The inappropriate expression of anger is clearly a problem in America today, and seems to me to have grown worse in my lifetime. Since I was in college, I have been watching this problem become larger and more widespread. Bullying has become a bigger problem over the last couple decades, and random acts of violence also appear to be increasing in the last 30 years, even though recent statistics report that violent crime is down in our country. In the May 2024 edition of “The Mentor,” I discussed some of the fundamentals of anger. Let’s now delve into this a little further.
A basic definition of anger is “an intense emotional state involving a strong, uncomfortable, and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt, or threat.” Anger is normally thought of as a response to a threat, just as is the emotion of fear. This means that fear and anger are closely related to each other in terms of emotionality and in terms of behavior. Some people may have noticed that anger occurs as a secondary emotion, that it is very often a cover-up for fear.
A display of anger shows up in facial expressions, body language, verbal expressions, and often in acts of aggression. In addition to that, the expression of anger can be accompanied by “a loss of self-monitoring and objective observability” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger). In other words, angry people may lose the ability to monitor themselves in terms of the intensity of their anger and with regard to their actions taken in expressing that anger.
This loss of self-monitoring and self-observation is one of the most dangerous aspects during a bout of anger. People may lose the ability to monitor themselves and can do things which cause damage to themselves and others without realizing it and without being able to stop themselves. We have all heard of the concept of someone “seeing red,” when all attention is focused and channeled into an angry and often aggressive type of behavior. As stated in the previous article, Carl Jung said that it is natural and normal to at times feel anger, but a person should be able to control it. This would posit the question of how anger can and should be managed and expressed. If people have not learned how to manage their emotions, when the emotion breaks out it is too late to manage it and there have been no coping skills put in place that can be used in order to manage it. It seems like emotions management should be taught in schools, as well as at home. And, for the most part, it seems in our society that people are not very skilled at self management of emotions, and in particular in the management of anger.
I discovered a general understanding in psychology that there are three types of anger: hasty/sudden anger, settled/deliberate anger, and dispositional anger. The first one, hasty/sudden anger, happens due to the instinct for self-preservation, when a person is threatened, hurt, tormented or trapped, and this is episodic in nature. It happens due to a circumstance that provokes this response. The second type, settled/deliberate anger, occurs when there is perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others, and this form is also episodic in nature. The third type, dispositional anger, is an expression of a person’s character traits rather than instincts or cognitions, and it is a chronic condition. This type of anger is often seen in what we call in the mental health field “personality disorders.”
As I have been researching the topic of anger over the last couple months, I’ve found that it’s a very complicated subject. Anger can be broken down into passive, aggressive, assertive and passive-aggressive types of anger. Researcher Ephraim Fernandez has identified six dimensions of anger expression, to include the locus, the direction and the objective of the anger. Some researchers have looked at ethnic and racial factors with regard to the experience and expression of anger. Gallup, Inc., does annual polling in over 140 countries and publishes a “Global Emotions Report.” In asking the question “did you experience anger during a lot of the day yesterday?” they found in 2021 that 23% of adults experienced “a lot of anger.” This is up from 18% since the year 2014. By the way, the USA is not one of the top most angry nations.
One thing that jumped out at me is this: anger tends to cause a reduction in cognitive ability and a reduction in the accurate processing of external stimuli. This leads to the impression that dangers seem less threatening, one’s actions seem less risky, ventures appear more likely to succeed, and unfortunate events seem less likely to happen. This for the person feeling angry boils down to having an experience of feeling more in control of a situation that has gotten out of control or that could become out of control imminently. In a future article, I will delve further into expressions of anger and into the important topic of anger management.
By: Terry McMaster, LMSW, EAP Counselor