Roy Franklin Richardson

“ 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. ”

“ While in the presence of a situation that lowers self-feeling, even though persons may not be connected with the situation, it is a common characteristic to refer the anger to some person. The bounds of justice may be, for the moment, overstepped. The dim awareness with some, that the person is not to be blamed, is ignored for the time, while the tendency is strongest in consciousness to give expression to the emotion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This principle of compensation in the after-period is thus to be utilized in discipline. It may be a good plan deliberately to bring a moody pupil to the point of anger and let him vent his wrath. Any punishment in discipline has the possibilities of being dangerous to school control, especially with the student of pugnacious disposition, if the justice of the punishment cannot be recognized by the offending pupil. Evidently a mistake in control is not to recognize the individual differences in emotional life and to attempt to use the discipline of fear with an irascible boy who knows no fear. ”

“ THE CONTRARY REACTION The second general type of reaction to anger is what we have called contrary reaction. The subject suddenly reacts contrary to the emotive tendency of the emotion. He behaves contrary to what he actually wishes at the time. Religion and morals have idealized this type of behavior in its extreme form. “Turn the other cheek,” “Love your enemy,” “Do good to those that hate you,” are exhortations of more than one religion. ”

“ The feeling of friendliness toward the offender may follow anger which has been successfully expressed. Spinoza was right when he said, “An act of offense may indirectly give origin to love.” It is frequently observed in the after-period of anger, “I felt more friendly toward him after my emotion had disappeared.” In fact an unusual friendliness with a desire to bestow favors was often observed. We like a man better after we have been angry at him in a successful manner. The emotional attitude is entirely changed toward an opponent who has been overcome, if he allows the victory. ”

“ The second condition for the expression of anger is that in which reaction is an end in itself. It may be said that while on the one hand from a genetic and utilitarian point of view the function of anger is to do work, to aid in behavior, where increased willed action is needed; on the other, the mere expressional side in connection with feeling and impulse assumes an important role in every emotion. In fact with intense and exciting anger, utility may be ignored and actually thwarted, volitional action is exerted contrary to objective needs. ”

“ The mass of mankind are sluggish and need a hearty resentment as a stimulant. If the circumstances are too soft and easy, the best which is in a man may be dormant; there is no tonic to a strong nature capable of bearing it like anger. ”

“ The boy who has not the capacity for anger should be deliberately taught it by some means. Göthe, who was a rather keen observer of human nature, said, “With most of us the requisite intensity of passion is not forth-coming without an element of resentment, and common sense and careful observation will I believe confirm the opinion that few people who amount to anything are without a good capacity for hostile feelings upon which they draw freely when they need it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ I recall yet how in practicing and writing in contests during the two years of my college work my aim principally was to surpass this person. We were good friends all the time.”
Such tenuous resentments which persist for years, it may be, against people with whom one is on friendly terms, and which are accompanied by a rather sudden rise in the curve of personal growth, are evidently an essential part of the anger consciousness. Smaller achievements of individual worth are often reported to be the direct result of a healthy sort of reaction from resentment. ”

“ For a time during the most intense stage of the emotion, he almost loses the sense of justice; but as the emotion begins to die down, he has a habit of excusing the offender and looking at his side of the question. His anger is frequently followed by pity, remorse, shame and fear. The emotion is both pleasant and unpleasant. The disappearance is usually unpleasant and leaves a wealth of affective tendencies and mental attitudes which are later a source of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. ”

“ First, if the mental situation from which anger arises is changed directly by the addition of a new idea that gives an entirely new meaning content to the incident so that it will no longer be humiliating or irritating, as when the subject can thoroughly come to believe that the motives of the opponent’s offense were not hostile but friendly, anger disappears rather successfully with no unpleasant after effects; the anger is cut off directly at its source. ”

“ Any anger possesses possibilities of pleasantness in its after-stage. If an objective victory cannot be had, a subjective one plays the part of a surrogate. The processes of imagination, make-believe and disguise, as previously discussed, become devices directly referring to the aim of pleasurable feelings in the after-period of anger. The motivation is to avoid the unpleasant emotions and feelings in the wake of anger and acquire the feeling of victory. The tendency to humor and jocular behavior after anger is sometimes observed. ”

