as measures of self-reported anger 39 .In this study, each response scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (extremely).As was the case in a previous study on anger 40 , scores on these five adjectives were averaged to form an anger experience composite, which was the score used in the analysis (Cronbach's www.nature.com/scientificreports/α = 0.90).We also used Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) as a subjective scale to assess mainly negative feelings 38 .We used the Japanese version of the 6-point PANAS scale 41 .

Procedure
In this experiment, participants' subjective emotional states were measured at three time points (baseline, postprovocation, and post-writing).The participants were told to write an essay on social problems (e.g., smoking in public) for which they would receive feedback from a doctoral student assessing the quality of the essay.They had seen the doctoral student before entering the experimental room.After the participants wrote the essay, they completed the PANAS and anger questionnaires for the baseline.The evaluation by the fictitious doctoral student was then provided to the participants.The evaluation included ratings of the essay on six characteristics using a 9-point scale (e.g. for intelligence, 1 = unintelligent, 9 = intelligent).All participants were given the following ratings: intelligence = 3, interest = 3, friendliness = 2, logic = 3, respectability = 4, and rationality = 3.Each essay was also provided with the following comment: 'I cannot believe an educated person would think like this.I hope this person learns something while at the university' 40,42 .All of these manipulations were successfully used in our previous study 40 .The participants were required to read the feedback ratings and comments silently for two minutes.Then, they filled out the subjective emotional questionnaires (PANAS and anger adjectives) for the post-provocation period.
Then, the participants were asked to write every thought of them on receiving the feedback and were given three minutes for this.The instruction was 'Think about the event from your own perspective.Concentrate especially on the things that originally triggered the emotions and your reactions' .We added guide questions ('Why were you feeling this way?' , 'What made you feel this way?') to induce analytical rumination.To allow the participants to write about their honest feelings, they were informed that the written paper would not be seen by anyone, including the experimenter.After writing, the participants were asked to review the sentences carefully for 30 s.For the retention group, the paper was turned over, put in a clear plastic folder, and placed on the right side of the desk.The participants in the disposal group rolled up the paper into a crumpled ball, stood up, threw the paper into the trash can held by the experimenter, and sat back in the chair.Finally, both groups of participants filled out the subjective emotional questionnaires (anger adjectives and PANAS) for the post-writing period.At the end of the experiment, all participants were debriefed and informed of the truth.They were also assured that the evaluations of their essays had been prepared in advance.

Data analyses
Angry feelings were analysed using a 2 (group: disposal or retention) × 3 (period: at baseline, post-provocation, and post-writing) ANOVA.All significance levels were set at p < 0.05.We used the Greenhouse-Geisser correction when Mauchly's test of sphericity was violated.When the interaction was significant, multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni correction method were used to assess the differences.
We also report Bayes factors (BFs) from the Bayesian repeated measures ANOVA in JASP 43 .For BFs, BF 10 values reflect the probability of an alternative relative to the null hypothesis.BFs greater than 3 indicate support for the hypotheses.A BF favouring the alternative over the null hypothesis (BF 10 ) offers strong evidence for the alternative hypothesis when it is over 10.Values less than 0.33 indicate support for the null hypothesis, and values between 0.33 and 3 indicate data insensitivity.We also reported 95% confidence intervals.
We aimed to examine (1) whether angry feelings resumed in the disposal group, and (2) whether angry feelings were different between the groups after the disposal or retention treatments.Our main interest was angry feelings, while we also verified PANAS scores using a 2 (group: disposal or retention) × 3 (period: at baseline, post-provocation, and post-writing) ANOVA.

Ethics statement
All participants were paid for their participation and had provided written informed consent in accordance with the procedures before participation.The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences at Nagoya University (201104-C-02-02).All methods were carried out in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki.All participants provided their written and informed consent prior to starting the study.
Vol:.( 1234567890 www.nature.com/scientificreports/Importantly, however, subjective ratings of retention group at the post-writing period were still significantly higher than those of the baseline period (p < 0.05), whereas those of disposal group at the post-writing period eliminated to levels of the baseline period (p > 0.05).Subjective ratings of disposal group at the post-writing period were significantly lower than those of retention group (p < 0.01).

Negative and positive affect
The negative affect subscale of the PANAS at post-provocation (M disposal = 3.

