“Anger beyond depression”? The effect of trait anger on depression—A moderated mediating effect

Abstract

Abstract Previous studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between anger and depression, which are usually in the form of "comorbid". However, the complex relationship mechanism of the interaction between anger and depression is rarely involved. Inspired by the traditional Chinese medicine theory of "anger beyond depression", this paper explores the formation mechanism of endogenous factors of trait anger and reactive factors of life events on depression and the influence of anger expression on the mechanism of depression. In this study, 89 normal healthy subjects were randomly selected as the reference group, and 115 outpatients with depression were selected as the control group. Through the analysis of the above variables by statistical software SPSS and PROCESS, it is concluded that trait anger has a significant complete mediating effect on depression with life events as mediators for the control group. The conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) There is a significant and complete mediating effect of trait anger on depression with life events as mediating variables in the control group. (2) In the control group, anger expression has a significant moderating effect on the mediating effect model (the path of life events to depression). These results supports the moderated mediation model with anger expression as the moderating variable, which provides a new approach and thought for the clinical treatment of depression.