The Self-Revealing Nature of Anger

It says more about us than whomever we're angry at.

Reviewed by Tyler Woods

Key points

• Anger is activated by perceptions of vulnerability and threat.
• The more vulnerable we feel, the more threat we perceive.
• In our times, most of the threat we perceive is to the ego.
• Overcoming anger problems requires much more than managing emotional feelings and physiological arousal.

The most physical of all emotions, anger sends action signals to the muscles and organs of the body. It prepares us to neutralize perceived threats to self or valued persons and property or to gain a competitive advantage when a disadvantage is seen as a threat.

Two factors contribute to the activation of anger: the level of current vulnerability and the magnitude of the perceived threat. Relatively little threat will cause anger when vulnerability is elevated, for example when physical resources are low—tired, hungry, sick, injured, depressed, anxious, stressed—or when self-doubt is high. In our times, most of the threat we perceive is to the ego.

Problem anger (that which leads us to act against our long-term best interests) is caused by high vulnerability. It is the most self-revealing of emotional states, pointing to a powerful cause of vulnerability: a sudden drop in core value.

We experience a state of core value when we think and behave in accordance with our deeper values. It includes a sense of authenticity and self-regard, which reduces self-doubt and vulnerability.
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For instance, if it is important to you to be fair in your dealings with others, you’ll regard yourself well as long as you are fair but feel guilt and shame when you are not. If you use the guilt and shame as a motivation to be true to your core value, that is, behave more fairly, your self-regard will instantly improve; you’ll act with conviction, with little need of anger for defense.

But if you blame your unfair behavior on someone else—a spouse or boss or the IRS—you’ll become angry or resentful and utterly powerless to restore genuine self-regard. That's right, while angry or resentful, it is nearly impossible to restore self-regard on your own, because now it requires that someone submit to what you want. The best we can hope for while angry or resentful is a temporary sense of self-righteousness.

When out of touch with our deepest values, we’re more likely to seek the regard of others. Self-value will depend not on what we do, but on the regard of others. In short, we’ll become more vulnerable. We’re likely to manipulate the impressions others have of us and suffer frequent resentments or anger to defend a fragile ego. Defending ego usually leads to violating deeper values.

Valuable Guides

Problem anger comes in many forms, for example, any resentment, restlessness, impatience, agitation, irritability, or sarcasm that motivates behavior contrary to our best interests. But the experience of these unpleasant emotions can be invaluable guides, if we use them like a gas gauge. They tell us that our current state of core value is too low and that we need to fill it up, by acting according to our deepest values. If angry about the unfairness of someone else, we must be sure that we’re being fair. Otherwise, we’ll merely react to a jerk like a jerk.

Overcoming anger problems requires much more than managing the emotional feelings and physiological arousal of anger, as anger management classes strive to do. To eliminate problem anger, we must choose what kind of person we want to be—an angry, resentful person, who struggles to manage negative feelings, or one who lives securely in core values.