Psychology and Pedagogy of Anger

by Roy Franklin Richardson

Anger which develops from a fore-period of negative self-feeling, disappears when the subject is able to acquire a positive feeling attitude toward the offender. It may be accomplished subjectively. The subject tends to lower his opinion of his opponent, he enjoys an idle gossip, it may be, at his expense, recalls ill reports he had previously heard but ignored, and in fact may employ a number of devices of imagination and make-believe. He at times tends to magnify the offender’s unworthiness, and may come to the conclusion that he is scarcely worth troubling about. Mental behavior of this sort is commonly reported to enhance self-feeling. On the other hand the subject may accomplish the same end by magnifying his own personal feelings directly by dwelling on his own good qualities and worth in comparison with that of the offender. Such comparisons are almost always to the disadvantage of the opponent. Subject C., in a controversy with X., became angry and walked away when the emotion was still intense. “I now began to recall how insignificant he is and how important I am. He is narrow, pedantic and incapable of seeing a large point of view. I am not so narrow. All was slightly pleasant and was accompanied by a decreased intensity of my emotion. I now met X. and joked with him; my anger was entirely gone.” The feeling of superiority kills anger of the type which arises from a fore-period of humiliation. It has already been indicated that when a positive feeling is maintained in receiving an injury, anger does not arise. The would-be offender if he is regarded as unworthy or unaccountable for his act, does not usually excite anger. The same person, however, may stimulate anger by a process of increased irritable feelings. Subject A. beginning to get angry at X., (a person he holds in low esteem) observes the following association. “Oh, it is just X., no use in my getting angry at a fellow like that, he is not responsible anyway, and I would be foolish to be bothered by him. I had started to ridicule him but now my emotion was gone.”

A contemplated victory gives pleasure and diminishes anger even before the victory is attained. The emotion disappears on assuming a positive determined mental attitude, it may pass off in vehement resolution as to further behavior. In fact, one may begin and finish his fight through the medium of ideas and have no enthusiasm left for the actual encounter.

With a third condition for the disappearance of anger, pleasantness is present but usually in the form of mild relief. Positive self-feeling is not so clearly marked in consciousness. The subject looks at the offender’s point of view, finds excuses for his behavior, elevates his opinion it may be of him. A new idea is added to the mental situation exciting anger which entirely alters the feeling content, and consequently anger disappears. Subject I. observes, “When I finally concluded that X. meant well, my anger was almost gone.” G. resentful at X. because he did not speak to him states, “I recalled suddenly that he is cross-eyed and probably did not see me. I said to myself, ‘He is a good fellow and is friendly toward me all right.’ My emotion was now gone.” B. mildly angry at X. and Y. for intruding upon him, observes the following soliloquy. “No, they have more right here than I have. This room is for people to converse in rather than for one man to occupy alone. My anger was now decreased but not entirely gone.” Even a tentative excuse for the offender’s behavior allays anger temporarily. The emotion may last for several days, appearing at intervals, and with a sudden introduction of a new idea providing an adequate excuse for the offence, the condition exciting the emotion will be completely changed.

Anger diminishes and disappears more frequently in the change of attention than by any other one condition. A pause in the midst of anger to attend to one’s mental behavior affords a diminution of the affective process. It is often reported as amusing when a subject suddenly ceases attending to the situation exciting the emotion and observes his mental behavior; laughter at this point is often reported. Close attention to the act of managing the irritating or humiliating incident, allows a rather gradual diminution of anger. Anger does not arise when the subject is rigidly attending to the damage done, but only when he begins to feel the damage as humiliating, irritating or as contrary to justice. One subject hums or sings when angry. A joke or witticism will break the crust of conscious tension allowing the attention to be distracted elsewhere.

The subject may suddenly assume an apathetic attitude toward the whole incident and kill the emotion at least temporarily. The mental situation from which anger arises, is one contrary to indifference, in fact, the lack of indifference is one of the essential characteristics of the fore-condition of anger, and consequently when this attitude is present, anger is cut off.

A resolution or a settled judgment has a relieving effect. Whenever the subject comes to a definite conclusion whether it refers to the emotional situation or a contemplated mode of behavior toward the offender, there is reported a sudden drop in the intensity of the emotion, even though the attitude is but a tentative and temporary one. The reason for this is evidently that such a mental attitude is contrary to the immediate mental situation from which anger arises. Anger springs from the fact that there is lacking a definite mental attitude as to what should be done during the reactive stage of the emotion. One of the most efficient controls is to have a well planned reaction to meet the emotional crisis before it appears; when the injury occurs, if there is a preparedness as to what should be done, even though the response is but a subjective one purely attitudinal in its nature, anger fails to develop to its intense stage.

SUCCESSFUL DISAPPEARANCE

The success with which the emotion of anger disappears is a matter of wide individual difference with the persons studied. With some the reporting of the emotion from the introspection notes tended to reinstate the emotion. One subject was frequently disturbed by the reappearance of the emotion during the report. In one instance he refused to report to the writer for three days afterward. He reports he could not recall the situation without the reappearance of the anger in its unpleasant form. Other persons could rarely reinstate an emotion in any unpleasant form over night. At times the anger was reinstated in its pleasant aspect. Sometimes a feeling of exaltation was displayed. The subject showed he enjoyed recalling the emotion. Imagined and carefully devised schemes of retaliation were often rehearsed with pleasure. Again the observation would be a feeling of indifference, as something past and finished. Often the statement was given, “The whole thing seems ludicrous and amusing to me now.”

It is rather pleasing to recall the situation exciting anger when the original emotion is short-circuited, as it were, allowing a pleasurable, gossipy vituperation against the offender without the initially unpleasant stage of anger. In fact the subject may re-experience a little of the unpleasant humiliation through imaginative stimulus, if the pleasantly reactive stage is successful enough to compensate. If the subject is aware he has a sympathetic hearer, it is far easier to pass over the initially unpleasant stage of the reinstated anger and enjoy a hostile, gossipy reaction. The writer in the course of the study became so intimately acquainted with the private emotional life of the subjects studied and had been a sympathetic listener of the emotional experiences so long, that after the period of observation had ended, he would find himself the recipient of emotional confidences which the subjects took pleasure in relating to him. Says one on reporting, “I really was not interested so much in the scientific side of this emotion as I was to tell you of my resentment, and as I look over it now, I am really aware that I assumed a scientific interest as a means of gaining full sympathy and giving me full freedom to speak everything in mind.” Another subject says, “I went to tell X. for I believed he would get angry too and I hoped that he would.” The same situation does not usually allow anger to continue to reappear in its unpleasant form, for repeated appearance tends to eliminate the active unpleasant stage.

An emotion of anger which has been unsuccessfully expressed may continue to reappear in consciousness again and again. Crowded out, it will suddenly return at times by chance associations. It may become so insistent that it is an unpleasant distraction from business affairs and the subject must find some sort of reaction to satisfy it. F. observes, “I could not do my work. Just as I would get started, the idea would reappear suddenly and I would find myself angry, tending to think cutting remarks and planning what I should do. Each time I tried to escape from it, it would come back again. Finally I determined deliberately to get rid of it. I recalled all the good qualities of X., what favors he had bestowed upon me and in fact felt quite friendly toward him. Before I had finished, the anger had disappeared and did not return. Later, as I recalled the situation incidentally, I felt indifferent toward it.” Such deliberate behavior is unusual. The reaction to an emotion is mostly involuntary. In many instances, when emotion is prolonged, it is much like a trial and error process, one reaction after another is tried out in imagination until a rather successful one is found. This reappearance of an emotion when it has been repressed gives opportunity for a new trial and mode of attack.