Understanding the Psychology of Anger
Intro: Learning how to manage your anger effectively is key to avoiding negative consequences such as strained relationships and job loss. To do this, it’s important to understand how anger works on a psychological level. This article dives into eight key takeaways about the psychology of anger, from the distinction between anger and aggression to debunking common myths.
Anger vs Aggression: Control What You Can
Anger and aggression are two different things. Anger is an emotion that you can’t directly control, while aggression is a behavior that you can choose to act on or not. It’s important to make this distinction because trying to control your anger only makes it stronger and harder to control your aggression.
Managing Your Anger
Rumination and venting may seem like helpful ways to deal with anger, but they only intensify it. It’s important to address the source of your anger instead of the emotion itself. People should also be aware that feeling angry doesn’t make them a bad person; getting judgmental with oneself for feeling angry only makes it harder to respond constructively.
Don’t Believe The Myths About Anger
One of the most popular beliefs about anger is that we must express it in order for it to be “released”. This is false; instead, we can acknowledge our feelings and then direct our control efforts towards managing our aggression.
The Pleasure of Feeling Angry
We may think of the experience of feeling angry as unpleasant, but the truth is that it can be quite pleasurable. When you criticize someone or something, you feel morally superior; when you get angry about world events, you feel in control; and when you ruminate about how wronged you’ve been, you feel like the sympathetic victim. It can also be used to distract from more painful emotions like fear, sadness and guilt—especially among men who view anger as an “appropriate” emotion.
Manage Your Anger Effectively
To successfully manage your anger, start by understanding the basics of how it works. Pay attention to how your thoughts and behaviors influence your emotions and try to avoid hidden sleep stealers like alcohol and caffeine. Additionally, keep track of your sleep habits on a Sleep Diary or Sleep Log.
Understanding Anger & Aggression
Anger is often misunderstood; it is different than aggression. Aggression is a mental or physical act that follows the emotion of anger. We can’t control anger directly, but we can influence our emotions indirectly by controlling our thoughts and behaviors. Although aggressive thoughts and behaviors become habitual, they are still fundamentally under our control.
The Many Flavors of Anger
Many people don’t recognize that there are different forms of anger, such as irritability, resentment and frustration. Irritability and resentment are signs of unacknowledged or unaddressed anger, while frustration is a milder form of anger. To better understand your own feelings of anger, broaden your emotional vocabulary.
Is Anger Really a Negative Emotion?
We mistakenly classify anger as a negative emotion because people who are angry often do negative things—like throwing a club after missing a putt or speeding after being cut off on the freeway. However, anger isn’t bad or negative just because it leads to negative behavior; it’s actually a natural response to a perceived injustice.
Defining Anger by Its Consequences
People tend to define anger based on the consequences that follow it, making it seem like a more negative emotion than it really is. For example, we feel pain when we touch a hot pan on the stove, but this pain is actually a good thing—it alerts us to a dangerous situation. Similarly, feeling angry can be a good thing because it signals that something isn’t right.