Subjective control of emotions in the opinion of students

Emotions influence the subjective feeling of well-being and coping with difficulties and problems in various situations in life. That is why researchers often show them in explaining everyday events that impact the standard of living, education, and productivity at work and translate into the quality of human health. This article aims to analyse the level of emotions in students` lives who started their studies in science and humanities. The research used a self-project among 383 students at The University of Rzeszów and the Rzeszów University of Technology. I used the method of a diagnostic survey and a standardised tool examining the Emotional Control Scale (CECS) by Maggie Watson and Steven Greer from Faith Courtauld Unit, King ’ s College Hospital Medical School in London, which was adapted to the Polish version by Siegfried Juczyński (Juczyński, 2001, p. 55). The results showed an average level of emotional control among the surveyed students. The following independent variables were considered: University, gender, age, place of residence and wealth of the inhabitants. In one study on the anger scale, there was a variation in the statistical significance depending on the age of the subjects. However, considering the average, students from Rzeszów University showed slightly higher suppression of negative emotions than those from Rzeszów University of Technology students. In terms o f gender, women indicated a higher average than men. The average level of suppression of negative emotions among the respondents indicates the strengthening of the system of education in various threats from the manifestation of anger, depression, and anxiety among high school and university students. Teachers must strengthen their abilities to counteract these and other negative features among students.


Introduction
Man is a social being and lives surrounded by many people.Human functioning is characterised by positive, negative, or neutral relationships with other people, as well as experiencing happy or sad moments in life.All these events are accompanied by emotions and related subjective skills of maintaining control over them, which are visible in the individual's behaviour.Emotions that accompany a person have a fundamental impact on maintaining the proper mental and physical condition of the human body.
Suppressing the expression of emotions leads to their intensification or contributes to their long-term emotional tension, which may cause an increase in numerous factors harmful to health (Juczyński, 2001, p. 55).
Paul Ekman (2003) states that emotions significantly determine the quality of our lives.They occur in every relationship with another human being.The more we care about them, the more unique they are.Many research results show that emotions help in life and contribute to several types of damage.
The aim of the presented research exploration is to bring emotions closer based on literature and their level of feeling among the surveyed students of Rzeszów universities in terms of three states of anger, depression, and anxiety.

Characteristics of the scale of emotions
Emotions are an evolutionary, adaptive resource that embodies a system of meanings and informs people about the importance of events in their well-being (Greenberg, 2013).This system fundamentally impacts the organisation of the human being's ability to adapt to any action (Tomkins, 1963;Izard, 1991).It is also valuable for health care, as it helps individuals survive and function healthily (Izard, 1977;Frijda, 1986;Ekman, 2003).Emotions are also the primary signalling system for communicating intentions and regulating interactions (Sroufe, 1996).Emotions are perceptions that are, in part, a function of every perceiver's prior knowledge and experience.Construction processes occur in memories, language understanding, moral reasoning, etc. (Barrett, 2015, p. 51).
Dale Goleman (2021, p. 12) explains "emotions" as mental states or premonitions that seem vital and do not come from their own will.These sensations are often associated with the body's response to received stimuli as information.Emotions help an individual understand their experiences, e.g., sad or joyful experiences, as well as to categorise experiences.Positive emotions convert into pleasant experiences, and negative ones do the opposite.
Norman K. Denzin (1984, pp. 49-58) states that emotions are self-esteem for an individual.Emotions are also temporarily embodied, localised feelings that

