A new study by evolutionary psychologists at the University of California have discovered a link between male strength, female beauty, and anger levels. Apparently the greater your upper body strength (if male) or your level of attractiveness (if female) the more likely it is that you anger easily.
The authors suggest that anger evolved as part of a bargaining mechanism in situations where you feel you are not being treated as you should. The stronger you are the more confident you would feel in the loss your protagonist will suffer in a fight, and the prettier you are the more benefit you can confer on them.
You can read the full report here.
With anger’s obvious survival role in the fight or flight response, it’s interesting to read a theory that suggests an adaptation of it for social communication; I’d never thought of it like that, but when I think of it people who are angry are trying to communicate something.
In therapy I have found that people’s issues with anger fall into two camps; one group can’t control it, and the other can’t express it. Both can have serious consequences to health and social success. In both cases – while I accept there may be a genetic component at play – which camp you fall into tends to depend on what you learned as a child. If you were never allowed to express you anger (or lost the approval of a parent when you did so), or if you got your own way by being aggressive, then it tends to condition you to that response in adulthood. Either of which can be dealt with quite quickly with Cognitive Hypnotherapy. There are quite a few footballers who spring to mind…
Very interesting article and links in to a chapter I’m reading on anger at the moment in Clarissa Pinkola Este’s book, ‘Women who run with the Wolves’.
The bit about anger being about threat to welfare of how one individual is towards another is interesting…. its a good illustration of how anger is more about a prod to self for negotiation and expression and that a need is not being met and that, ‘that need’, needs communicating. In the book I’m reading, the expression of anger also refers to the protection of welfare and there are times when anger needs to be used for this negotation in a positive way. I think in today’s society the meaning behind why anger arises in the first place has become lost and sometimes people just express it and don’t take time to look at the why and the meaning behind it!
On a world level… be interesting if some of the world leaders could acknowledge their anger prod for what it is rather than reacting…
Denise
Generalised articles like this make me really angry!