Professor Titchener [(19)] states concerning emotions in general three essential factors for their formation. First, a series of ideas shall be interrupted by a vivid feeling; second, the feeling shall mirror a situation or incident in the outside world; and third, the feeling shall be enriched by organic sensations created by the course of bodily adjustment to the situation. It has been well agreed from casual introspection that the stimulus to an emotion is a total mental situation or predicament. It is evidently necessary in the psychology of the emotions that each emotion should be studied in connection with its predetermining mental situation giving rise to it. Anger because of its slowness to develop, lends itself more readily to a study of the situation from which it arises, than some other emotions.
It is well known that there is little constancy in the outside situation, associated with the emotion of anger. What one will take as an insult, another will regard as a joke. With the same individual, what will at one time excite anger, will at another be scarcely noticed. We commonly say, referring to some incident, “There was nothing for him to be angry about,” and the statement may be correct if the outside situation is viewed as the stimulus to the emotion. With the insane and hysterical, an observer is often baffled by the apparently harmless idea that will excite anger. The fact is, the situation stimulating anger is a psychic one. We fail in viewing our emotional life in the same manner as we do in observing our sensations. Whatever the outside conditions, it is the psychic situation as only a partial reflection of outside conditions, that is of primary importance. A few instances of the current views of the situation exciting anger may be given. What may be called a genetic view is illustrated in McDougall’s [(15)] statement, “The condition of its (anger) excitement is rather any opposition to the free exercise of any impulse, any obstruction to the activity to which the creature is impelled by any one of the other instincts.” Dewey [(6)] in his conception of instincts has pointed out that we are not angry when we are fighting successfully. Only when the pugnacious instinct is impeded does emotion arise. An introspective view may be taken from Bain [(2)], “When we have suffered harm at the hands of another, it leaves a sting in the violation of the sanctity of our feelings. This pre-supposes a sentiment of self regarding pride, the presence of which gives rise to the best developed form of anger.” David Irons [(12)], who did some keen work in the analysis of the emotions, does not qualify his statement that anger appears only when we feel that we have been injured.
From the pathological side, Féré [(7)] and Magnan [(11)] have described slow accumulation of anger in paranoiacs, which seems to re-enforce the casual introspective view stated above. These insane persons first believe they are persecuted. They suspect all about them. Even their very best friends are trying to injure their business or reputation. Gradually reactionary impulses begin and they themselves become the persecutors and concern themselves with the business of revenge. They find gratification in every sort of angry outburst,—insult, abuse, threat, murderous attack, irony, witticism, etc.
The same view has been advanced by Steinmetz [(18)] in the observation of the behavior of primitive people. He holds that revenge is essentially rooted in the feeling of power and superiority. It arises upon the experience of injury and its aim is to enhance self-feeling, which has been lowered by the injury suffered.
The next few pages will be devoted to an examination of the mental situations from which anger develops as found in the results of the introspections. About six hundred introspections from the various observers have been used for this study.
Feelings of Irritation. One of the characteristic mental situations from which anger arises is that connected with feelings of irritation. These feelings are described as unpleasant nervous tension with a tendency to motor activity. Awareness of the feeling may be present while attention is directed elsewhere. It may or may not be referred to any particular incident. C.—“It is a sort of diffused unpleasant consciousness that things in general are going wrong.”
Irritation in connection with pain or illness is a condition from which anger may develop. From this a trivial incident may give rise to anger. A note from E.’s records says, “I had a severe headache to-day and felt irritable. When X. would try to sympathize with me, the irritation would increase and I tended to be angry.” G, who has relatively few emotions of anger, introspected upon ten cases of anger, arising from a fore-period of irritation during a day’s illness. Subject I. states with reference to pain, “While the pain was on I felt as though I wanted to be angry at somebody or something, X. spoke to me and at once I was angry.” Feelings of irritation may increase, gradually, accompanying the increased intensity of pain. A. states, “Irritableness at the first beginning of the pain increased to intense anger at the moment the pain was most severe. There was a strong motor tension in the hands and face muscles with the impulse to look about, vaguely aware that I was trying to find something to refer the anger to.... A decrease of the pain was accompanied by a decrease of the anger to a feeling of irritation again.”
Feelings of irritation follow as a result of the thwarting of some desire or mental attitude and are consequently predetermined by the attitude of the moment. From this, anger develops for the most part, as a result of a series of stimuli, which have a cumulative effect. Each thwarting of the impulse intensifies the irritation until anger is developed. One or two failures may stimulate unpleasant feelings, which at the time are ignored; but with an increase of the number of stimuli, there is an accumulative effect in which the awareness of the previous failures becomes more intense than at the moment when they occurred. The following from B.’s observations will illustrate, “I was writing a letter to an important personage and was making special effort to write it neatly. I made an error and felt unpleasantly irritated. Still feeling quite unpleasant, I turned to look for my eraser and could not find it. I looked in several places. Each failure was followed by a sudden increase in intensity of unpleasant feelings.” Finally B. found himself using defamatory language prolifically, giving expression to a rather well developed case of anger. One is usually aware in anger of this type, that the emotion is the cumulative effect of a number of previous stimuli. It appears from the reports, that if the mental predisposition is intense enough, one or two failures may suffice to excite anger. In general the stronger the predisposition, the less number of failures is required before anger is fully developed.