Anger
An intense emotional state involving a non-cooperative response to threat.
Anger, sometimes called wrath or rage, is a powerful emotional state marked by a strong, unpleasant, and uncooperative reaction to what someone perceives as a provocation, injury, or threat. While it is a normal emotion that virtually all humans experience and can serve survival and cooperation purposes, uncontrolled anger may harm personal health, social well-being, and those nearby.
Physically, anger triggers increased heart rate, higher blood pressure, and a rise in stress hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline. It activates parts of the fight-or-flight response. When a person consciously decides to act immediately to stop a perceived threat from another, anger becomes the dominant feeling in their behavior, thoughts, and body. Its external signs include facial expressions—from inward-slanting eyebrows to a full frown—as well as body language, physiological changes, and sometimes public aggression. People often blame their anger on external events, but psychologists note that anger can cloud self-awareness and objective judgment, making the angry person potentially mistaken.
Psychologists recognize three types of anger. Hasty, sudden anger is tied to self-preservation, shared with animals, and occurs when feeling trapped or tormented; it is episodic. Settled, deliberate anger is a reaction to perceived unfair treatment or deliberate harm, also episodic. Dispositional anger relates more to character traits—like irritability, sullenness, or churlishness—than to instinct or thought. Anger can mobilize psychological resources, boost determination to correct wrongs, promote social justice, communicate negative feelings, and address grievances; it can even foster patience. But when not expressed appropriately, it becomes destructive. Intense anger impairs information processing and cognitive control, reducing objectivity, empathy, prudence, and thoughtfulness, potentially causing harm. Anger and aggression (verbal or physical, direct or indirect) are distinct but influence each other: anger can activate or intensify aggression, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for it.
From a neuropsychological perspective, the fighting reaction begins in infancy as an indiscriminate struggle against any restraint—whether a person or a blanket. There is no innate susceptibility to social stimuli in anger.
- Field
- Psychology and sociology
- Known for
- An emotion that triggers part of the fight or flight response; three types recognized: hasty and sudden, settled and deliberate, and dispositional anger
Lore & Background
Anger has been written about since the times of the earliest philosophers, with modern psychologists viewing it as a normal emotion that has functional value for survival and cooperation. Three types of anger are recognized: hasty and sudden anger, connected to self-preservation and shared with animals; settled and deliberate anger, a reaction to perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment; and dispositional anger, related to character traits such as irritability, sullenness, and churlishness.
A person experiencing anger often experiences physical effects such as increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and increased levels of stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. Brain regions activated when recognizing threat or provocation include the salience network (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula cortex) and subcortical areas (the thalamus, the amygdala, and the brain stem). The external expression of anger can be found in facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and at times public acts of aggression.
Raymond Novaco stratified anger into three modalities: cognitive (appraisals), somatic-affective (tension and agitations), and behavioral (withdrawal and antagonism). A simple trichotomy of anger expression is passive anger versus aggressive anger versus assertive anger, each with characteristic symptoms. Passive anger includes dispassion, evasiveness, defeatism, obsessive behavior, psychological manipulation, secretive behavior, and self-blame. Aggressive anger includes bullying, destruction, grandiosity, hurtfulness, risk-taking behavior, and selfishness.
Reader's Guide
Anger holds significance as a fundamental human emotion that 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 also facilitate patience. However, anger can be destructive when it does not find its appropriate outlet in expression, impairing one's ability to process information and exert cognitive control over behavior. An angry person may lose objectivity, empathy, prudence, or thoughtfulness and may cause harm to themselves or others. There is a sharp distinction between anger and aggression, though they mutually influence each other; anger can activate aggression or increase its probability or intensity, but it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for aggression. Modern psychologists have pointed out the possible ill effects of suppressing anger on one's well-being and interpersonal relationships, contrasting with earlier writers who warned against spontaneous and uncontrolled fits of anger. The legacy of anger as a subject of study spans from ancient philosophers to contemporary psychology, with ongoing debate over its intrinsic value and the best ways to manage it.
Did You Know?
- Anger is also known as wrath or rage.
- Three types of anger are recognized: hasty and sudden, settled and deliberate, and dispositional anger.
- Brain regions activated during anger include the salience network and subcortical areas such as the thalamus, amygdala, and brain stem.
- Raymond Novaco stratified anger into cognitive, somatic-affective, and behavioral modalities.
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