Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 52 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  31 “When you built your shrine altar for prostitution at the beginning of every street and made your high place in every public square, you were not like a prostitute because you refused payment. 32 “You adulterous wife, who welcomes and receives strangers instead of her husband! 33 “Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers, bribing the pagan nations to come to you [as allies] from every direction for your obscene immoralities. 34 “And you are different from other [unfaithful] women in your promiscuity, in that no one follows you to lure you into prostitution, and because you give money and no money is given you; in this way you are different.” 35 Therefore, O prostitute [Israel], hear the word of the LORD . 36 Thus says the Lord GOD , “Because your lewdness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered through your obscene immoralities with your lovers (pagan allies), and with all your [repulsive] idols, and because of the blood of your sons that you gave to them, 37 therefore, listen, I will gather all your lovers (pagan allies) with whom you took pleasure, and all those whom you loved with all those whom you hated; I will even gather them against you from every direction and will expose your nakedness to them that they may see all your nakedness [making you, Israel, an object of loathing and of mockery, a spectacle among the nations]. 38 “And I [the Lord GOD ] will judge you like women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy. [Num 5:18 ] 39 “I will also hand you over to your lovers, and they will tear down your shrines, demolish your high places, strip you of your clothing, take away your jewels, and they will leave you naked and bare. 40 “They will also incite a crowd against you and they will stone you and slaughter you with their swords. 41 “They will burn down your houses with fire and execute judgments on you in the sight of many women (Gentile nations). Then I will make you cease your prostitution, and you will no longer hire your lovers. 42 “So I will calm My wrath toward you and My jealousy [resulting from being denied what is rightfully and uniquely mine] will turn away from you; I will be pacified and no longer angry. 43 “Because you have not remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me with all these things, therefore, I in turn will bring your conduct down on your own head,” says the Lord GOD , “so that you will not commit this lewdness on top of all your other repulsive acts. 44 “Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb against you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ 45 “You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her children.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  As I’ve been discussing the factors that contribute to the experiences and expressions of angry people, I’ve not yet gotten to what I believe is the most important part: the worldview of the angry person. Because despite these genetic, neurological, developmental, and environmental contributions, the best predictor of whether or not someone is angry is their outlook. How they see the world, how they view other people, and how they interpret the circumstances right in front of them matter most. One of the things we know is that some people will habitually and consistently look at those circumstances in a way that makes them angry. * I do think this study is fascinating and it’s informed a lot of my work. That said, I probably wouldn’t have called the positive condition “euphoric.” Maybe... “mildly upbeat?” † Sounds just like euphoria, doesn’t it? * The “performative” nature of their anger as Sarah described it sure makes it seem like they are intentionally playing the stooge here. * Remember that anger is just the feeling and not the action. Someone can be angry at a protest without being aggressive or violent. In fact, if they are at a protest, they are probably angry about something. † We could really go down a rabbit hole here depending on how we define violence. Those anti-ACA protesters at the event that Reichert was at were attempting to prevent meaningful healthcare reform in the United States. Millions of Americans die every year from inadequate health coverage, so though they likely didn’t think about it this way, they were advocating for the deaths of millions. Is that violence? CHAPTER 5 THE WORLDVIEWS OF ANGRY PEOPLE Reasoning on the Basis of False Assumptions You can learn a lot about a person’s belief system simply by listening to the statements they make when they are angry, sad, or scared. Moments of distress often bring out these quick, automatic statements that might reveal how they see themselves, how they see others, and how they perceive their own ability to cope. For instance, an angry person might use phrases like: People should just... They did that because... This happens every time... Well, now everything is ruined... Phrases like this are what Dr. Aaron Beck, a brilliant and prolific psychiatrist, author, and scholar, described as automatic thoughts, and he believed that they offered an important window into how people view themselves and others. He also saw these thoughts as evidence of what causes most psychological distress. In fact, in 1986 he said: “Most psychological problems center on incorrectly appraising life’s stresses, reasoning on the basis of false assumptions and jumping to self-defeating conclusions.” 46 It’s difficult to truly put into words how influential Dr. Beck was in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. It wasn’t just that he was prolific, having published more than 20 books, countless journal articles and book chapters, as well as quite a few psychological tests. It was that he paved the way for a new

