Introduction: Embitterment refers to the emotion that individuals experience following exposure to unjust and injurious events. Embitterment and its clinical form, post-traumatic embitterment disorder, have received attention from both clinicians and researchers only in recent years, although the first documented cases date back to the 1920s. Despite the consensus in the literature on the role of deeply hurtful unjust events, arising humiliation, or breaches of trust, not all individuals with similar experiences become embittered. Previous research indicates trait anger as one of the characteristics that influences an individual's proneness to embitterment. However, the mechanisms through which trait anger is associated with embitterment remain unclear. Emotion regulation (ER) difficulties and anger rumination (AR) are possible risk factors sustaining the relationship, as they have the potential to amplify negative affect. The present study aims to examine how AR and ER difficulties sequentially mediate the relationship between trait anger and embitterment.


Method: The data were collected from 317 Turkish individuals (225 women) between ages 18 and 70 (M = 35.86; SD = 12.23) via measures of trait anger, AR, ER difficulties, depression, and embitterment.


Results: All study variables yielded significant positive correlations. Two separate models were tested from trait anger to embitterment, with mediators of ER difficulties and AR in different orders. In both models, the results of the serial mediation analyses were significant, indicating that AR and ER difficulties sequentially mediated the relationship between trait anger and embitterment.


Conclusion: Overall, the findings indicate that trait anger is associated with an inclination to experience repetitive negative thoughts that elicit anger following negative events. Intense anger rumination is associated with increased emotion regulation difficulties and thus strongly relates to feelings of embitterment. The alternative model also suggests a possible pathway in which trait anger is associated with ER difficulties, which relate to AR and embitterment.