People have different ways of improving their mood when angry. We have all seen people punch a wall when mad, and indeed, previous research has indicated that some people aggress to improve their mood (Bushman, Baumeister & Phillips, 2001). What do the top athletes do when angry? Striegel (1994) found that anger often hurts an athlete's performance and that capability to control anger is what makes good athletes even better. This study adds to the past research and examines the difference in ways to improve an angry mood by gender and sports participation.

The participants were 78 Rice University undergraduates, ages 17 to 23. Of these 78 participants, 48 were females and 30 were males and 25 were athletes and 53 were non-athletes. People who did not play a varsity or club sport were considered non-athletes. The 13 contact sport athletes played soccer, football, rugby, or basketball, and the 12 non-contact sport athletes participated in Ultimate Frisbee, baseball, tennis, swimming, volleyball, crew, or dance.

question: what are the dependent variables?