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  people violate those rules, they get angry. This may include some demandingness, blaming, mindreading, or even personalizing the behaviors of others. They put their own needs ahead of the needs of others, assume the worst of people and their motivations, and might even assign blame where it doesn’t belong. For Ephraim, this all-or-nothing thinking could be seen in how he jumped to conclusions regarding people’s thoughts about him. He made assumptions about how people viewed him and those assumptions influenced his emotions. If he thought they thought he was stupid or that they could do things better than him, he got angry. He admitted that he had no reason to assume they thought those things about him, but he jumped to that conclusion without evidence and got angry as a result. Cognitive therapists have identified a number of these types of thoughts, not just related to anger, but associated more generally with emotional problems. Here is a shortlist of some of these thoughts with examples of how they connect to anger (note, though, that these thought types overlap considerably with one another). Misattributing causation or blaming: This is when people misinterpret what caused a situation or assign blame incorrectly. They might make assumptions about why a person did something or simply blame the wrong person. In the case of anger, this can be heard in statements like, “I bet he did that because...” or “They did that on purpose.” Demandingness: This is when people put their own wants and desires ahead of the wants and desires of other people. They decide their needs are more important than the needs of others. When a waiter is slower than they would like, they might respond with “I don’t care what he is doing, he needs to get over here.” Other-directed shoulds: A variation on demandingness, other-directed shoulds are when people have strict beliefs about the ways that people should act. These rules may be consistent or inconsistent with the rules other people have (such as people should say please and thank you,

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  obviously wants to go faster, riding on your bumper. When you do have a chance to get over, they pass you on the right and then intentionally cut you off as a way of getting back at you for going slower than they wanted. I then asked them what they might do in that situation. The idea was to get a sense for how people perceive the importance of revenge. Would they do nothing, honk, somehow go after the person, and so on. More than 2,000 people responded, many of them just answering the question I had posed. But many people responded, not with an answer to the question I asked, but with a repudiation of the scenario, telling me they would never be in this situation because they wouldn’t drive as poorly as the person in my example. Specifically, they said they would have driven faster, gotten over quicker when they had the chance, or signaled earlier so the person wouldn’t pass them on the right. For the record, I think the protagonist in my example was driving responsibly and safely, but that isn’t really the point here. What was interesting was how quickly so many people gravitated toward blaming not the obvious offender in the example, but the victim of that offense. They weren’t mad at the person who intentionally cut someone off. Rather they were mad at the person they thought was driving too slow and not getting over quickly enough. Most of them stopped short of implying the person deserved to be cut off, but plenty of people implied that the initial driver was the one in the wrong.* To me, this is a really interesting example of the way in which expectations of others and unwritten rules for behavior can play such a significant role in one’s anger. People had their own ideas about how drivers should drive. Those ideas were not consistent with most laws (the offender in this scenario broke far more laws than the protagonist). Rather, their expectations were based on their own sense of what is right and wrong for how people should drive. They had these informal and clearly not universal norms for how to behave on the road, and they were mad not at the person who broke multiple actual laws, but at the person who violated their unwritten rules. † This is one of the hallmarks of an angry personality. They often have some relatively strict rules for how people should behave, feel, and think, and when

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Do people of our day and age really behave in this “vile” manner or are these actions merely the product of a “diseased” mind? (Does one refer to such authors as Petronius, Rabelais, Rousseau, Sade, to mention but a few, as “diseased minds”?) Surely some of you must have friends or neighbors, in good standing too, who have indulged in this questionable behavior, or worse. As a man of the world, I know only too well that the appanage of a priest’s frock, a judicial robe, a teacher’s uniform provides no guarantee of immunity to the temptations of the flesh. We are all in the same pot, we are all guilty, or innocent, depending on whether we take the frog’s view or the Olympian view. For the nonce I shall refrain from pretending to measure or apportion guilt, to say, for example, that a criminal is more guilty, or less, than a hypocrite. We do not have crime, we do not have war, revolution, crusades, inquisitions, persecution and intolerance because some among us are wicked, mean-spirited, or murderers at heart; we have this malignant condition of human affairs because all of us, the righteous as well as the ignorant and the malicious, lack true forbearance, true compassion, true knowledge and understanding of human nature. To put it as succinctly and simply as possible, here is my basic attitude towards life, my prayer, in other words: “Let us stop thwarting one another, stop judging and condemning, stop slaughtering one another.” I do not implore you to suspend or withhold judgment of me or my work. Neither I nor my work is that important. (One cometh, another goeth.) What concerns me is the harm you are doing to yourselves. I mean by perpetuating this talk of guilt and punishment, of banning and proscribing, of whitewashing and blackballing, of closing your eyes when convenient, of making scapegoats when there is no other way out. I ask you point blank—does the pursuance of your limited role enable you to get the most out of life? When you write me off the books, so to speak, will you find your food and wine more palatable, will you sleep better, will you be a better man, a better husband, a better father than before? These are the things that matter—what happens to you , not what you do to me . I know that the man in the dock is not supposed to ask questions, he is there to answer. But I am unable to regard myself as a culprit. I am simply “out of line.” Yet I am in the tradition, so to say. A list of my precursors would make an impressive roster. This trial has been going on since the days of Prometheus.