Abstract

The new austerity measures in Greece which started in 2011, formed a strong public reaction, followed by emotions of anxiety and anger. Since anxiety, anger, and depression are important indicators of psychological distress the financial crisis was hypothesized, as potentially having had important psychological impact on the Greek public.
In this paper we present the results of anger, anxiety, curiosity and depression scores distributed over a six years period during the Greek economic crisis (2011-2016). As a measurement tool we used self-administered STPI (State-Trait Personality Inventory), which includes eighty questions designed to measure transitory and dispositional anger, anxiety, curiosity and depression in a four-level Likert scale.
Our results showed a scalar increase of the anger scores thus imprinting the high or very high levels of emotional reactions during the years of the Greek financial crisis. Furthermore, significant correlations between anger and stress as well as between stress and depression were observed, showing the high affinity between these emotional traits.