Psychology and Pedagogy of Anger by Roy Franklin Richardson (most difficult books to read TXT) 📖

The anger consciousness is one of variability and change. The emotion may disappear rather suddenly with the appearance of a new emotion or it may disappear gradually. There are usually fluctuating nodes of increasing and diminishing intensity accompanying the changing direction of attention, ideational behavior, and motor and mental activity in general. Attention again to the situation exciting anger tends to increase its intensity, if the situation from which it arises remains unchanged.

Any behavior, whether mental or motor, which changes the total mental situation from which anger originates, tends to modify the emotion itself. This total mental situation cannot remain unchanged long. The affective processes which have been aroused usually serve to redirect attention again and again to the situation exciting anger. The aim of angry behavior may be said to be three fold, referring to the total mental situation from which the three main types of anger arise; (1) to enhance self-feeling which has been lowered; (2) to get rid of the opposing obstacle to the continuity of associative processes; (3) to recover from one’s wounded sense of justice.

The total feeling situation becomes modified in the course of the disappearance or diminution of the emotion. Anger which springs from a fore-period of irritable feelings disappears by a different set of ideas than from anger arising from a fore-period of negative self-feeling.

Pleasantness is an important condition in the diminution of anger. There are but few instances that show no pleasantness in some degree somewhere in the reactive stage of the emotion. The pleasantness ranges from momentary mild relief to active delight. Periods of restraint during anger are periods of unpleasantness. Periods of lessened restraint are accompanied by relief or pleasantness. Two periods in the development of anger are most unpleasant. (1) The entire cumulative development of anger is unpleasant. It is a frequent observation in the immediate fore-period, “I wanted to get angry at somebody or something, I felt I would feel better if I did.” (2) Often during the active stage of anger, there are found one or more periods of unpleasant inhibition and restraint. This is often a stage of experiment in imagination, foreseeing unpleasant results of too drastic behavior, inhibiting, choosing and selecting in the effort to discover some reaction which may successfully meet the emotional crisis of the moment. There are cases of anger with all the persons studied, which do not get beyond this inhibitive unpleasant stage. Anger may be almost entirely unpleasant or mostly pleasant. Some persons have a greater mental versatility than others in finding a successful expression to anger, consequently they have relatively a greater proportion of pleasantness. Under the influence of fatigue, the ability for successful expression is lessened and there is a correspondingly increased tendency to emotive excitation and decreased emotional control.

When a fully successful reaction is not found, anger dies hard. It may become necessary to attend to something else voluntarily for self protection. Anger disappearing unsuccessfully tends to recur again and again, it may be. Its reappearance frequently allows the unpleasant initial stage to be shortened or dropped entirely leaving a mildly pleasant experience.

Anger disappears suddenly and pleasantly if the subject can gain the subjective end of the emotion. Subject J. observes in the case of an anger arising from a feeling of irritation, “At this moment (the moment of successful expression) I felt pleased, my anger now disappeared leaving a pleasant after-effect.” A case from A. will illustrate further. A. got on the wrong street car. The conductor refused to allow him to get off at his corner of the street. He observes he was angry, not because he was hindered from getting off, but because of the insulting attitude and remark of the conductor, who said in a hostile manner, “Why did you not pay attention to what I said, this car does not stop, you will have to go on.” A. then became angry and demanded in rather severe language to have the car stopped. At this point the conductor changed his attitude and stopped with no further words. A. observes, “As I stepped off I had a distinct feeling of pleasantness. I felt I had been victorious. I was no longer angry. Sensations were still present in chest, arm and leg muscles but these were now pleasant. Upon recalling the incident, I had not the least resentment against the conductor. On the whole, I now felt glad the incident had occurred.”

Pleasantness may appear on the observation of the offender’s failure or humiliation. C. becoming angry at X., who was manipulating some laboratory apparatus, observes, “I let him proceed rather hoping he would spoil his results. When I noted he was failing and observed his discomposure, I felt pleased. That satisfied my anger against him at once.”

The imaginal humiliation and trouble coming to the offender, also increases the feeling of pleasantness and diminishes for the moment the anger. The imaginative verbal or physical attacks usually allow a subject to come out victor. What D. observes is typical. “I imagined he was stunned by my attack, and the result pleased me; that satisfied my anger.”

If the offender acts friendly and accommodating, that affords a relief to the offended person and is a condition for the rapid disappearance of anger. F. observes, “He behaved so friendly that I thanked him and felt relieved. My anger was now almost gone.” C. became angry at X. for what he had interpreted as a hostile attitude. Five minutes later X. sat down by him. C. observes, “He acted sociable and I felt relieved, my anger was entirely gone, in fact I now felt quite friendly toward him.” It is also commonly reported that when the offender becomes submissive, it affords a relief to the subject and usually kills the emotion. C. observes, “After he had submitted, my anger had disappeared and I now felt a little repentant at what I had done.” The same subject sometimes observes that he imagines the absent offender at whom he is angry, smiling and acting friendly in the usual way, and the imagined friendly attitude is a relief to the emotion.

Anger which develops from a fore-period of negative self-feeling, disappears when the subject is able to acquire a positive feeling attitude toward the offender. It may be accomplished subjectively. The subject tends to lower his opinion of his opponent, he enjoys an idle gossip, it may be, at his expense, recalls ill reports he had previously heard but ignored, and in fact may employ a number of devices of imagination and make-believe. He at times tends to magnify the offender’s unworthiness, and may come to the conclusion that he is scarcely worth troubling about. Mental behavior of this sort is commonly reported to enhance self-feeling. On the other hand the subject may accomplish the same end by magnifying his own personal feelings directly by dwelling on his own good qualities and worth in comparison with that of the offender. Such comparisons are almost always to the disadvantage of the opponent. Subject C., in a controversy with X., became angry and walked away when the emotion was still intense. “I now began to recall how insignificant he is and how important I am. He is narrow, pedantic and incapable of seeing a large point of view. I am not so narrow. All was slightly pleasant and was accompanied by a decreased intensity of my emotion. I now met X. and joked with him; my anger was entirely gone.” The feeling of superiority kills anger of the type which arises from a fore-period of humiliation. It has already been indicated that when a positive feeling is maintained in receiving an injury, anger does not arise. The would-be offender if he is regarded as unworthy or unaccountable for his act, does not usually excite anger. The same person, however, may stimulate anger by a process of increased irritable feelings. Subject A. beginning to get angry at X., (a person he holds in low esteem) observes the following association. “Oh, it is just X., no use in my getting angry at a fellow like that, he is not responsible anyway, and I would be foolish to be bothered by him. I had started to ridicule him but now my emotion was gone.”

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.

With a third condition for the disappearance of anger, pleasantness is present but usually in the form of mild relief. Positive self-feeling is not so clearly marked in consciousness. The subject looks at the offender’s point of view, finds excuses for his behavior, elevates his opinion it may be of him. A new idea is added to the mental situation exciting anger which entirely alters the feeling content, and consequently anger disappears. Subject I. observes, “When I finally concluded that X. meant well, my anger was almost gone.” G. resentful at X. because he did not speak to him states, “I recalled suddenly that he is cross-eyed and probably did not see me. I said