Psychology and Pedagogy of Anger - Roy Franklin Richardson (ebook audio reader .txt) 📗

confused inco-ordinated state of mind. A rather wide vocabulary referring to self and the feeling side of experience is used by the subjects to designate this feeling in colloquial language. Examples of such phrases from the observations are as follows:—“I felt sat on,” “Was humiliated,” “Felt inefficient,” “Felt imposed upon,” “Felt stepped on,” “A feeling of self depreciation,” “Felt offended,” “A feeling of subjection,” “Felt as if he thought I were no good,” “Felt worried,” “Felt as if he were hitting at me,” “Felt that what he said reflected on my ability,” “Disappointed in myself,” “Felt ashamed,” “My feelings were wounded,” “Felt that that was insult added to injury,” “Felt slighted,” “Feeling of abasement,” “I was embarrassed,” “Felt as if I had been caught with the goods on.”

Unlike the feeling of irritation, negative self-feeling has a more definite reference to the outside situation and for the most part refers to persons. It will be noted that the origin of anger from the mental situation of lowered self-feeling, and that from a condition of irritable feelings, comes about by quite different processes. The latter is reached by an increased complexity till the anger point is suddenly attained. In the former case the anger comes about as a rather sudden reaction from a state of consciousness that is in marked contrast to anger. Notes from the reports will illustrate this characteristic. B. had made some errors at a public meeting. X. in a speech jokingly called attention to the errors. At first B. was confused and felt a little worried and embarrassed. In a few moments he found himself mildly angry at X. and was planning to retaliate. B. states that his anger did not refer to the fact that he had made the error, but to X. who had humiliated him by calling public attention to it. F. went to get a check cashed and was refused. He states, “I felt belittled and became indignant as I walked away.... With the appearance of the imagery of another person getting his check cashed the day before, I became quite angry.” He adds that he was not angry because of the failure to get the check cashed, but because of the discrimination against himself. The anger referred to the cashier. The idea that he was acting according to rules and not personally responsible, appeared, but was ignored by a recall of the imagery of the other person getting his check cashed.

Negative self-feeling appears rather suddenly without any definite conscious fore-period of its own. It is a state of consciousness predetermined by pleasurable feelings of self regard. In taking the report of C.’s emotions one evening, there was found to be an unusual number. He had been usually observing from one to four emotions each day, with occasionally a day having no experiences of anger. On this particular day he had observed and taken notes on twelve rather strongly developed cases of anger. An inquiry into the cause showed nothing except that he had felt extra well all day and had turned off more than the usual amount of work. This was a disturbing situation in connection with evidence that had previously been collected from G. and D. These two persons have few emotions of anger and have gone over a week with no experience of anger. On December 4th, D. took observations on four cases of anger. On inquiry it was found that he had been ill and not slept the night before. G. on the two days that he was ill introspected on ten cases of anger. An examination of G.’s and D.’s reports indicate a fore-period of irritable feelings or a lack of immediate conscious fore-period. In none of these cases was there any indication of lowered self-feeling in the fore-period of the emotion, while with each of the introspections of C. on the day he felt extra well and reported on the unusual number of twelve cases, there was a fore-period of negative self-feeling. With A. on the days when he feels best, there is an increase in the number of cases of anger with an initial lowered self-feeling. Such evidences as we have, indicate that anger with a fore-period of negative self-feeling occurs most readily when the sentiment of self-regard is active,—on the days when the person is well pleased with himself. It is true that the play of this sentiment only appears in consciousness, when it has been interfered with or enhanced. It makes up an essential mental predisposition in connection with the situation stimulating anger. The following note from C.’s observations will illustrate. C. met X. and spoke to him; X. paid no attention. C. states, “For a moment I felt humiliated.... I said to myself, ‘He does not know my importance.’” C. then became quite angry thinking cutting remarks about X. and ending the emotion by finding an excuse for X.’s not seeing him.

Any remark, suggestion, chance association, it may be, attitude of another or incident, which in any way lowers the sentiment of self-respect may stimulate anger. In this regard there is a wide individual difference with the persons studied and with the same person at different times. A trivial incident may lower the play of the self-regarding sentiment and consequently give rise to anger, while at other times a direct thrust at one’s honor may be ignored. The personality of the offender, his social and intellectual standing, his general demeanor and attitude, play an important part in the entire emotional situation, but at times personality is ignored and a “chip is carried on the shoulder” for the chance passer-by.

