Appendix V. Excerpt
Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion
by Carol Tavris
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982
The following excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 3 of Dr. Tarviss book, is included for educational purposes only, as an example of the kinds of materials that can be used to discuss this topic. Additional copies may be reprinted only for educational use and are not to be duplicated for profit.
3. The Anatomy of Anger
O, preposterous and frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen!
--Richard III, II, iv
When you get angry, what happens to your body? How do you feel? Try to recall
a recent incident of anger and compare your reactions to the following list of
symptoms:
--changes of muscle tension
--scowling
--grinding of teeth
--glaring
--clenching your fists
--changes of arms and position of body
--flushing (getting red in face or body)
--paling (losing color)
--goose bumps
--chills and shudders
--prickly sensations
--numbness
--choking
--twitching
--sweating
--losing selfcontrol
--feeling hot
--feeling cold
These are a few of the items from the first modern, scientific effort to study anger. In 1894, psychologist G. Stanley Hall collected 2184 questionnaires from people who answered his complicated queries in revealing detail, and Hall certainly wanted detail. He asked people to provide examples of their angriest episodes--what provoked them, what they did, how they felt later, any physical and mental changes. By todays standards, Halls survey was too demanding, unsystematic, and imprecise. It was also lots of fun, and its findings entirely contemporary.
One of Halls most curious results was the physical variation in peoples
experiences of anger. Some said that anger made them feel good, and others that
it made them feel sick. "I have found it a not altogether unpleasant sensation
to be in a great rage," wrote one informant; "It wakes me up and makes me feel
very much alive." But another said, "I am often frightened that I can get so
angry, and often have a nervous headache later." And some reported they had
both reactions, depending on circumstance:
When angry I feel all of a sudden burning hot, stifled and compelled to make a noise. Sometimes I grow icy cold and feel as if I was all blancmange inside. This feeling is worse than the heat, for I seem to be a stone.
Halls respondents told him that anger produced "cardiac sensations, headaches, nosebleed, mottling of face, dizziness," tears, snarls, or "a complete inability to vocalize."
This array of physical reactions to anger was matched by the array of causes of anger. One category of provocation was what we might call the Stupid Inanimate Object, the idiot thing that produces immediate (usually brief) fury. "Our returns abound," wrote Hall calmly, "in cases of pens angrily broken because they would not write, brushes and pencils thrown that did not work well, buttonholes and clothes torn, mirrors smashed, slates broken, paper crushed, toys destroyed, knives, shoes, books thrown or injured, etc. When inanimate objects dont behave as they "ought, said Hall--There is that moralizing ought again--we lapse momentarily into the childs confusion between objects that are alive and those that are not, and act as if the offending brick, pen, or tool were capable of feeling our resentment. By so doing, naturally, we compound the injury--as when you kick the vending machine that has swallowed your quarter, thereby breaking your toe. You are not alone.
But another category of anger was more cerebral, and consisted of the idiosyncrasies, the "special aversions" that irritate us. These are the habits and affectations that some people have, no matter how nice or kind they are otherwise, you want to throttle them for. One hundred and thirty women spontaneously told Hall that earrings on men were abhorrent to them. (I was surprised that enough men were wearing earrings in 1894 for this to be of such concern.) Men and women alike reported irritation at "thumb rings, bangs, frizzes, short hair in women, hat on one side, baldness, too much style or jewelry, single eye glass, flashy ties, heavy watch chains, many rings," and the like.
But it was the third category of angry incidents, anger caused by one persons treatment of another, that drew the greatest numbers and the greatest passion: Injustice. Stupidity (ones own or anothers). Cheaters. Bootlickers (the modern equivalent still infuriates, although the term has advanced up the anatomy). Insults. Condescension: "To be treated as if I were of no account." One woman summarized the lot:
The chief causes are contradiction, especially if I am right; slights, especially to my parents or friends, even more than myself; to have my veracity questioned; the sight of my older brother smoking when we are poor; injustice, dislike or hate from those who fear to speak right out; being tired and out of sorts, etc. In the latter mood the least thing [will make me angry] like finding books out of place stupidity in people who will not understand--these make me feel as a cat must when stroked the wrong way.
The angers that fell in this category seemed to combine both physical reactions, in all their startling variety, and mental perceptions of insult, condescension, and the like, in all of their startling variety.