Discussion
This study examined whether writing about the provocative event and disposing of the paper into a trash can would suppress anger.The provocation treatments evoked anger in both the groups similarly.Nevertheless, the retention group still showed significantly higher anger compared to levels at the baseline period, while the disposal group completely eliminated their anger after the disposal of the anger-written paper.These results suggest that the disposal of the paper containing ruminated anger into the trash can neutralise anger.Our interpretation is that the act of throwing the paper with ruminated anger into the trash can produces a feeling similar to the psychological existence (anger) being discarded, leading to anger elimination, since the psychological entity (anger) was disposed along with the physical object (anger-written paper).
One may argue that it was not the disposal itself but the physical distance played a critical role in reducing anger.Since the paper was distanced from participants in the disposal group, whereas the paper in the retention group was located by them.Nevertheless, Zhang et al. 44 showed that engaging in an avoidance action rather than creating physical distance was critical for reversing the perceived effect of negative thoughts.In their study (Experiment 5), participants in avoidance action conditions either threw the ball to the opposite corner of the room (creating physical distance between themselves and the ball), or pretended to throw the ball (creating no distance between themselves and the ball).Participants in the no-avoidance action condition either carried the ball to the opposite corner of the room and left it there (creating physical distance between the self and the ball without involving a throwing action) or held the ball in their non-dominant hand (creating no distance).Participants in both avoidance action conditions reversed the negative thoughts, while participants in both noavoidance conditions did not.Avoidance actions were crucial in their study.Therefore, the physical distance would not contribute to reduce anger in this study.However, disposal action might be the key to neutralising anger in this study.Nevertheless, we assume that the meaning (i.e.interpretation) of disposal is more important

Introduction
Experiment 1 indicated that the disposal of a piece of paper containing the description of an anger-inducing experience into the trash can neutralise anger.However, it was unclear what aspect of the paper's disposal neutralised anger.Although we interpreted the meaning of the action as critical to neutralising anger, the physical distance between the participant and the paper or the action itself (i.e.embodied cognition) might have played a critical role.We set up the second experiment: (1) to replicate the results of Experiment 1; (2) to exclude the embodied explanation as much as possible; and (3) to explore another version of the disposal method using a shredder on the desk.In this experiment, we asked participants to put the paper containing anger into the shredder instead of throwing it into the trash can which was kept at some distance from the participants.We also made a small change to the retention group.Participants of retention group put the paper into a clear box on the desk, and the disposal group put the paper into the shredder.Thus, the distance between the participants and the paper and the type of action were matched between the two groups.If the sensorimotor experience of throwing the paper was critical to neutralise anger, we would not be able to replicate the results of Experiment 1.Nevertheless, if the meaning of the disposal of a physical entity plays a critical role in reducing anger, we anticipated obtaining similar results.In line with our prediction, the attitude changed when the paper was transferred to a box labelled 'trash can' , which indicated mentally discarding it, compared to a box labelled 'safety box' 46 , suggesting that the perceived meaning of actions, and not the actions per se, influence attitude change.Hence, we designed a new study to confirm whether the perceived meaning of action eliminates anger.We predicted that putting the paper in a shredder would reduce negative emotions (anger), as compared to keeping the paper.

Method
Participants A total of 48 participants (women = 24, mean age = 26.81,SD = 9.42) were participated through worker dispatching company and a local university.There was no overlap between the participants of the two experiments.This sample size was determined using G*Power 3.1.9.4 37 using the a priori procedure for repeated measures ANOVA, within (periods)-between (disposal and retention) interaction with the parameters of 95% power, an expected effect size of 0.25 (defined as a medium effect by Cohen 38 ), alpha level of 0.05, a within-participants measurement correlation of 0.5, and a nonsphericity correction ε of 1.The calculation suggested a sample size of 22 participants in each group.Based on these analyses, we concluded that the sample size was appropriate for this study.As in Experiment 1, the data of two participants were excluded from the final analysis because they correctly guessed the purpose of the experiment and did not express anger by insult (subjective ratings of anger were lower or the same as those at the baseline).Our final analysis included 46 participants (women = 23, mean age = 26.39,SD = 9.14).

Materials
As in Experiment 1, angry feelings were assessed using five adjectives: angry, bothered, annoyed, hostile, and irritated.Responses ranged from 1 (not at all) to 6 (extremely).Scores on these five adjectives will be averaged to form an anger experience composite, which is the score used in the analyses.We also used the Japanese version of the 6-point PANAS scale as a subjective scale to assess mainly negative feelings 40,41 .
For the disposal group, a dustbin-type shredder (ACCO Brands Japan Corp, GSHA26MB) was used.This shredder (30 cm × 10 cm × 28 cm) cuts paper into pieces of 2 mm × 14 mm on putting the paper in from the top.The lower part of the shredder holds a transparent dustbin, so that the pieces of paper can be observed from the outside.For the retention group, a hand-made clear plastic box (23 cm × 5 cm × 30 cm) was used.Paper can be placed from the top, as with the shredder.Furthermore, as with the lower part of the shredder, the box is also transparent so that the paper in the box can be observed from the outside.

