Anger is a very common emotion in our lives that is often ignored, suppressed, or even hated by us. Whenever we encounter an angry or angry incident, our friends around us will always advise: "Dear, calm down, anger is not good for you." The novelist Mr. Jin Yong also has a wise saying: "If you don't get angry, you will win." "So anger really does us no good at all?" Can you really become a winner in life if you don't get angry?

Anger is usually regarded as a negative emotion

As everyone expected, psychologists have confirmed that anger does have some bad effects on our body or psychology.

Have you ever had this experience: During an exam, a difficult problem makes you very anxious, an unknown fire ignites, and you still can’t solve it after trying for a long time. However, when I looked back at this question a few days later, I surprisingly found that it was not as difficult as I originally thought. It's possible that your negative emotions of anger and anxiety are affecting your thought process. Psychologists have conducted experiments on this phenomenon. First, the people who will participate in the experiment will be divided into three groups. The first group will recall something that makes them angry; the second group will recall something that makes them afraid; and the third group will recall something without any emotional color. They were asked to complete a cognitive task immediately after the recall. It was found that the people in the first two groups (with anger and fear) took much longer to complete the task than the third group. This shows that emotions such as anger and fear will affect how quickly we think about problems.

In fact, anger not only affects our thinking process, but also affects our process of learning something new. A recent psychological study found that strong negative emotions, such as anger and sadness, can adversely interfere with the learning process. However, research has also found that when the intensity of anger and sadness does not reach a certain value, the learning process will not be significantly affected. Some studies have even found that appropriate tension and anger are helpful for people to solve more complex problems. To put it simply, if it is a simple task, such as an arithmetic problem within 100, anger will interfere with the calculation process; and if we are doing some complex tasks, such as budget evaluation of a project, appropriate anger will help the evaluation. completion of the task.

“If you don’t get angry, you will win.” Mr. Jin Yong’s words actually have a certain scientific basis. Psychologists conducted a series of experiments to explore whether anger affects people's risky decisions. Risky decision-making refers to people making choices under risky circumstances. For example, playing cards, mahjong, stocks, etc., these are common things in life that involve risky decisions. Before doing the risky decision-making task, psychologists asked 4 groups of people to watch 4 different videos. One of the videos did not cause people to have obvious emotional reactions, and the other 3 videos could make people feel angry, sad, and fearful respectively. emotions. The results showed that compared with those who watched the first video, those who watched the angry video were more impulsive and more inclined to make risky choices; those who watched the sad and fearful video were less likely to make choices. are more conservative and less willing to take risks. This is actually because, both negative emotions, sadness and fear can make people more sensitive to and avoid risks, leading to pessimistic judgments; whereas anger can reduce our perception of risks, leading to risky actions. This is why many people still refuse to stop even though they lose a lot when gambling, because at this time their anger has affected their rational judgment. Therefore, when engaging in risky decision-making activities, we should try to maintain a calm and stable mood so that we can rationally assess risks and make the right choice.

After talking so much about the negative effects of anger, does it mean that there is no good side to anger?

Anger is not useless

In evolutionary psychology theory, human emotions not only have the function of feeling, but can also guide and regulate our behavior to better adapt to the surrounding environment. environment. As early as ancient times, primitive people would react defensively and warn each other when they were in a dangerous environment.

For example, when a wild animal enters its territory, primitive people become restless and angry, and try to scare away the intruder with fierce expressions and roars. Similar to our ancestors, when modern people are angry, adrenaline secretion increases, fear decreases, courage increases, pupils dilate to increase reaction speed, and strength increases accordingly, allowing us to better cope with challenges. Coping patterns are the result of human biological evolution over a long period of time. So, in today’s civilized society, what other important roles does anger have that we have overlooked?

Today's society is built on relationships between people, and anger helps maintain relationships. An American psychological study shows that in an intimate relationship, anger is a form of protest against the transgressions of others. This kind of protest not only does not affect the intimate relationship, but also helps to further maintain and develop the intimate relationship. In an intimate relationship, bottom lines and boundaries are two very important things. Relationships between people are gradually established by constantly understanding each other's bottom lines and boundaries. Whether it is family, love or friendship, the closer the relationship, the easier it is for you to repeatedly lower your bottom line in giving in, until one day you completely lose yourself. Therefore, when you feel that your bottom line has been violated, anger is not only a reminder to yourself, but also a way to show the other person, "You have touched my bottom line by doing this, and I will explode if you go any further."

We have always believed that anger can interfere with our thinking. As mentioned above, anger can reduce the perception of risks, thereby affecting people's rational thinking. But some psychological research has found that in certain situations, anger can help us reduce our cognitive bias towards new things. In the experiment, researchers asked a group of calm people and a group of angry people to simultaneously try to understand opinions that were completely opposite to their own. The results showed that people who had already developed angry emotions were less biased against new ideas and more willing to understand these new ideas, thereby making more rational judgments.

In addition, the appropriate use of anger expression skills in negotiations can improve the efficiency of negotiations. In a 2015 study, psychologists asked assistants to act as negotiators to conduct face-to-face negotiations with negotiators from group A and negotiators from group B. The assistants tried to remain calm when negotiating with negotiators from group A; The negotiator incorporated some expressions of anger into the negotiation. Interestingly, negotiators in Group B made greater compromises and concessions, and their negotiation efficiency was greatly improved.

Anger not only makes your opponent make concessions, but also makes your partner trust you more. A 2013 study found that people trust and rely more on people who express their anger appropriately than those who suppress their anger. A 2015 questionnaire survey among college students also supports this view. The questionnaire used the Interpersonal Rating Scale and the Anger Expression Scale. The results found that the internal expression of anger (not expressing one's anger to others) has a negative impact on interpersonal relationships. Support has a negative predictive effect, and appropriate external expression of anger helps college students maintain and develop positive interpersonal relationships.

Sometimes, by expressing anger appropriately, the world is more likely to treat you fairly. A US study shows that those who are stronger and more successful tend to be better at expressing their anger. Because the emotion of anger can help us express our dissatisfaction that is usually difficult to express and reject the unfair treatment of others. Appropriate expression of anger is a warning against others bullying you and an effective protection for yourself when you encounter unfairness.

We should dare to face anger

In life, feeling angry and angry is normal and unavoidable. We cannot let ourselves be in a happy mood forever. If you choose to escape or suppress your anger, you may be afraid that when you are angry, you will make the wrong choice, hurt the people around you or make others hate you. But after reading this article, you should have understood that anger is not as terrible an emotion as you think. It silently plays a role in protecting us in life.

We choose to face anger directly, not only because it has many positive effects, but also because blindly adopting an attitude of ignoring and avoiding will not make anger disappear.

You think it's gone, but in fact it's still there, growing and germinating deep in your soul, and then one day it will burst out. This emotional management method of suppressing one's negative emotions is called "expressive suppression" in psychology. Experiments have proven that using "expressive suppression" will increase the adverse effects of negative emotions. People who use "expressive suppression" for a long time are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. Therefore, only by daring to face anger, expressing anger appropriately, and communicating with friends or psychological counselors to channel and regulate anger can we manage our emotions correctly and maintain mental health.