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  I would put the Bible on one shelf and all this homicidal literature on another shelf. I would say: If you look at the one, then you must look at the other also. I would make a clean cleavage between the book in which it is commanded not to kill and all the other books in which human slaughter, slaughter en masse, is taught, explained, approved and exemplified. I would divide family against family, brother against brother, on this single question. Act according to your conscience, I would urge. Either it is going to be one world or no world before long. If you are for the world of death, enlist in it immediately! Do not confound us with your indecision. Do not speak of morality if your ultimate aim is to collaborate in the destruction of our world. Between the Bible and the slaughter-house manuals lies the world of literature, evolved through human passion, hunger and imagination, and dealing with human thought, deed, dream and aspiration. It is a world drawn from life, concerned only with life, and sustaining life. If there is death in it it is but to the extent that it lacks fire, depth, freedom and choice. If this vast product of creative energy were a celebration of death it would be nothing more than a mockery. We know full well that, whatever its defeats or limitations, this great body of creation represents the triumph of life over death. And so I make bold to say that no matter how vile, filthy, scabrous, scatalogical or obscene a book may be, if it serves life, if it aims at the cancer which is eating out the heart of the world, it is a good book, a righteous book, a holy book. To say of it that it is immoral, to call it pornographic or obscene, is like talking of spittle in connection with the hydrogen bomb. There is no book yet written devastating enough to wipe from the consciousness of living man the horrors to which he is now privy, the horrors which he is being asked to accept in advance in return for the privilege of belonging to a civilization which has virtually converted him into an unthinking, unfeeling monster. Monster, robot, slave, accursed one—it makes little difference which term one uses to convey the picture of our dehumanized condition. Never was mankind as a whole in a more ignoble condition than ours. We are all bound to one another in a disgraceful master-slave relationship; we are all caught in the same vicious circle of judge and be judged; we all aim to destroy one another if we cannot have our way.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  were using was intentionally defective. That meant that the participants could not win and get the reward they had been promised if they won.* They found that the group who had been given testosterone was no more aggressive than the other group, but this group was indeed angrier than that other group. This study is but one in a series of studies in the past 15 years to illustrate this interesting relationship, that exogenous testosterone seems to lead to increased anger, but not necessarily increased aggression. It is likely that at least some of this testosterone-induced anger is rooted in testosterone’s role in the desire for increased status. People who desire higher status are often angered when those desires are thwarted. It’s a form of goal- blocking. They want to be recognized for their accomplishments (job status, athletic accomplishment, or even a video game victory like the study above) and they feel angry when they either don’t achieve those goals or when they feel unrecognized. When they don’t get what they think they deserve, including recognition, they get mad. Taken together, what does all this mean? First, testosterone is associated with certain types of aggression in animals, but maybe not so much in humans. Second, testosterone is associated with status-seeking in both animals and humans. Third, experimental manipulations of testosterone demonstrate that it does cause angry responses to having one’s goals blocked. Finally, status seeking is likely associated with anger in humans. Consequently, the impact of testosterone on human anger and aggression is likely a combination of direct and indirect effects. High levels of testosterone increase the propensity for anger and aggression (direct) and high levels of testosterone lead to a desire for higher status, which increases the propensity for anger (indirect). Getting back to what started this discussion – how genetics might influence our anger – testosterone is undeniably predicted by our genes. We’ve had research on this for quite some time, but in the past decade alone, multiple studies have demonstrated through a variety of different methods that our genes explain testosterone levels. One of these studies included data from more than 400,000 participants and showed that (1) testosterone levels are inherited for both men and women and (2) those high levels also predict a variety of physical