Anger
Anger is a feeling or Emotion that ranges from mild annoyance to intense rage.Anger becomes problematic when it is felt too intensely or often expressed inappropriately.Excessive or frequent anger puts an extreme physical strain on the body.Inappropriate expression of anger initially has visible benefits (e.g., releasing tension, controlling people).However, eventually, these benefits lead to negative consequences (Reilly, Shopshire, Durazzo, Campbell, 2019, p. 4).
Anger can be defined as one of the emotional reactions.It occurs when the sense of security is disturbed, the feeling of being misunderstood by others in-creases, when needs are unmet or when the sense of injustice increases (Wilczyńska, Mazur, 2013, p. 193).
Bożena Gulla (2020, p. 11) explains that anger is a complex feeling that lasts over a certain period and is a response to an individual's belief that others intentionally act to their detriment.Anger is directed against the wrongdoer and motivates the individual to retaliate, i.e., to achieve compensation for the harm suffered.
Anger appears because of frustration and suffering harm (Stein, Levine, 1990) and when the individual cannot achieve his goal and directs adverse reactions towards loved ones (Sternberg, 1999).
Anger has an adaptive function when an individual strives to minimise and remove all factors that are harmful to him or her and cause negative emotions (Smith & Lazarus, 1993).
In sum, according to Ogińska-Bulik and Juczyński (2001, p. 51), outward-directed anger (direct and indirect anger) is associated with physical and verbal aggression, and inward-directed anger is controlled and suppressed anger.Such an explanation of anger will serve for further research exploration.

Depression
Depression is often a disorder of a person's mood, means a state of dysphoria, and refers to sadness or a worsened mood.It is a set of experiences not only in the affective sphere but also in cognitive processes, behaviour and functioning in society (Zając,214,p. 17).
Łukasz Święcicki (2018, p. 6) distinguishes two types of depression: as a human condition and as a medical disease.The first is defined as "pseudo-psychiatric civilisation-cultural states" caused by a low level of acceptable frustration and demands from the world that we cannot receive.
The second one, according to Iwona Kazimierska (2016), concerns a set of symptoms that persist for at least 14 days without a specific cause and include depressed mood, psychomotor slowdown, as well as anhedonia, i.e., the loss of the ability to experience satisfaction and pleasure.
Depression can be termed as a pattern of basic emotions, including sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, and guilt.Depression is commonly thought to include five sets of traits, although many other emotional states can exacerbate it and are often associated with anxiety as a sad, listless mood; negative self--concept, including remorse and self-blame; wanting to avoid other people; loss of sleep, appetite, and sexual desire; a change in the level of activity, usually towards lethargy but sometimes as agitation.Typically, a distinction is made between neurotic and psychotic depression as more extreme, e.g., delusions (Strongman, 2003, pp. 209-210).
Constance Hammen (2006, pp. 13-17) explains depression as a set of experiences, including not only mood but also physical, mental, and behavioural experiences, which define a more long-term, harmful, and serious condition called a depressive syndrome, which includes: affect cognition, behaviour, and physical functioning.Affective symptoms relate to mood disorders, e.g., depression, sadness, depressed mood, etc. Cognitive symptoms relate to thinking and mood disorders, as well as low self-esteem and inability to manage one's life and solve problems.Behavioural symptoms refer to social inactivity and the limitation of typical behaviours, such as staying in bed for prolonged periods.Somatic symptoms also include changes in appetite, sleep, and energy.
Pseudo-psychiatric civilisation and cultural states of the respondents will be used for the research study.

Anxiety
Fear is part of the body's threat detection system as one of the essential survival mechanisms a person has, and in the event of danger, it works to get out of it soon (Robichaud, Dugas, 2015, p. 10).
Joseph Le Doux (2017, pp. 348-349) explains that anxiety begins with information from the outside when the stimulus senses some misfortune or is weakly associated with a threat.
Hans Eysenck (1957) points to a personality theory that links learning and physiology to explain anxiety.The theory depends on two dimensions: extraversion/introversion and neuroticism.In this context, the neurotic person is sensitive to anxiety-inducing stimuli, and this sensitivity is based on the autonomic nervous system (ANS).However, according to the author, fear can also be learned (Strongman, 2003, p. 201).
Anxiety and depression form the basis of emotional disorders that are closely related.The theory of David Barlow (2000) explains anxiety as a unique and very coherent cognitive-active structure in the human defensive motivational system.Jeffrey Gray (1987) considers the behavioural inhibition system to be the basis of fear unfavourable to the individual in the fight or flight system.
Arne Öhman (1993) argues that anxiety is caused by information processing sources that lead to biology-based defence mechanisms.
Sigmund Freud (1926) presents anxiety as an everyday phenomenon and a way to explain neuroses.Neurotic anxiety can take the form of being indifferent, phobic, or engaging in a panic attack.
Carroll Izard (1991) suggests that the feeling state common to many anxieties is fear.However, he argues that anxiety is related to various other emotions at various times and in different circumstances.George Mandler (1984) explains anxiety that is based on uncertainty.The concept of uncertainty is further developed by Richard Lazarus (1991), who connects anxiety with fear.
Negative emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, and even simple worries disturb the heart's work the most and negatively affect the individual's physiology (Servan-Schreiber, 2004, p. 10).
Everyone experiences symptoms of anxiety, but most of them are occasional, short-lived, and do not cause significant problems.The difficulty arises at the level of the individual's ability to control these negative emotions.

