Anger

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Do get mad. Young, Emma New Scientist. 2/9/2013, Vol. 217 Issue 2903, p48-51. 4p. Article *ANGER *EMOTIONS (Psychology) -- Physiological aspects *SOCIOLOGY of emotions *EXPRESSION *PSYCHOLOGICAL research 541720 Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities The article discusses how anger, when used in the right way, can be constructive. Topics include society's view of anger as a destructive emotion, the physiological aspects of anger, when and how anger can be constructive, and a study by Harvard University researcher Jennifer Lerner and colleagues that found people made angry by a stressful situation exhibited a lower biological response, in terms of blood pressure and levels of stress hormones, than those who were fearful. 2434 0262-4079 10.1016/S0262-4079(13)60379-6 85387053 Academic Search Premier

Do get mad 

We tend to think of anger as a negative emotion, but used in the right way it can be surprisingly constructive, finds Emma Young "ANYBODY can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."

So wrote Aristotle, more than 2000 years ago, in his classic work The Art of Rhetoric. His words don't quite square with our modern concept of anger. Today, we tend to think of it as a destructive emotion that can wreck relationships and blight careers. Indeed, the field of anger management is awash with theories on how best to control or suppress excess anger. But anger, it now seems, is not all bad. In fact, we might do well to cultivate our anger in some situations - in personal relationships, in negotiating certain business deals and within social action groups, for example.

"To the extent that anger is usually unpleasant to experience, it could be viewed as a negative emotion," says psychologist Brett Ford at the University of California, Berkeley. "But experiencing anger can help us pursue our goals, and be happier and healthier in the long run." To reap these benefits, the knack, as Aristotle understood, is to know when, where, why and how to get angry. We need to learn to use our anger strategically, rather than letting it control us.

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Philosophers have long pondered the causes of anger, but it is generally recognised as an emotional response to being provoked. A slight from a junior employee, an insult directed at your child, a decision by your boss that suggests your feelings are irrelevant - all are likely to trigger feelings of anger, usually accompanied by physical changes, such as an increase in heart rate and levels of the hormone adrenalin. How we respond to such triggers - how much anger we feel and to what extent we express it - varies from person to person (see "The angry brigade", page 51). And there is no doubt that people who experience and express frequent, uninhibited anger do suffer. Even if the impact on their health is debatable, the effect on their relationships is clear. "Their children, wives, bosses, families are frightened of them, and they scare everyone away," says Mike Fisher, director of the British Association of Anger Management, based in East Grinstead. "You can't believe the number of people we get like that. They have no friends. Their family has left. All they do is work or act out with a whole variety of addictions."

From road rage to riots, nobody is arguing that anger can't be enormously destructive, nevertheless the idea that it is also sometimes beneficial is steadily gaining ground. One particularly influential study came in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. Jennifer Lerner, now at Harvard University, gathered information on the emotions and attitudes of almost 1000 American adults and teenagers just nine days after the attacks, with follow-up studies in subsequent years. She found that people who felt angry about terrorism were more optimistic about the future than those who were afraid of terrorism. The men in the study were angrier than the women, and were generally more optimistic. She also found that media stories angled to make people angry made them less afraid of being hurt in a terrorist attack and more willing to support an aggressive rather than conciliatory public response (Psychological Science, vol 14, p 144).

A healthy rage In a lab study, Lerner discovered that people made angry rather than fearful by a stressful situation have a lower biological response, in terms of blood pressure and levels of stress hormones (Biological Psychiatry, vol 61, p 253). This shows, she says, that when you're in a situation that is maddening, and your anger is justified, the emotion isn't necessarily bad for you. Ford's recent research takes this one step further. Working with Maya Tamir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, he found that people who tend to feel angry rather than happy when confronting others report higher well-being overall (Emotion, vol 12, p 685). The naturally tetchy also scored higher for emotional intelligence, which might seem counter-intuitive but is consistent with the idea that feeling angry, however unpleasant, can have its uses.