It appears in the results that the anger of the person who is not in authority against the one who is, or the anger of the man lower down against the one higher up, usually has a fore-period of negative self-feeling. A mental disposition toward the one in power in addition to the sentiment of self-regard, is a predetermining mental situation in exciting lowered self-feeling and consequently anger. The most intense instances of anger that C., D. and E. experienced were against persons in power. D.—“I was aware they were in authority and were taking advantage of it to run us out. I felt a little humiliated but not angry as I left the room. It occurred to me they were rather small in usurping the place.” A little later D. became quite angry and carried on in imagination a rather extensive verbal combat with the usurpers in which he came out victor. E. states in his observation, “If X. had been an ordinary man, I would not have given the occasion a second thought. But being very high up ... I was inclined to take less off of him than those I consider as not knowing better.”

On the other hand a certain mental disposition toward the person lower down in connection with the self-regarding sentiment may be a precondition of anger. Too great familiarity from an inferior may momentarily lower the self-regarding sentiment to his level and in consequence excite anger; we do not resent a slap on the back by one whom we admire or recognize as our superior, but we do from our inferior. The same act from the one may heighten our self-respect while from the other it is lowered. D. reports a case of anger when he was in a crowd. A boy kept purposely stepping on his heels. He states, “I was not hurt but he acted too familiar for a boy under the circumstances. I took his attitude as a personal matter and felt a little humiliated.” A. reporting a case of anger stimulated by a person whom he holds in low esteem, says, “It was not what X. did so much, but it was his familiar confidential attitude before others that embarrassed me.”

It appears frequently in the observations that it is not what is done or said, so much as it is the attitude of the person, that is so offensive. A too positive and aggressive action, a too great display of wisdom, a too familiar or condescending demeanor, may be the essential element in the stimulus to anger. The following phrases are noted by the different subjects as being an important part of the situation stimulating anger of the type now being treated. C.—“I resented his too dignified air more than anything else.” G.—“What angered me most was his condescending attitude as if he knew it all.” I.—“He acted too wise and I was aware he was trying to lord it over us. That was the most offensive part.” H.—“He sat and stared at me as if he thought I didn’t know what I was talking about.” F.—“He took on a wise air implying that he had already passed through the stage in which I now was.” E.—“It was not his statement so much as it was his rather spiteful attitude that angered me.” A.—“It was not what he said. It was his haughty air and little condescending laugh in dismissing the matter that rang in my ears.”

While in the presence of a situation that lowers self-feeling, even though persons may not be connected with the situation, it is a common characteristic to refer the anger to some person. The bounds of justice may be, for the moment, overstepped. The dim awareness with some, that the person is not to be blamed, is ignored for the time, while the tendency is strongest in consciousness to give expression to the emotion. The individual differences here are quite marked. G. apparently has developed a habit of referring his anger to a principle, ignoring the personality. In many of his observations, persons were connected with a situation, but were neglected in his attention to the principle violated. A business man had told him an untruth causing him difficulty. G. states, “I was not angry at the man. That was his way of doing business.” In the course of his emotional experience, his anger became rather intense, referring to the business ethics practiced. The degree in which the sense of justice is ignored under the influence of anger of this type is also a matter of wide individual difference.

In the observations collected, anger at one’s self appears quite frequently. There have been no cases found, in which anger at one’s self develops purely from a fore-period of irritation. The subject takes the matter to himself and feels a little humiliated and degraded and may react against his own personality in the same manner that he would against another. Two observers, B. and G., quite frequently get angry at themselves. A. reports that this sort of anger rarely occurs with him. G. observes the following case. After he had been repeatedly humiliated by his own failure, he says, “I felt as if I were so inefficient. I said to myself, ‘If I had a man working for me and he should do work in that manner I would discharge him.’” G. then continued to talk to himself like another person in rather severe condemnatory language. B. was reading a book. He could not understand the author’s demonstration. He had made several trials at it. He states, “I felt as if I must be stupid, somehow; there was a slight feeling of worry and dejection. The idea of my stupidity was followed by anger at myself for being so stupid. I clinched my fists and threw my arms in angry demonstration, feeling as if I would like to pummel myself. I went over the demonstration again with an attitude of carefulness and finally concluded that it was the author who was hazy instead of myself. I slammed the book down on the table and broke forth angrily, ‘You, X., are the one who is stupid, you don’t make it clear.’ This anger at the author was rather