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  Emoticons and emojis can be used to lighten mood and to signal something emotional that is unclear from the text.* A smiley face, for instance, might make it clear something was a joke or was intended to be lighthearted (for example, “That’s assuming I don’t quit my job before then. :)”). A sad face might signal that you are feeling particularly down about something (“I can’t go out tonight because I have an early morning meeting. :( ”). But they can also be used as a sort of passive-aggressive form of online communication where the author intends or pretends to lighten an aggressive comment with a smiley face or LOL (“Hopefully, you’ll be on time for once. LOL”). Ultimately, be thoughtful about what emotions you try to express this way and how you choose to express them. Have Someone Read Your Response Before You Send/Post It Emotionality, especially anger, can often act as a lens by which people interpret the things they read. That means that the person you are responding to might misunderstand the intent of what you wrote because they were angry at the time they read it. It is similarly possible that your own emotionality, in response to their anger, might influence what you wrote in ways you don’t realize. For both of these reasons, it’s smart to have someone read what you wrote before you send it or post it. Getting another pair of fresh eyes on it prior to sending it can offer some much-needed perspective. Ask Yourself Why You’re Responding To revisit something I talked about in chapter 6 , think about your goals for this particular situation. What is it you are trying to accomplish with this response? Is what you’re trying to accomplish a worthwhile or achievable goal? If not, what’s a different goal you can have in this situation? If it is worthwhile and achievable, what’s the best way to accomplish it? These are questions you should ask yourself before responding to online anger, because they should inform how you move forward. You should also remember that sometimes, maybe even often, choosing not to respond is a viable and reasonable option. For many people, this is a challenge. They feel so compelled to respond because of that defensiveness or desire for revenge that they don’t think clearly about what they really want from the interaction. Some goals might not be achievable (such as convincing an angry stranger on the internet that they are wrong about their politics).* Even when goals are achievable, accomplishing them requires a thoughtful and meaningful approach.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You must know, then, that there were once in Siena, as I have understood aforetime, two young men in easy enough case and of good city families, whereof one was named Spinelloccio Tanena and the other Zeppa di Mino, and they were next-door neighbours in Camollia.[394] These two young men still companied together and loved each other, to all appearance, as they had been brothers, or better; and each of them had a very fair wife. It chanced that Spinelloccio, by dint of much frequenting Zeppa's house, both when the latter was at home and when he was abroad, grew so private with his wife that he ended by lying with her, and on this wise they abode a pretty while, before any became aware thereof. However, at last, one day, Zeppa being at home, unknown to his wife, Spinelloccio came to call him and the lady said that he was abroad; whereupon the other came straightway up into the house and finding her in the saloon and seeing none else there, he took her in his arms and fell to kissing her and she him. Zeppa, who saw this, made no sign, but abode hidden to see in what the game should result and presently saw his wife and Spinelloccio betake themselves, thus embraced, to a chamber and there lock themselves in; whereat he was sore angered. But, knowing that his injury would not become less for making an outcry nor for otherwhat, nay, that shame would but wax therefor, he set himself to think what revenge he should take thereof, so his soul might abide content, without the thing being known all about, and himseeming, after long consideration, he had found the means, he abode hidden so long as Spinelloccio remained with his wife. [Footnote 394: _Quære_, the street of that name?]

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  20 ‘And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing nearby approving and consenting [to his death], and guarding the coats of those who were killing him.’ 21 “And the Lord said to me, ‘Go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ” 22 They listened to Paul until [he made] this [last] statement, but now they raised their voices and shouted, “Away with such a man from the earth! He is not fit to live!” 23 And as they were shouting and throwing off their coats [getting ready to stone Paul] and tossing dust into the air [expressing their anger], 24 the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, stating that he was to be e interrogated with a whip in order to learn why the people were shouting against him that way. 25 But when they had stretched him out f with the leather straps [in preparation for the whip], Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it legal for you to whip a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned [without a trial]?” 26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and said to him, “What are you about to do? This man is a g Roman!” 27 So the commander came and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” And he said, “Yes.” 28 The commander replied, “I h purchased this citizenship [of mine] for a large sum of money [so how did you acquire yours?].” Paul said, “But I was actually born a citizen .” 29 So those who were about to interrogate him by torture immediately let him go; and the commander was also afraid when he realized that Paul was a Roman and he had put him in chains. 30 But on the next day, wanting to know the real reason why Paul was being accused by the Jews, he released him and ordered the chief priests and the whole Council (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court) to assemble; and brought Paul down and presented him before them. Acts 23 Paul before the Council 1 T HEN PAUL, looking intently at the Council (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court), said, “Kinsmen, I have lived my life before God with a perfectly good conscience until this very day.” 2 [At this] the high priest a Ananias ordered those who stood beside him to strike Paul on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you b whitewashed wall!

