Modification of behaviour - Anger management

Anger Management 

The two main aims of anger management are:

• To reduce the over all anger levels in prisons as Novaco, the main researcher into anger management, stated that prisons were just anger factories because of the over crowding and violent individuals 
• To reduce the overall risk of reoffending. 

Anger in Prisoners

Because criminals have irrational ways of thinking their anger seems to be much higher than that of an average person. For example, the hostile attribution bias explains that a criminal will see others  behaviours in a negative way. That someone smiling at them may be thinking horrible things in their heads. This leads to increased anger, which is especially dangerous in prisons as they are forced to interact with each other in an inclosed space. 

Key Aims 

This management focuses on the cognitive issues of anger. It focuses on how the individual preceives and deals with their own anger, and challenges them to change the way they react and behaviour to situations. 

Novaco - identified th three main points for anger management programmes:

• cognitive restructuring: greater self-awareness and control over cognitive dimensions of anger 
• regulation of arousal: learning to control the physiological state
• Behavioural strategies…