Anger and everyday risk-taking decisions in children and adolescents

Highlight
• We examine the influence of anger in children and adolescents' everyday decisions.
• Cognitive, affective and behavioral anger components correlated with risk.
• Only the behavioral component of anger was predictive of risk-taking.
• Angry feelings and hostile beliefs lead to behave in a destructive manner and to take more risks.

The current research examined the relationship between cognitive, affective and behavioral components of anger and risk decision-making in childhood and adolescence. 88 children and 101 adolescents completed hypothetical choice scenarios and the Multidimensional School Anger Inventory–Revised. Results showed that: 1) hostility, anger experience and destructive expression of anger were positively related to risky decisions in everyday-life situations; 2) only the behavioral component of anger was predictive of risk-taking; 3) hostility and anger experience indirectly affected, through the destructive expression of anger, risky decisions in childhood; 4) the effect of hostility on risk was both direct and indirect, while the effect of anger experience was only indirect on the adolescence sample. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.