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  17 She followed after Paul and us and kept screaming and shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming to you the way of salvation!” 18 She continued doing this for several days. Then Paul, being greatly annoyed and worn out, turned and said to the spirit [inside her], “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ [as His representative] to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment. 19 But when her owners saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities in the market place [where trials were held], 20 and when they had brought them before the chief magistrates, they said, “These men, who are Jews, are throwing our city into confusion and causing trouble. 21 “They are publicly teaching customs which are unlawful for us, as Romans, to accept or observe.” Paul and Silas Imprisoned 22 The crowd also joined in the attack against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and ordered that Paul and Silas be beaten with rods. [2 Cor 11:25 ] 23 After striking them many times [with the rods], they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely. 24 He, having received such a [strict] command, threw them into the inner prison (dungeon) and fastened their feet in the stocks [in an agonizing position]. 25 But about midnight when Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; 26 suddenly there was a great earthquake, so [powerful] that the very foundations of the prison were shaken and at once all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer, shaken out of sleep, saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, saying, “Do not hurt yourself, we are all here!” 29 Then the jailer called for torches and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30 and after he brought them out [of the inner prison], he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” The Jailer Converted 31 And they answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus [as your personal Savior and entrust yourself to Him] and you will be saved, you and your household [if they also believe].” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord [concerning eternal salvation through faith in Christ] to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their bloody wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household .

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword (His word) with which He may strike down the nations, and He will g rule them with a rod of iron; and He will tread the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty [in judgment of the rebellious world]. [Ps 2:9 ; Is 11:4 ; Rev 1:16 ] 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name inscribed, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” [Deut 10:17 ] Doom of the Beast and False Prophet 17 Then I saw a single angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he shouted to all the birds that fly in midheaven, saying, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, [Ezek 39:4 , 17–20 ] 18 so that you may feast on the flesh of kings, the flesh of commanders, the flesh of powerful and mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all humanity, both free men and slaves, both small and great [in a complete conquest of evil].” 19 Then I saw the beast and the kings and political leaders of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who is mounted on the [white] horse and against His army. 20 And the beast (Antichrist) was seized and overpowered, and with him the false prophet who, in his presence, had performed [amazing] signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were hurled alive into the lake of fire which blazes with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds fed ravenously and gorged themselves with their flesh. Revelation 20 Satan Bound 1 a A ND THEN I saw an angel descending from heaven, holding the key of the abyss (the bottomless pit) and a great chain was in his hand. 2 And he overpowered and laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent [of primeval times], who is the devil and Satan, and bound him [securely] for a thousand years (a millennium); [Rev 12:7–9 , 12 , 15 ] 3 and the angel hurled him into the abyss, and closed it and sealed it above him [preventing his escape or rescue], so that he would no longer deceive and seduce the nations, until the thousand years were at an end. After these things he must be liberated for a short time. The Millennial Reign 4 And then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom judgment [that is, the authority to act as judges] was given.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  * This quote is somewhat jaw-dropping when you consider what’s happened since it was written in 2014 and how public anger has informed those events. Both the 2016 and 2020 US elections were driven largely by anger, much of it propagated by social media. * Far from it. According to the 2012 study by Drs. Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman, news content that evokes high-arousal emotions, particularly anger or fear, are more likely to go viral. So the material that makes its way to you is likely to evoke those feelings. * My students once shared with me that a relatively common way to get revenge on someone is to intentionally post an unflattering photo of them online. I collected some data on it and found that, indeed, 4 per cent of participants had done this. I wouldn’t call that “common” but it’s definitely happening. It also got me wondering how many unflattering photos have been taken of me when I’m teaching and shared by angry students. * I can’t help but think back to what Dr. Rosenthal (chapter 4) said regarding crowds existing in an online world. We know one of the reasons why people do things in groups that they might not do alone is because they feel a sense of anonymity when they are in a crowd. The same psychological principles that drive in-person