Method
The research aims to check negative emotions in the lives of students of Rzeszów universities, including those studying the humanities at the University of Rzeszów (UR) and the sciences at the Rzeszów University of Technology (PR).
The study aims to enrich the knowledge about the subjective control of negative emotions and its importance in the lives of young people who started their studies at Rzeszów universities.Concerning exploration, the following research problems were planned: Are there differences (and if so, what) in controlling negative emotions in life among the surveyed students at the University of Rzeszów and the Rzeszów University of Technology?When planning the research question, the following independent variables were considered: University, gender, age, place of residence and wealth of the respondents.
For all cases, the null hypothesis (H₀) was assumed, stating the lack of statistical significance in comparing two groups of students.The average level of suppression of negative emotions in life in the studied groups was also assumed, showing the average range based on the research results.
The research was conducted using a diagnostic survey in the fourth quarter of 2018 among first-year students at two universities in Rzeszów.Humanities at the University of Rzeszów and science at the Rzeszów University of Technology were considered.They covered four hundred students, including two hundred studying humanities and two hundred people studying science.After careful review, seventeen surveys were rejected because of significant non-response.Three hundred eighty-three surveys were qualified for the next stage, including 190 respondents pursuing selected humanities majors and 193 studying science majors (Chodkowski, 2019, p. 177).
This research was performed using the method of a diagnostic survey and a standardised tool examining the Court Emotional Control Scale (CECS) by Maggie Watson and Steven Greer from the Faith Courtauld Unit, King's College Hospital Medical School in London and adapted to the Polish version by Zygfryd Juczyński (Juczyński, 2001, p. 55).This scale comprises three subscales, which contain seven statements regarding the manner of revealing anger, depression, and anxiety.Such a scale measures the subjective control of these three factors among healthy and ill adults.The range of scores for each of the three subscales is from 7 to 28 points.The general emotion control index is determined by summing up all subscales and ranges from 21 to 81 points.A higher score means more significant suppression of negative emotions among the respondents (Juczyński, 2001, pp. 58-59).
Statistical calculations were carried out using the ANOVA analysis of variance.The test probability was considered significant at the level of p<0.05, and the test probability at the level of p<0.01 and p<0.001 was considered highly significant (Kosiba, Gacek, Bogacz-Walancik, Wojtowicz, 2017, p. 82).The results of the research were calculated using the SPPS Statistics program.