Lerner's 9/11 research also highlights the importance of anger in prompting collective action against a common threat, an idea that is being explored by Andrew Livingstone at the University of Stirling, UK. His team studied groups of people with something in common (such as coming from south Wales) and random groups, measuring the participants' emotional reactions to triggers such as a suggestion that government support for heritage sites in south Wales was to be withdrawn. They found that anger, more than any other emotion, helps unite people with a shared conviction, and prompt them to take action.

"By its nature, anger tends to be a fairly energising emotion," says Ford. His own work suggests that feeling angry makes people seek out rewards (Psychological Science, vol 21, p 1098). If the desired reward is better working conditions, say, or broader social change, anger can play an enormous role in helping you achieve these goals. "Mahatma Gandhi, and his passive resistance, is a beautiful example of controlled anger," says Fisher. "You've seen it with Nelson Mandela, with Malcolm X - these are huge figures in our history who stand out as incredible leaders, who have taken their anger and transformed nations. But they have channelled and directed their anger to heal as opposed to hurt."

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Anger is vitally important in mobilising support for a social movement, says Nicole Tausch at the University of St Andrews, UK. When they looked at student protests against tuition fees in Germany, the response of Indian Muslims to inequality in India, and how British Muslims reacted to the British government's "war on terror", Tausch and her colleagues found that anger played a positive role. In particular, it motivated people to stage peaceful demonstrations that they hoped would persuade their adversary to rectify social injustices (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 101, p 129). In political contexts, anger can signal that individuals still feel connected to and represented by the political system, she says. "Expressions of anger, such as during protests, should therefore be viewed not as threats to the system but as signs of a healthy democracy."

If anger can serve a higher cause, it can also be harnessed for our own personal ends. There is plenty of evidence that anger can be beneficial in a professional context - provided you are careful about how you express it and to whom.

Angry outbursts can pay dividends in the workplace if managers subsequently address the underlying problems rather than simply punishing aggrieved individuals (Human Relations, vol 64, p 201). Some forward-thinking managers might even want to foster anger, at least at certain times, as people who feel angry brainstorm in a more unstructured way, consistent with creative problem-solving (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol 47, p 1107).

Professional ire There is also evidence that political and business leaders who get angry rather than sad in response to a scandal are granted higher status (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 80, p 86) - as long as they are male, that is. Both men and women confer lower status on angry female professionals than on angry male professionals, whether the female is a CEO or a trainee. A woman's emotional reactions are generally attributed to her character ("she is an angry person") whereas men are perceived as merely reacting to external circumstances. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is just one female politician who has suffered criticism for being "too angry", says Victoria Brescoll of Yale University (Psychological Science, vol 19, p 268).

Several studies have found that angry negotiators can get a better result for their side. But in 2010, Hajo Adam of INSEAD, a graduate business school in France, uncovered an important exception. His research was inspired in part by observing how colleagues at INSEAD (which has campuses around the world) reacted differently to outbursts of anger and how Japanese trade envoys responded negatively to former US president Bill Clinton taking an angry stance in negotiations in the early 1990s. In lab-based studies with student volunteers at the University of California, Berkeley, Adam's team found that Americans of European descent made larger concessions to an angry opponent than to a non-emotional one, but that Asians and Asian Americans made smaller concessions (Psychological Science, vol 21, p 882). Adam thinks this reflects cultural norms about whether or not it is appropriate to get mad.

These caveats aside, anger used judiciously has all sorts of benefits both in the workplace and in the wider social sphere. But what about your home life? Surely when it comes to your nearest and dearest it is always best to keep calm and avoid an altercation?

Not according to Ernest Harburg, emeritus professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health in Washington DC. He believes that a fight with your partner might actually be healthy. His team has found that people who generally suppress their anger in a dispute with their partner die earlier than those who just let their anger out and resolve conflicts. And in his latest, unpublished results from a study spanning over three decades, couples who both express their anger have significantly longer lives. Harburg thinks that suppressing

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anger raises blood pressure, and in the long term, this affects lifespan. "The idea of inhibiting your anger all the time, which is promoted by religions and pacifists, is simply not a healthy thought," he says.