mobs may drive online mobs. * Can you think of any celebrities – or maybe even world leaders – who have a habit of taking to social media to express anger and hostility? * The origin of the emoticon reveals that it exists for exactly this purpose. When a joke was misunderstood on a message board at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982, one of the people involved in the online conversation, Scott E Fahlman, responded with “I propose the following character sequences for joke markers: :). Read it sideways.” I blame him every time one of my kids sends me a string of 20+ emojis devoid of any context or meaning I can discern. * People sometimes ask me why I choose to argue with people on the internet when I know that I’ll never change their mind. The answer is that I’m not really arguing with them and I’m certainly not intending to “win” the argument. I’m trying to convince the people who might be reading along. I’m using it as an opportunity to share my ideas with people who might not be sure how they feel yet.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  strategies like deep breathing or finding other ways to relax. At the time, I liked how simple this was, but I quickly discovered that it was too simple. People express their anger in a lot of different ways and these three or four categories just don’t cover it meaningfully enough. Some people play or listen to music when they get angry. Others write poetry. Some people find a good friend they can vent to or ask advice of, and others take to the internet to tell the world how angry they are. And beyond all this, there are all sorts of ways of thinking about angering events that differ in these moments, and these different ways of thinking lead to different ways of acting. A person who gets angry and begins catastrophizing (“This is going to ruin my day”) will express and manage their anger differently than someone who starts to refocus on the positive things in their life (“It could be worse”). These different thought types lead to different behaviors and this means that the angry people in our lives will look very different to us in the moment. Common Expressions of Anger Let’s break down some of the most common ways of behaving when you are angry. Physical or Verbal Aggression Physical and verbal aggression is what anger seems most known for. Some people express their anger by trying to harm someone or something either through physical means (hitting, pushing, shooting) or through abusive and cruel statements. They might give someone the finger while driving or scream obscenities at someone who slowed them down. This might also include a person who throws their remote at their television after their team loses a game or who slams a door and punches a wall. In these cases, it might not be that there was an intent to break something. Rather it was just an physically expressive approach to showing that anger. Even these outward aggressive expressions, though, can look differently

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  She was proud of who she was, but also described the work it took to get there. In fact, she said “I spent most of my 20s and part of my 30s dismantling the person I had become based on other people’s expectations of me.” As an adult, she dealt with serious anger problems. She described these problems as “reactive rage and the instinct to burn shit to the ground” every time she is triggered. Her anger came out under predictable circumstances: when she felt misunderstood or out of control. “That’s a huge trigger,” she said, “when my motives and my integrity is questioned.” She said she tries to hold herself to a high moral standard regarding how she treats people. When she is questioned, she personalizes it. She also described a lot of anger on the road. She drove a lot as part of her job, sometimes three or so hours per day. She said that the behavior of other drivers made her feel like she was taking her life into her hands every day at work. As she described it, driving provoked both a sense of helplessness and frustration regarding how other people behaved. This probably came back to the high moral standard she had for herself. She tried to be considerate and thoughtful and was angered by the thoughtlessness of others. How she expressed this rage depended on the circumstances. In the car, she would scream, swear, or honk her horn. In other circumstances, such as in close relationships, she would shut down. She would retreat inward and even into a “spiral of self-loathing and depression.” She said she hates conflict and tries to avoid it. She feels “out of control and helpless in that situation.” That’s why the car is the one place she expressed it outwardly. The car feels to her like a safe place because no one can hear her and because they are strangers. So where did all this come from for Simone? She told me that she’s just recently started to realize some things about her childhood and the impact it had. “From the outside looking in, I had a pretty privileged childhood and adolescence and upbringing,” she told me. “We lived in a house with a yard and drove big cars, and my father wore a suit and tie to work every day.” Her basic needs were more than met. She was clothed and fed and sheltered. Her parents had high standards for achievement so she did well in school and they helped pay for her advanced education. At the same time, though, Simone was suffering pretty severe emotional abuse and neglect. She was never allowed to express negative emotions.