Results
The research was conducted at the University of Rzeszów and the Rzeszów University of Technology.Humanities and sciences were considered, where a comparable number of women and men study.The data in Table 1 present the gender of the respondents by the University.Women dominate at both universities, constituting an average of 62,45% of all respondents.Statistical data confirm that for years, there has been a tendency for women to increase men in obtaining a university diploma (Dziedziczak-Folty, 2010).Table No. 2 presents the results of respondents' residence according to the University.Most students from the University of Rzeszów live in the countryside -51,1%, while in the city it is 48,9%.Among the respondents from the Rzeszów University of Technology, the sum of students living in rural areas is slightly higher and amounts to 63,2%.However, only 36,8% of students from the same University live in the city.
The data from Table 3 show results of the control of negative emotions in the life of students, according to the University.In this study, the groups belong to different universities, and the comparison between them is between science and humanities.Studying in the sciences is considered more complex compared to the humanities due to the increased skills of efficient numeracy and mathematical problem-solving.
The results in Table 3 show a slight difference between the groups, which does not show the level of statistical significance where p is more remarkable than 0,05.The overall average result is higher for the University of Rzeszów (52,33) compared to the Rzeszów University of Technology (51,42).It means slightly higher control of the suppression of negative emotions among students of the humanities.Cronbach's alpha (0,780 and 0,802) shows the questionnaires' reliability.With the general indicator, η 2 (0,004) measures the relationship with a weak effect, while ω 2 is 0,2 and gives a strong effect.The subjective control of students' negative emotions depends on various factors.Indeed, the educational environment of the family home is one of the most important.Apart from that, adapting to the school environment, relationships with peers, dealing with difficulties, etc. plays a significant role.In addition, one should also focus on the psycho-physical properties of the body, internal and external motivations of the individual, types of interests, activities, and talents and systematic development in everyday activities.
The data in Table 4 shows the subjective control of students' negative emotions by gender.The results of the calculations do not show the level of statistical significance, p>0,05.However, based on calculations, the average for women is 52,01 and for men 51,65.Women are characterised by more remarkable resourcefulness, delicacy, and submissiveness.Men compete more for leadership, show a stronger desire to achieve goals, and are more aggressive and less able to tolerate failure.
Cronbach's alpha (0,763 and 0,831) shows the internal consistency of the questionnaires.With the general index η 2 (0.01), ω 2 denotes a measure of the relationship with a weak effect.A person's adolescence plays a significant role in his daily explorations in search of a suitable place.Various disturbances appearing in everyday life adversely affect the control of negative emotions, especially educational failures, love failures, and problems with finding a job with adequate gratification.
Based on the results in Table 5, the perception of controlling negative emotions among the surveyed students by age falls within a vital level of statistical significance of p<0,01 as a general indicator.However, the index shows p<0,05 for the Emotion of anger.The averages of respondents aged 21, 22, 23 and 24 are between 53-54 and are higher than those of respondents aged 17, 18, 19, and 20 whose averages are within the range of 51-52.It proves that older respondents show more control of negative emotions than younger students.
Cronbach's alpha ranges from 0,600 to 0,900.It means the reliability of the questionnaires used in the study, while η2 (0,01) is 0,51, and ω2 -2,45, as a general indicator, shows a weak effect in the anger questionnaire (0,06).At the same time, depression and anxiety have a substantial effect.Another study considered the independent variable regarding the respondents' place of residence and their control of negative emotions.
The data in Table 6 shows that the various places of residence of the respondents do not affect the differences in the level of statistical significance, where p>0.05.
The highest average (53,22) was obtained by respondents living in mediumsized cities (20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants).The respondents, averaging 52,14, live in small towns of up to twenty thousand inhabitants.The next level of control of negative emotions is characterised by the respondents living in large cities with over 100,000 inhabitants (51,81).The lowest level of control of negative emotions is characterised by respondents living in rural areas (51,49).
Cronbach's alpha is in the range of 0,700-0,800, which means that the test is reliable, i.e., the questionnaire has internal consistency.Eta square, η2 -0.07, is a weak effect of the relationship measure.However, ω2 is 0.3 and gives an effect of high reliability of the questionnaire.The economic affluence of the respondents is undoubtedly an essential aspect of personal development and systematic expansion of human potential.Information and communication technologies have been at the forefront for several years.Their proper use by students significantly facilitates the achievement of specific goals.Undoubtedly, in affluent and average families, education's technological and educational process is adequately strengthened using computer hardware and adequate programs.Table 7 shows the results of controlling the suppression of negative emotions according to the wealth of the respondents.Based on the calculations, it is concluded that there is no statistical significance between the examined ranges where p>0.05.Based on the obtained averages, representatives from the "average" wealth group obtained the highest percentage of 51.94.Respondents from "affluent" families ranked second with an average of 51.65.The third place was taken by students from families with a low economic position (51.34).It should be noted that these people constitute the smallest percentage of the respondents.It is optimistic that the differences between the means among the wealth of the respondents' families show minor percentage differences and differentiate the respondents to a small extent.It leads to the conclusion that the respondents' wealth level does not translate into differentiation in the perception of self-control of negative emotions among the respondents because everyone has the same opportunities to expand knowledge based on self-education in this area by reading various publications on websites.Cronbach's alpha is greater than 0.700, indicating that the test is reliable.Eta squared (0.000) is a weak effect, while omega squared (0.01) indicates that the effect on the strength of the questionnaire's reliability is moderate.