Fisher cautions that when getting angry in a relationship, you have to be respectful. "It's as simple as saying, 'I feel angry with you, I need you to listen to me and take me seriously and care for me and prioritise me'." That, he concedes, is not what people usually say.

As Aristotle recognised, controlling one's anger is not easy. But even that is not enough. We also need to learn to respond appropriately to the anger of others. If it prompts more anger, or even if it is simply ignored, the consequences can be grave. Everyone has personal experience of this, but in a political context the results can be disastrous. Tausch and her team have consistently found that if the target of the anger expressed by a political group does not respond with change, the group can become contemptuous of that target (perhaps the government), and engage in what she calls "out-of-system" forms of political action - namely, violence or support for terrorism.

All the more reason, then to "be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way". And all the more reason to pay attention to anger, rather than ignore it. Anger should be viewed not as driving destructive forms of behaviour, says Tausch, but rather as a way of fostering behaviours that are positive and constructive for social relationships.

THE ANGRY BRIGADE The same social slight can make one person anxious, another irritated, and a third so angry they react with their fists. No one is quite sure why some people are fearful when provoked and others become angry, but what is certain is that some types of people are likely to be angrier than others.

For a start, men are angrier than women. Within each sex, physically strong men are angrier than weaker men, and beautiful women are angrier than less attractive women. In fact, strength accounts for about 20 per cent of the variance in male anger, according to Aaron Sell of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia (Human Nature, vol 23, p 30). "The theory is that strength and attractiveness lead individual men and women to feel more entitled." In our evolutionary past, these attributes would have given them an advantage in competition with others. "If the world doesn't deliver these benefits, they are more likely to turn angry as a result," says Sell.

Following similar logic, some researchers think that high self-esteem makes people angrier. However, Mike Fisher, director of the British Association of Anger Management, believes the reverse is true. His experience has convinced him that people with low self-esteem - which can include high achievers - suffer more stress, which feeds their anger. People get more angry in stressful times like now when much of the developed world is worrying about the economy, Fisher argues.

Susceptibility to stress could also explain why highly strung, Type A, individuals are thought to be angrier than the more laid-back Type Bs. Physiology could sometimes be to blame: there is a link between poor blood-sugar control and disturbed mood, including feeling angry (Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, vol 14, p 303). Anger has even been linked with a gene, MAO-A, dubbed the "warrior" gene. However, while people with the gene tend to be more aggressive, this is not necessarily because they feel angrier.

And no one really know what lies behind intermittent explosive disorder, says Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School. It's a psychological condition characterised by eruptions of uncontrollable anger, which usually develops in late childhood. In 2012, Kessler's team reported that about 1 in 12 US teenagers and adults have it - a far higher rate than anyone had suspected (Archives of General Psychiatry, vol 69, p 1131).

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Whatever the causes, there is no "cure" for excessive anger. A person who frequently feels inappropriately angry must generally always work to manage it, says Fisher. As a sufferer himself, he knows how difficult that can be. But there is one ray of hope. As a rule, we tend to get less angry - or at least less aggressive - as we get older.

The physiology of fury Full-blown anger has some powerful effects on the human body

Eyes stare Face becomes flushed

Jaw clenches Voice becomes shrill (women)

Voice deepens (men) Heart pounds

Jittery stomach or nausea Limbs may shake

Adrenalin is produced Hands have increased blood flow

Breathing rate increases Sweating increases

Torso lifts Nostrils flare

Anger can help in negotiations, particularly for men - but there are limits

Australian prime minister Julia Gillard's anti-sexism rant did her no harm (top), and Gandhi used controlled anger to great effect

~~~~~~~~ By Emma Young

Emma Young is a writer based in Sheffield, UK

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