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  When people perceive situations as unfair, cruel, or interfering with their plans, they are more likely to become angry. This is where those thoughts I discussed in chapters 3 , 4 , and 5 come into play. People who often engage in all-or-nothing thinking, other-directed shoulds, or catastrophizing are much more likely to get angry. How Does This Understanding Help? So how does knowing this help you deal with an angry person? Well, an important tool for you is to be able to diagram that angry incident from their perspective. Try and understand their anger by evaluating these three elements of their angry experience. What was the precipitant? What was their mood at the time of the precipitant? And how did they interpret this precipitant as provoking to them? When I was in college, I had a summer job on a farm with a boss who was often angry with me.* One of my responsibilities was to give tractor tours of the farm and surrounding area. That meant I was often far away from the barns and since this was an era before cell phones, I was often out of touch for long periods of time. It usually didn’t matter. The tours took an hour or so, and I would be back in time for the next one. One day, though, the group I was to give a tour to got there very late. A different boss told me to go ahead and take them, and that she would find someone else to do the next tour since I wouldn’t get back in time. I went off on the tour, which took about an hour. Near the end of the tour, when we were stopped and I was describing some scenery to them, my boss came driving up on a four-wheeler looking furious. He came over to me and said with a fake smile and pseudo-pleasant tone, “Hey Ryan, what time is it?” I didn’t have a watch, but I knew what time it was because I knew how long the tours took, so I answered him. He seemed surprised that I was correct, so he followed up, this time with more anger in his voice, “No. Look at your fucking watch and tell me what time it is.” “You know I don’t have a watch, but I know what ti—” “That’s right. You don’t have a fucking watch,” he said, cutting me off, “and so you don’t know that you’re late for your next tour. You need to get a fucking watch.” “I know what time it is,” I responded. “They got here late, and I was told to take them anyway. Someone else was going to cover the next tour.” He was dumbstruck. He was obviously unaware of this information, and didn’t have anything to say in response. This was all happening in front of the tour, by the way, which added a layer of weirdness and discomfort to the entire situation.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  When the person right in front of them spoke to the host, that person was told their reservation had been lost. The person reacted with one of two emotions (depending on the version of the story), anger or sadness, either crying or yelling about how the restaurant had ruined their evening. That person than left the restaurant either visibly angry or visibly sad. The vignette ended with the participant then going to the host and being told that their reservation had also been lost. We then asked participants to indicate how angry, sad, scared, or happy they would feel if this happened to them. Obviously, no one indicated that they would feel happy and very few indicated that they would feel scared. How angry or sad they became, though, depended in part on whether or not the person in front of them in line was angry or sad. The participants who had an angry person in line in front of them got angrier. The participants who had a sad person ahead of them got sadder. They essentially used the emotion of the person in front of them as an indicator of how they should feel in that moment. You can think of this as a variation of that social referencing I described in the previous chapter. We look to those around us, knowingly or unknowingly, to see how we should feel in a given moment. ANGER FACT Injustice is a greater source of anger than having your goals blocked, according to survey responses gathered by The Anger Project.35 There’s a good reason we do this and it’s rooted in our evolutionary history. When we are in a group of people, it’s advantageous for us to feel what they are feeling and to act accordingly. Our ancestors, human and nonhuman, for instance, would have benefited from this sort emotional contagion. If the people around me are scared, there might be a real threat to our safety, so I should be scared too. If the people around me are angry, we might have been wronged or treated unfairly, so I should be angry too. Since our emotions are motivators that encourage us to protect ourselves by fleeing or fighting back, those emotional cues I get from the people around might be lifesaving. Emotional contagion is a well-studied phenomenon with research linking it to everything from empathy enhancement to workplace burnout. It is relevant to one-on-one interactions, small group dynamics at work, friends, families, and larger scale events like protests, mobs, and riots.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  TIP Pay attention to patterns in how and why a person gets angry. Being able to identify those patterns allows you to better work through potential angry incidents in the future. When the Anger is Warranted Of course, there is one more reason why we might want to think about the anger from the other person’s perspective. In the case above, I wasn’t at fault. I didn’t do anything wrong (this time) and my boss’s anger at me was misdirected. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes we really are at fault for something and the other person’s anger at us – not necessarily their treatment of us, but their anger at us – is justified. How can we deal with angry people when the anger is warranted? We come on to this in the next chapter. * This study also revealed that boys expressed “significantly more overt anger and less overt sadness than did girls,” and there was no age difference here so the gendered learning of emotional expressions we discussed in chapter 3 seems to happen before the age of three. * I am once again impressed by how meticulous researchers can be in their efforts (and once again irritated by how quick the general population is to ignore said research because of their anecdotal evidence). * Admittedly, one of the things I wonder about this study is if another interpretation could be that adults don’t improve much on this skill after age six. If someone did a study that found that most kids can read as well at age six as most adults, we would be concerned about adult readers, right? * Obviously, there are a bunch of contextual factors that will influence how angry you get in a situation like this: your relationship with this co-worker; their history of finishing tasks on time; how important the project was; whether you understand and trust their explanation; the consequences of their having not completed it. These things all matter, but they are also up to some degree of interpretation and appraisal, and that comes later. * In his defense, I was not very good at this job. During my short time there I broke multiple tractors and had a very unfortunate incident where I covered the kitchen, including one of the owners, with about six gallons of unfiltered apple cider. * For reasons I can’t fully explain, it really bothered him that I didn’t own a watch. I suspect it was an unwritten rule he had for how responsible people should behave (“responsible people have watches”). It’s sort of funny because I always knew what time it was and I wasn’t chronically late by any means (there were plenty of clocks around), but he really wanted me to own a watch anyway.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She stared at him aghast: “ How dare you! ’ she stammered, ‘ How dare you try to undermine my courage! You call yourself my friend and you say things like that . . .’ ‘It’s your courage that I appeal to,’ he answered. He began to speak very quietly again: ‘ Stephen, if I stay I’m going to fight you. Do you understand? We’ll fight this thing out until one of us has to admit that he’s beaten. I’! do all in my power to take Mary from you —all that’s honourable, that is—for I mean to play straight, because whatever you may think I’m your friend, only, you see —I love Mary Llewellyn.’ And now she struck back. She said rather slowly, watching his sensitive face as she did so: ‘ You seem to have thought it all out very well, but then of course, our friendship has given you Umea a THE WELL OF LONELINESS 493 He flinched and she smiled, knowing how she could wound: * Perhaps,’ she went on, ‘ you'll tell me your plans. Supposing you win, do I give the wedding? Is Mary to marry you from my house, or would that be a grave social disadvantage? And supposing she should want to leave me quite soon for love of you — where would you take her, Martin? To your aunt’s for respectability’s sake? ’ ‘Don’t, Stephen! ’ ‘ But why not? I’ve a right to know because, you see, I also love Mary, I also consider her reputation. Yes, I think on the whole we’ll discuss your plans.’ * She’d always be welcome at my aunt’s,’ he said firmly. ‘ And you'll take her there if she runs away to you? One never knows what may happen, does one? You say that she cares for you already . His eyes Paden: ‘If Mary will have me, Stephen, I shall take her first to my aunt’s house in Passy.’ ‘And then?’ she mocked. ‘I shall marry her from there.’ < And then? ’ “I shall take her back to my home.’ “To Canada — I see — a safe distance of course.’ He held out his hand: ‘ Oh, for God’s sake, don’t! It’s so hor- rible somehow — be merciful, Stephen.’ She laughed bitterly: “ Why should I be merciful to you? Isn’t it enough that I accept your challenge, that I offer you the freedom of my house, that I don’t turn you out and forbid you to come here? Come by all means, whenever you like. You may even re- peat our conversation to Mary; I shall not do so, but don’t let that stop you if you think you may possibly gain some advantage.’ He shook his head: ‘ No, I shan’t repeat it.’ ‘Oh, well, that must be as you think best. J propose to behave as though nothing had happened — and now I must get along with my work.’

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 “But the days will come when the bridegroom is [forcefully] j taken away from them, and they will fast at that time. 21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear becomes worse. 22 “No one puts new wine into old k wineskins; otherwise the [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the wineskins. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.” Question of the Sabbath 23 One Sabbath He was walking along [with His disciples] through the grainfields, and as they went along, His disciples began picking the heads of grain. [Deut 23:25 ; Matt 12:1–8 ; Luke 6:1–5 ] 24 The Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why are they doing what l is unlawful on the Sabbath?” 25 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read [in the Scriptures] what David did when he was in need and was hungry, he and his companions; [1 Sam 21:1–6 ] 26 how he went into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the sacred bread, which is not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat, and how he also gave it to the men who were with him?” [1 Sam 21:1–6 ] 27 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. [Ex 23:12 ; Deut 5:14 ] 28 “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath [and He has authority over it].” Mark 3 Jesus Heals on the Sabbath 1 A GAIN JESUS went into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was a withered. [Matt 12:9–14 ; Luke 6:6–11 ] 2 The Pharisees were watching Jesus closely to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him [in the Jewish high court]. 3 He said to the man whose hand was withered, “Get up and come forward!” 4 He asked them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?” But they kept silent. 5 After looking around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness and arrogance of their hearts, He told the man, “Hold out your hand.” And he held it out, and his hand was [completely] restored. 6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the b Herodians [to plot] against Him, as to how c they might [fabricate some legal grounds to] put Him to death.