“ After the anger has gone so far, the subject suddenly assumes a friendly attitude as if there were no emotion.
There are various conditions under which this sort of mental reaction to anger occurs. It is a frequent device in a social situation when there is rising anger and it becomes necessary to adopt a sudden and quick control. It is forced upon the subject to meet a sudden crisis. He may at once assume an over-friendly or over-polite behavior, when in reality he would like to behave in a hostile manner. A little over-solicitude for the offender may be conspicuously displayed. ”

“ To acquire good habits of behavior when under fire, to fight clean and to the finishing point, to take defeat in a sportsman-like manner, are valuable acquisitions educationally whether they are acquired in athletics or the rivalry of intellectual work. On the other hand, athletics and mental contests may be carried on under conditions of emotional reaction, which defeat the aim of healthy emotional habits and consequently lack their better educational significance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some extreme cases the subject may assume a make-believe attitude and trump up reasons to suit his own ends regardless of the facts. The tendency is strong to give some justifiable expression to the present mental predicament. In such cases reason serves the purpose of feeling. All other mental processes may become subservient to the rising indignation till the point of anger is reached, but with the expression of anger, the illusion of fairness usually disappears. The behavior that seemed so commendable while angry may excite shame or regret after the emotion has been vented. ”

“ It may be said that anger which disappears in an unsatisfactory manner leaves an emotional disposition which possesses potentialities of both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Some persons seem to derive much satisfaction in picking the sores of their unhealed resentments; little acts of revenge and retaliation are suddenly hit upon; even hate may have its pleasures. Small acts of revenge and retaliation are observed with an affective state which cannot be called anger, but the subject is aware that it refers to the anger which is passed. ”

“ Shame may follow in the wake of anger. It arises rather suddenly in the disappearing stage of the emotion when attention is directed to the results of the angry behavior just finished. Both shame and pity, following anger, are usually a condition of immunity against the reappearance of the same emotion. After shame appears, a reaction usually follows in the effort to compensate in some fashion. ”

“ Anger may disappear successfully and satisfactorily on the side of the feelings. The subject may attain the full sense of victory by a number of devices of make-believe, substitution, disguise, etc. An inner victory may be a good thing. In fact, all subjects would, at times, resort to imaginative processes motivated by the feeling and impulsive side of the emotion. A subjective satisfaction may in fact save the day, clear the mental atmosphere, so to speak, and allow mental life to continue along its habitual lines. ”

“ It is a desirable personal equipment to have strong potentialities of anger. However there should be a mentality which is versatile and active enough by training and habit to react successfully to the emotion, in the first place to use such reservoirs of energy for work, and second, to react satisfactorily from the feeling-side, where the instinctive tendencies are restrained, and break up morbid and unpleasant mental tension which may be an inference. ”

“ Education has to do with the function of anger in human needs, in growth and development and in mental hygiene. Ethics has at times advocated the elimination of anger as if it were a noxious product. From a pedagogical view, it should be cultivated and excited aright. The familiar moral exhortations, “Let not the sun go down on your wrath,” “Love your enemies and do good to those that hate you,” and others like them, are in accord with some satisfactory individual reactions to anger from the feeling side, which have been cited ”

“ A second point of which the writer is convinced, is that in order to study the emotions, especially the deep seated primary emotions like fear and anger, it is necessary to take into account the finer working of the emotion in its feeling and impulsive stage of development and disappearance. In fact, the milder tenuous emotions of anger are markedly important from the educational side as well as psychologically. The normal function of the emotion is better exemplified in the less intense experiences. Anger, as it is usually thought of, is the emotion in its excited uncontrolled stage. ”

“ The reaction while the emotion is present, and the way in which the emotion disappears, are conditions which determine to a large extent what will consciously appear after the emotion has passed away. ”

“ If anger is immediately followed by such emotions as pity, shame, regret or fear, any positive tendency left over in the remote after-period from the emotion itself is apparently lacking. There is, however, a negative effect. The subject is immune to re-experience the same emotion from the same emotional situation again, but anger which has disappeared with unpleasant feelings may tend to recur in a rather prolonged after-period and may finally settle into an emotional disposition and mental attitude which play an important role in behavior and later feelings. ”

“ Whatever will increase ideals and new desires, achievements in school which allow a better opinion of self and build up the sentiment of self-regard, of fairness and justice, are at work at the very root of anger consciousness. The study of the mental situation 96from which anger arises allows every reason to believe that when there is a lack of potentialities to anger, it may be built up in this indirect manner. The student who lacks good healthy resentment when the proper stimulus is at hand evidently is weak in the sentiment of self-regard, desire to achieve, or sense of fairness. ”