Procedure
This experiment followed the same method used in Experiment 1 with slight changes.The words "while at university" were removed from the provocative comment ('I cannot believe an educated person would think like this.I hope this person learns something while at university' 40,42 , because non-students participated in this study.The second change was the method of disposing or retaining the paper containing a description of the anger-inducing experience.After participants wrote down provocative events in an analytical manner, a transparent box or a transparent shredder bin was placed on the desk in front of them (Fig. 2), before they were asked to review the sentences carefully for 30 s.Then, participants were required to put the paper into the box, with the frontside of the paper facing them.Participants in the disposal group watched as the paper was cut in the shredder for five seconds.Participants in the retention group were required to enclose the paper in a clear file folder and place it in a transparent box showing their written sentences.Then, they observed the paper carefully for five seconds.Subsequently, the box was turned back to show the blank side of the paper.All participants rated their anger and provided responses to the PANAS after these treatments.

Anger experience
The right panel of Fig. 1 shows the mean subjective anger ratings for the disposal and retention groups at the three time points (baseline, post-provocation, and post-writing).This pattern of results is similar to that of Experiment 1. Subjective ratings of anger in both groups increased after provocation (M disposal = 3.14, SD = 1.38, 95% CI Multiple comparisons with the Bonferroni method revealed that subjective anger was significantly higher at post-provocation than baseline (p < 0.05), indicating that provocative manipulation was exerted.Subjective ratings of anger at post-writing decreased significantly compared to post-provocation (p < 0.05).However, the subjective ratings of the retention group in the post-writing period were still maintained at the same level of anger as those of the post-provocation period (p > 0.05).Contrastingly, those of the disposal group in the post-writing period were significantly lower than those of the post-provocation period (p < 0.05).Additionally, as was the result of Experiment1, the subjective ratings of the retention group in the post-writing period were significantly higher than those of the baseline period (p < 0.05).Those of the disposal group in the post-writing period were eliminated to the baseline period (p > 0.05).The subjective ratings of the disposal group in the post-writing period were significantly lower than those of the retention group (p < 0.05).

Discussion
The results were essentially the same as those of Experiment 1.The disposal group significantly reduced their anger after disposing of the anger-written paper into the shredder.The retention group showed significantly www.nature.com/scientificreports/higher anger than the baseline period and disposal group.These results suggest that the results in Experiment 1 could be attributed neither to the physical distance between the participant and the paper nor to the action itself (i.e.embodied cognition).Specifically, Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and excluded the embodied explanation (the sensorimotor experience of throwing the paper) because the action of the disposal group was quite similar to that of the retention group in Experiment 2. The distance between participant and paper was the same in both groups, as the transparent box and shredder were placed on the desk.