Conclusions
The sense of subjective control of emotions undoubtedly translates into a person's mental and physical well-being.The practical ability to suppress neg-ative emotions at a vital level positively affects solving problems and overcoming all obstacles.It is also an advantage for faster achievement of the intended goals, as it increases efficiency, strengthens motivation, and stimulates the efficiency of the individual in action.Suppressing negative emotions at a low level is destructive, discouraging, and sometimes highly pessimistic.
The article explains the concepts of anger, depression, and anxiety based on literature.It determines the general index of emotion control among students of Rzeszów universities, considering the following independent variables: University, gender, age, place of residence, and wealth.
The study was limited to comparing the self-control of negative emotions among students representing the two largest universities in Rzeszów.
The null hypothesis H₀ was set for all independent variables.In the case of age, the alternative hypothesis H₁ was adopted due to the difference between the two groups in the level of statistical significance (p<0,05).In the remaining calculations conducted using the ANOVA analysis of variance concerning the subjective suppression of negative emotions in life among the respondents according to the following independent variables: by the University, gender, place of residence and wealth, no differences in the level of statistical significance were found (p>0,05) and null hypothesis -H0 (p>0,05).
Considering the averages by the University, presented in Table 3, it follows that students from The University of Rzeszów have a higher level of suppressing negative emotions (52,33) concerning students of the Rzeszów University of Technology -51,42.In the case of the gender of the respondents, women (52,01) obtained a higher average than men (51,65), which means that they are better at suppressing negative emotions towards men (Table 4).In the following table No. 5, the research results by age are presented at the statistical significance level of p<0,05.Older people (average 54) show more effective suppression of negative emotions than younger people (average 52).Results in Table 6 concerned the place of residence.The highest average of 53,22 was for the research group belonging to the city of twenty thousand up to one hundred thousand inhabitants.Respondents living in rural areas obtained the lowest average (51,49).Table 7 presents the results in terms of the wealth of the respondents, in which the highest average was received by the so-called "average", i.e. representing the average level (51.94).They overtook the affluent (51,65) and the poorest (51,34).It should be noted that in the case of people from wealthy families, wealth did not affect the subjective suppression of negative emotions.However, it is related to the level of the least wealth, who obtained the lowest average.
In the summary, the following conclusions can be drawn.Most respondents are guided by the subjective control of negative emotions in life at a moderate level.Based on previous studies, as in the ones currently described, age also turned out to be a differentiating factor in the subjective control of emotions.It means that older people control negative emotions to a greater extent.The tendency to suppress these emotions is a relatively constant feature of highly socialised people.However, the authors (Jarosz, 1978;Everly, Rosenfeld, 1992) warn that repeated and persistent states associated with negative emotions are the basis of various neurotic disorders and psychosomatic diseases.There is a relationship between emotions and disease states (Juczyński, 2001, p. 59).
Therefore, the average level of subjective control of negative emotions in the respondents' lives is a challenge for the education system.Any changes systematically introduced to the educational programs are to reflect the various needs of pupils to minimise the level of negative emotions.

Table 1
Sex of respondents according to the division into universities

Table 2
Respondents' place of residence by University Source: Authors' research.

Table 5
Comparison of average negative emotion control results by age Cronbach's alpha, N -number of samples, M -mean, SD -Standard deviation, F -distribution F-Snedecor statistics, p -significance level, η 2 -Eta square, ω 2 -omega square

Table 6
Comparison of average results by place of residence Cronbach's alpha, N -number of samples, M -mean, SD -Standard deviation, F -distribution F-Snedecor statistics, p -significance level, η 2 -Eta square, ω 2 -omega square

Table 7
Comparison of the average results of the control of negative emotions due to the wealth of the respondents Cronbach's alpha, N -number of samples, M -mean, SD -Standard deviation, F -distribution F-Snedecor statistics, p -significance level, η 2 -Eta square, ω 2 -omega square