Researchers Plot Ways to Handle Anger : Behavior: Mental health experts see soap operas as potentially valuable in reaching low-income viewers.

They’re the kind of scenes that are staples of daytime soap operas: Travis is furious with Erica because she’s still involved in her ex-husband’s life; Gina is angry because the rich Capwells can give her son Brandon more than she can; Bianca is ticked because Courtney keeps answering for her before she can get a word in edgewise.

Granted, these aren’t real people in real situations. But for millions of Americans--about 20 million a day, of whom 14 million are women--these soap families provide models of ways to deal with anger and other emotions.

Many soap-opera devotees, research shows, are low-income single parents whose lives are circumscribed by poverty, drugs and alcohol. For some of these viewers, the typical response to feeling angry is violence, because that’s what many have experienced in their own lives.

In an effort to remedy the problem, the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives, a private nonprofit Washington organization that disseminates mental health research findings, has studied the way anger is handled on the soaps.

Its goal: to persuade soap-opera writers and producers to work nonviolent and emotionally healthy ways of managing anger into plot lines. For several years, the institute has lobbied the 200 members of the Caucus for Writers, Producers and Directors to incorporate these changes; at the request of the caucus, institute staff members are drafting a set of anger-management guidelines for television.

To stress its recommendations, the institute conducted surveys in 1986 and 1990 of the ways anger was resolved on a dozen serials. Two interns from Cornell University spent last summer watching “Santa Barbara,” “All My Children” and “As The World Turns,” among others; they monitored who got angry, why and at whom and how the anger was resolved.

They found that incidents portraying an angry person as a hero rose from 69% to 82% and that racist or sexist overtones in displays of anger dropped from 4% to 1%.

The research team also found that instances in which somebody listened to the angry person rose from 78% to 85%. According to Suzanne Stutman, executive director of the institute, listening to someone who is angry can defuse the emotion or prevent it from escalating into violence.

Humor and empathy remain rare commodities on the soaps, the interns found. One infrequent example involved Felicia, a mainstay of the long-running series “General Hospital,” who is furious at her husband, who she believes is being annoyingly overprotective during her pregnancy.

“I’m pregnant,” she snaps, “would you just shut up!” Then, she injects a note of humor into the situation by adding, “I’m highly emotional. . . . If you don’t let me talk, I’m going to scream and get hysterical and then I’m going to send out for 10 pizzas.”

Although experts for years have debated the relative importance of television shows in shaping attitudes and affecting behavior--particularly violent behavior--researchers at the institute say they regard soap operas as a potentially valuable educational tool.

This was underscored, Stutman said, by the experience of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health, who several years ago set up some mothers’ meetings to help prevent emotional disorders in children who had been identified as being at risk of abuse.

When many of the young mothers--most of them poor, unmarried teen-agers--failed to show up for the meetings, social workers were asked to investigate. The social workers were repeatedly told, “Oh, I can’t talk now; I’m watching my program.”

Some studies have shown that television shows provide role models for young people. Several months ago, the Brown University Family Therapy Letter described an Australian study, which found that from 50% to 75% of Australian children said their ideal role models were media figures, rather than their parents.

In the study, published last year in the Australian Journal of Psychology, 313 children between fifth and ninth grades were surveyed. More than three-quarters of the boys, 63% of the older girls and 45% of the younger ones chose media figures as role models.

The authors of the study noted that in a 1956 study, before many Australians had television sets, parents and surrogate parents were chosen as the people the children most wanted to emulate.

Lucy Johnson, vice president of CBS for daytime television, sees the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives as a positive influence on television. For one thing, she says, its officials work with the script writers “in a very non-threatening way.”

Just how much effect the institute has had on the plot lines of daytime soaps is hard to measure, but Johnson says workshops sponsored by the institute help TV script writers be more responsible in handling the common emotion of anger.

“My concern is that I don’t innocently or naively portray something that is the wrong message,” said Johnson.

One finding in the institute report on soap operas should prove helpful to the incorporation of anger-management techniques, Stutman said. There was a negative correlation between the percentage of situations involving violence and the Nielsen ratings. “We can’t say it is cause and effect,” she added, but at least episodes where anger is handled in a healthy way won’t hurt the ratings.

Rethinking Your Anger

RETHINK is an acronym for anger management developed by the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives. Although anger is both natural and inevitable, it can be channeled in healthy directions:

* R--Recognize when you are feeling angry or when it is a cover-up for fear, stress, shame, fatigue.

* E--Empathize with the person who is the target of anger.

* T--Think about what it is in a situation that is creating anger. Is there another way of thinking that might create humor? A solution?

* H--Hear what the other person is saying. When people are hurt, they want to be heard.

* I--Integrate respect and love with what you say about your anger.

* N--Notice how your body changes when you’re angry. Heartbeat quickens, teeth clench, hands perspire, for example. Practice a quick form of gaining control, such as counting to 10.

* K--Keep your attention on the subject at hand. Don’t bring up old grudges and wounds.