Expression of anger by Samoan adults

A modified version of Spielberger's 1988 Anger Expression Inventory including four Samoan culture-specific anger terms was administered to 593 adult American and Western Samoans, 25 to 55 years, to assess intrasample age, sex, and location differences and to examine its cross-cultural utility by an exploratory factor analysis. American Samoans men's and women's scores showed greater difficulty controlling anger than Western Samoan men and women, American Samoan males scored higher on Anger-Out and Samoan anger expression than Western Samoan men, and Western Samoan women scored higher on Anger-Out and higher on Samoan anger expression than Western Samoan men. Factor analysis showed that Spielberger's original factor structure was replicated in all subpopulations except American Samoan women. Control of anger, a Samoan cultural core value, appears to be more difficult in modern American Samoans of both sexes compared with the more traditional Western Samoans. Among American Samoan women, we speculate that role expansion may be responsible for their heterogeneous factor structure of anger expression.