General discussion
This study aimed to determine whether the disposal of anger-written papers could eliminate or at least reduce subjective anger.Disposal manipulation eliminated anger, either by throwing the paper into a trash can or placing it into the shredder.We propose that this anger reduction method is quite effective, so the subjective ratings of anger resumed as much as the baseline levels.We believe that this method can be used in daily life and especially for populations characterised by extreme levels of anger and aggression in their home.The use of this method may potentially contribute to emotion socialization, as parents are the primary model for their children.
These results indicate that the sensorimotor experience of throwing paper plays a small role in reducing subjective anger 44 .Instead, the meaning (interpretation) of disposal plays a critical role.These results are consistent with other studies which showed that the meaning of disposal was critical for determining its impact, not the action itself 30,45 .However, these results are partially inconsistent with those reported by Zhang et al. 44 .Their experiment tested whether certain behaviors could lower the perceived likelihood of bad luck, as is often the case with jinxes.Participants who threw a ball believed that a jinxed-negative outcome was less likely than those who held the ball.They demonstrated that engaging in an avoidant action rather than creating physical distance was critical for reversing the perceived effect of the jinx.The results of Experiment 1 in this study are consistent with their results.However, we demonstrated that neither avoidance action nor physical distance was crucial in reducing subjective anger.
Our results may be related to the phenomenon of 'backward magical contagion' 47 , which is the belief that actions taken on an object (e.g.hair) associated with an individual can affect the individuals themselves.Rozin et al. 48discovered that individuals experience strong negative emotions when their personal objects are possessed by negative others (such as rapists or enemies).However, these emotions are reduced when the objects are destroyed, such as throwing them in a septic tank or burning them.The phenomenon of 'magical contagion' or 'celebrity contagion' refers to the belief that the 'essence' of an individual can be transferred to their possessions.This backward magical contagion operates in a reversed process, where manipulating an object associated with a person is thought to impact the individuals themselves.The current study's findings may be explained by the concept of backward magical contagion, which posits that negative emotions can be transferred from others to an individual through their possessions.This study did not involve the direct mediation of other individuals.The neutralization of subjective anger through the disposal of an object may be achieved by recognizing that the physical entity, such as a piece of paper, has been diminished, thus causing the original emotion to also disappear.
At least, however, some limitations regarding this disposal method should be addressed in future studies.First, the findings of this study are based on the assumption that participants identified their subjective anger with the paper.Thus, subjective anger had gone with the anger-written paper after its disposal.The participants were asked to review the sentences carefully for 30 s to enhance this identification between thought and paper.It is not clear whether this review process is necessary for identification.
Another limitation is that we did not test a digital device, such as a word processor or smartphone, but used only papers.We believe the present disposal method can be generalised to a digital device, whereas empirical data are limited only by physical entities, papers, trash cans, or shredders.Suppose the disposal method is proven to be effective in digital devices.In that case, it will be adopted in various situations, such as business meetings or daily conversations in schools, by writing and disposing of with a smartphone.
Furthermore, although the disposal method had a more significant effect so that the subjective ratings of anger were eliminated as much as the baseline levels, the effectiveness of this method was not directly compared to other anger reduction methods, such as self-distancing.Other methods may be as effective or even more effective than the present disposal method.Personality traits may modulate the effects of anger suppression, although this has not been examined in the techniques used in this or in other studies.Individuals with high (versus low) levels of trait anger tended to experience lapses in effortful control when exposed to anger-relevant stimuli 49,50 .As mentioned above, although cognitive reappraisal (the reinterpretation of the meaning of an unpleasant event) is considered an effective way to reduce anger 12 , it requires more significant cognitive effort 13,14 .Self-distancing is not feasible, particularly during the heat of the moment 13 .Conversely, the disposal method with low cognitive effort used in this study may be more effective for individuals with lower levels of trait self-control than for those with high trait self-control.Future research should examine whether personality traits moderate the relationship between the disposal method and the expected outcomes.
Individuals with higher levels of trait anger tended to have prolonged experiences of induced state anger 51 .However, experimental research on anger regulation strategies has predominantly emphasized the effectiveness of immediate control [10][11][12] , neglecting to investigate whether these strategies are equally effective in managing anger that persists over time.However, in everyday life, it is not always feasible to implement anger regulation strategies immediately after anger arises.Therefore, to ascertain its practical utility in real-world settings, it is imperative to examine whether the effectiveness of the disposal method varies with the duration of anger.
Moreover, it should be tested whether the disposal method can suppress subjective anger even if participants write down a provocation event in an experiential manner rather than in the analytic rumination manner used in this study.Previous studies suggest that anger rumination can maintain 52 or even increase 53 the original level of anger when participants wrote down a provocation event in an experiential rumination manner.As it may not www.nature.com/scientificreports/be easy to write down analytically, especially in the heat of the moment, the disposal method will gain further strength if it is valid by experiential rumination.It should be mentioned that although provocation was effective in both the subjective anger score and the PANAS negative score, the revealed emotion regulation strategy in this study seemed specific to anger (as no significant interaction effect for the PANAS negative score was observed).Kubo et al. 40 reported that the increase in the state of anger relevant to approach motivation (aggression) by provocation (measured using the STAXI and asymmetry of prefrontal brain activity) was reduced by an apology comment.However, an increase in the subjective scores of negative emotion (assessed using the PANAS) remained unchanged, regardless of the presence or absence of an apology comment.They proposed anger as not a unitary process but one that comprises multiple independent components (subjective anger and negative feelings).If the anger scale used in this study reflects the approach motivation component of anger as well as the STAXI, the disposal method appears to specifically suppress the components of anger's approach motivation (aggression) and can be used to reduce aggression as a clinical technique.
Despite these limitations, this is the first study to be designed and used to conveniently eliminate subjective anger by interacting with physical entities.It offers a cost-effective and easy-to-use method to reduce anger by rumination about the provocative event, which otherwise lasts longer.Anyone with a pen and piece of paper can use this method.Suppose one maintains a diary or a personal log.In that case, they can write down a provocative event on the day on the memo pad, and throwing it into the trash can eliminate the provocative event.This action may help neutralize the negative emotions associated with the event, potentially protecting the children's emotional socialization.

Conclusion
This study presents a new and convenient method for eliminating subjective anger.This method offers a costeffective way to eliminate anger in various situations, including business meetings, childcare, and clinical applications.The building blocks of this method (e.g.applying it to a digital device or creating a specific application) could be useful in various daily situations as well as behavioural therapies.In particular, for someone who has difficulty suppressing their anger in their homes.