Vulnerability plus perceived threat activates anger. The more vulnerable we feel, the more threat we perceive, which is why starving or wounded animals tend to be more ferocious. In humans, anger evolved for the defense of emotional bonds, territory, and self. But most of the anger we experience today comes from threats to the ego. As our egos expand, we experience more insult from a world that simply will not accommodate our inflated egos.
Anger prepares us to control or neutralize perceived threats by warning, intimidating, or inflicting injury.
In relationships, chronic anger creates power struggles, turns partners into opponents, and eventually destroys intimacy. At work, it increases errors in judgment and task performance. We’re never as right or as smart as we think we are when angry.
Anger creates a sense of entitlement—my rights are superior to yours—and entitlement increases anger when superior rights go unacknowledged. It makes us demand respect when we’re disrespectful, fair treatment when we’re unfair, and affection when we’re resentful. Entitlement strips relationships of their most sublime emotional experience – appreciation.
Anger can seem like addiction when we use it for energy, confidence, motivation, pain relief, or to ameliorate anxiety or depressed mood. When not angry, some people lack sufficient energy and motivation or are more likely to experience anxiety or depression. They may then look for reasons to get angry.
As noted by Redford and Virginia Williams in their book, Anger Kills, frequent anger could shorten life span and increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, depression, anxiety, paranoia, psychosis, and substance abuse.
Double-Edged Behavior
We devalue ourselves each time we devalue someone else—devaluing others locks us in devalued states. Feeling contempt makes us contemptuous, feeling hate makes us hateful. Politicians have long misunderstood the double edge of anger-motivated behavior. They ride into office on a wave of anger, only to be swept from office by a subsequent wave of anger. Remorse almost always follows decisions made in anger.
The double edge of behavior works as well with elevating emotions. We greatly benefit from treating others kindly and from kind thoughts—wishing someone health, happiness, and well-being. The surest path to sustained self-value is thinking kindly and behaving kindly.
Anger vs. Rage
Rage is an extreme and relatively rare form of anger. Characterized by intense aggressive impulses, rage flares from perceived violation of rights, status, or personal boundaries. Ordinary anger rarely turns into rage, absent underlying chronic resentment.
Expressed rage looks out-of-control, scary, and dangerous. It can also look foolish. Suppressed rage looks like the body has been dipped in thin plaster—rigid muscles, bulging veins in the face and neck. Whether expressed or suppressed, repeated rage leads to self-loathing.
Except in cases of mental disorder, children do not rage. They do have temper tantrums, complete with screaming, stomping feet, and flailing arms. At worst, they throw things or try to hurt themselves or others. Shaming children makes tantrums more frequent and intense and risks extending them into adulthood. It’s much better to show them how to regulate their emotions and their disappointments.
Anger and Hate
Chronic anger does not necessarily turn to hate, but the transformation is all too common. Hate is an emotional virus that spreads rapidly and virulently. Attempting to fight hate strengthens and spreads it. It’s more effective to crowd it out with compassion and respect, which will, in time, replace the impulse to destroy with passion to build, at least in those reacting to other people’s hate.
If you’re afflicted with hate, determine whether the qualities you hate in others are the same qualities you possess but disown. We need to accept the qualities we disown to transcend them. As we improve disowned qualities in ourselves, hate of others vanishes, and with it, the self-defeating impulse to destroy.
