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Anger or wrath is an intense expression of emotion.
Anger involves a strong uncomfortable and hostile response to a perceived provocation, either hurt or threat.
It can occur when one feels their personal boundaries are being or are about to be violated.
In some it is a learned tendency to react to anger through retaliation as a way of coping.
May be startified into three modalities: cognitive, somatic-affective and behavioral.
Often associated with physical conditions, such as increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline.
It may trigger part of the fight or flight brain response.
It is used as a protective mechanism to cover up fear, hurt or sadness.
The conscious choice to act to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force, anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically.
Anger is expressed externally by facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and sometimes public acts of aggression.
Facial expressions can manifest from inward angling of the eyebrows to a full frown.
Anger behavior is designed to warn aggressors to stop their threatening behavior.
Anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability.
Rarely does a physical altercation occur without the prior expression of anger..
It is a primary, natural, and mature emotion experienced by virtually all people at times.
Anger has functional value for survival.
It is a supportive mechanism to show a person that something is wrong and requires changing.
It can mobilize psychological resources for corrective action.
Uncontrolled anger can, however, negatively affect personal or social well-being, and impact negatively on those around them.
It is equally challenging to be around an angry person.
It can cause psychological/emotional trauma if not dealt with.
It can be used as a manipulation strategy for social influence.
Hasty and sudden anger is connected to the impulse for self-preservation, and is episodic.
Settled and deliberate anger is a reaction to perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others, and is episodic in nature.
Dispositional anger with Irritability, sullenness, and churlishness, is related more to character traits than to instincts or cognitions.
It can mobilize psychological resources and boost determination toward correction of wrong behaviors, promotion of social justice, communication of negative sentiment, and redress of grievances.
It can be destructive when it does not find its appropriate outlet in expression.
In its strong form, impairs one’s ability to process information and to exert cognitive control over their behavior.
An angry person may lose his/her objectivity, empathy, prudence or thoughtfulness and may cause harm to themselves or others.
There is distinction between anger and aggression, (that is verbal or physical, direct or indirect) , even though they mutually influence each other.
Anger can activate aggression or increase its probability or intensity.
Anger is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for aggression.
Anger, when viewed as a protective response or instinct to a perceived threat, is considered as positive.
The negative expression of anger is known as aggression.
Acting on this misplaced state is rage due to possible potential errors in perception and judgment.
Mild irritation and annoyance are at the low end and fury or murderous rage at the high end of an emotional continuum.
Rage is associated with the inability to process emotions or experiences either because the capacity to regulate has never been sufficiently developed or because it has been temporarily lost due to more recent trauma.
Rage is undifferentiated emotions, acted out when another life event that cannot be processed, puts more stress on the individual than it can bear
There are three types of anger: passive anger, aggressive anger, and assertive anger.
Passive anger can be expressed in the following ways:
Dispassion- cold shoulder or a fake smile, looking unconcerned, dampening feelings.substance abuse, overreacting, oversleeping, not responding to another’s anger, frigidity, giving inordinate amounts of time to machines, objects or intellectual pursuits, talking of frustrations but showing no feeling.
Evasiveness-as turning one’s back in a crisis, avoiding conflict, not arguing back.
Defeatism-setting yourself and others up for failure, choosing unreliable people to depend on, being accident prone, underachieving, sexual impotence, expressing frustration at insignificant things but ignoring serious ones.
Obsessive behavior
Psychological manipulation
Secretive behavior
Self-blame
Aggressive anger is associated with:
Bullying
Destructiveness.
Grandiosity.
Hurtfulness.
Risk-taking behavior.
Selfishness
Threats
Unjust blaming
Unpredictability
Vengeance
Assertive anger
Blame
Punishment.
Sternness
Anger does not have a discrete external cause.
An angry individuals usually finds the cause of their anger in an another person’s behavior.
Associated with a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability as a result of their emotion.
Anger origination may be multiple and remote, but patients rarely find more than one cause for their anger.
Associated with a reduction in cognitive ability and processing of external stimuli
Dangers seem smaller, actions seem less risky, ventures seem more likely to succeed, and unfortunate events seem less likely.
Anger is more likely to be associated with risky decisions, and less realistic risk assessments.
Angered people think more negatively and prejudiced about outsiders, less trusting, and slower to attribute good qualities to outsiders.
Angry people are more likely to blame a person’s behavior more on their nature than on circumstances.
Associated with placing. more blame on another person for their own misery.
Angry individuals tend to rely more on stereotypes, and pay less attention to details and more attention to the superficial.
Angered patients anticipate events that might cause them anger.
Anger can be an effective manipulation strategy in order to change and design attitudes, and to influence social relationships.
Angry patients are perceived as stubborn, dominant and powerful.
An anger event requires making a choice of behavior: a hostile action, including overt violence, hostile inaction, such as withdrawing or stonewalling, harboring resentment; or working to better understand and constructively resolve the issue.
Patients should try imagery-based relief of recent angry experiences.
To reduce anger treatment involves restructuring thoughts and beliefs by cognitive behavioral therapy, and can bring their anger to more manageable levels.
Relaxation skills to control arousal and various cognitive controls to exercise attention, thoughts, images, and feelings are required.
Since poor social skills renders a person incapable of expressing anger in an appropriate manner. social skill training may reduce anger by offering alternative coping skills.
Suppression of anger may have harmful effects, leading to physical symptoms, or become more aggressive.
Widespread deflection of anger from its actual cause toward scapegoating,
Suppressed or anger is found to cause irritable bowel syndrome, eating disorders, and depression among women, and higher rates of suicide.
Anger expression may decrease of productivity and increase of job stress,
Anger, however could also have positive outcomes, such as increased work motivation, improved relationships, increased mutual understanding.
Neuroimaging studies of anger most consistently activated region of the brain was the lateral orbitofrontal cortex.
Emotional significance of the sensory data is done when the data passes through the amygdala in its travel from the sensory organs along certain neural pathways towards the limbic forebrain.
Emotion caused by thoughts, or memories however occurs when its information is relayed from the thalamus to the neocortex.
Anger activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, with catecholamine release of norepinephrine and epinephrine.
Anger expression can be found in physiological responses as facial expressions, body language, and at times in acts of aggression.
During anger breathing becomes faster, deeper, and irregular, and the rib cage tenses, the heart rate and blood pressure increases, the face flushes, nostrils flare, sweat increases, the jaw tightens, and the brow moves down and in.
The body is mobilized for immediate action, and The arms are raised and a squared-off stance is adopted as a sense of strength, self-assurance, and potency.
Physiologically anger encourages the impulse to strike out.