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A fresh study shows that even short bursts of anger can affect blood vessels in a way that weakens circulation and raises the risk of a heart attack or stroke. Researchers found that just eight minutes of angry emotions reduced the ability of blood vessels to widen by nearly half, and this effect lasted for up to 40 minutes afterward. This finding adds new detail to how anger and heart health are connected, and suggests that frequent anger could play a role in cardiovascular problems over time. Scientists from several US institutions studied 280 healthy adults, all free of heart disease and major risk factors like diabetes or high blood pressure……..Continue reading…
Source: India Today
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Anger causes a reduction in cognitive ability and the accurate processing of external stimuli. Dangers seem smaller, actions seem less risky, ventures seem more likely to succeed, and unfortunate events seem less likely. Angry people are more likely to make risky decisions, and make less realistic risk assessments. In one study, test subjects primed to feel angry felt less likely to have heart disease, and more likely to receive a pay raise, compared to fearful people.
This tendency can manifest in retrospective thinking as well: in a 2005 study, angry subjects said they thought the risks of terrorism in the year following 9/11 in retrospect were low, compared to what the fearful and neutral subjects thought. In inter-group relationships, anger makes people think in more negative and prejudiced terms about outsiders. Anger makes people less trusting, and slower to attribute good qualities to outsiders.
When a group is in conflict with a rival group, it will feel more anger if it is the politically stronger group and less anger when it is the weaker. Unlike other negative emotions like sadness and fear, angry people are more likely to demonstrate correspondence bias – the tendency to blame a person’s behavior more on their nature than on their circumstances. They tend to rely more on stereotypes, and pay less attention to details and more attention to the superficial.
In this regard, anger is unlike other “negative” emotions such as sadness and fear, which promote analytical thinking. An angry person tends to anticipate other events that might cause them anger. They will tend to rate anger-causing events (e.g. being sold a faulty car) as more likely than sad events (e.g. a good friend moving away). A person who is angry tends to place more blame on another person for their misery.
This can create a feedback, as this extra blame can make the angry person angrier still, so they in turn place yet more blame on the other person. When people are in a certain emotional state, they tend to pay more attention to, or remember, things that are charged with the same emotion; so it is with anger. For instance, if a person is trying to persuade someone that a tax increase is necessary.
If the person is currently feeling angry, they would do better to use an argument that elicits anger (“more criminals will escape justice”) than, say, an argument that elicits sadness (“there will be fewer welfare benefits for disabled children”). Also, unlike other negative emotions, which focus attention on all negative events, anger only focuses attention on anger-causing events.
Anger can make a person more desiring of an object to which their anger is tied. In a 2010 Dutch study, test subjects were primed to feel anger or fear by being shown an image of an angry or fearful face, and then were shown an image of a random object. When subjects were made to feel angry, they expressed more desire to possess that object than subjects who had been primed to feel fear.
Conventional therapies for anger involve restructuring thoughts and beliefs to bring about a reduction in anger. These therapies often come within the schools of CBT (or cognitive behavioral therapy) like modern systems such as REBT (rational emotive behavior therapy). Research shows that people with excessive anger often harbor and act on dysfunctional attributions, assumptions and evaluations in specific situations.
It has been shown that with therapy by a trained professional, individuals can bring their anger to more manageable levels. The therapy is followed by the so-called “stress inoculation” in which the clients are taught relaxation skills to control their arousal and various cognitive controls to exercise on their attention, thoughts, images, and feelings. “Logic defeats anger, because anger, even when it’s justified, can quickly become irrational.” (American Psychological Association).
In other words, although there may be a rational reason to get angry, the frustrated actions of the subject can become irrational. Taking deep breaths is regarded as the first step to calming down. Once the anger has subsided a little, the patient will accept that they are frustrated and move on. Lingering around the source of frustration may bring the rage back.
The skills-deficit model states that poor social skills is what renders a person incapable of expressing anger in an appropriate manner. Social skills training has been found to be an effective method for reducing exaggerated anger by offering alternative coping skills to the angry individual. Research has found that persons who are prepared for aversive events find them less threatening, and excitatory reactions are significantly reduced.
In a 1981 study, that used modeling, behavior rehearsal, and videotaped feedback to increase anger control skills, showed increases in anger control among aggressive youth in the study. Research conducted with youthful offenders using a social skills training program (aggression replacement training), found significant reductions in anger, and increases in anger control.
Research has also found that antisocial personalities are more likely to learn avoidance tasks when the consequences involved obtaining or losing tangible rewards. Learning among antisocial personalities also occurred better when they were involved with high intensity stimulation. Social learning theory states that positive stimulation was not compatible with hostile or aggressive reactions.
Anger research has also studied the effects of reducing anger among adults with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), with a social skills program approach that used a low fear and high arousal group setting. This research found that low fear messages were less provocative to the ASPD population, and high positive arousal stimulated their ability to concentrate, and subsequently learn new skills for anger reduction.
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