The Rationality of Rage

The  rationality  of rage

    Anger is a primal and destructive  emotion , disrupting rational discourse  and inflaming illogical passions - or so it often seems. Then again , anger also has its upsides.  Expressing anger, for example, is known to be a useful  tool  in negotiations  . Indeed , in the past few years, researchers  have been learning more about when  and  how  to deploy  anger productively.
    Consider a forthcoming paper in the November issue of the Journal  of Experimental Social  Psychology.  Researchers tested the effectiveness of expressing anger in three types  of negotiations;  those that are chiefly cooperative (say, starting  a business with a partner), chiefly  competitive (dissolving  a shared  business )  or balanced  between  the two (selling a business to a buyer). In two experiments, negotiators  made greater  concessions to those  who  expressed  anger -but only in balanced  situations . When  cooperating , hostility seems inappropriate, and when competing , additional  heat only flares tempers. But in between , anger appears  to send a strategically useful signal.
      What does that signal communicate ?  According to a 2009 paper in Proceeding of the National Academy  of Sciences, anger evolved to help us express that  we feel undervalued . Showing  anger signals to others that if we don't get our due, we'll expert harm or withhold benefits. As they anticipated , the researchers  found  that strong men and attractive  women- those who have historically  had the most leverage  in threatening harm  and conferring  benefits, respectively - were most prone to anger.
    The usefulness of angering  extracting better treatment  from  others seems to be something  we all implicitly understand. A 2013 paper in the journal  Cognition  and  Emotion  found that  when people were preparing to enter a confrontational negotiation , as opposed  to a cooperative one, they took steps to induce anger in themselves (choosing music, foe example).
    The study also found that people induced anger in themselves  only if there was an actual  benefit  at stake for them in the negotiation. This qualifications was essential in demonstrating  that it was the perceived  strategic  benefit of being  angry  (and not, say, just a reflex that we have  when entering  any  confrontation ) that  prompted  people  to induce such an unpleasant  mood in themselves.
   Whether induced or not, anger must ultimately be genuine in order to be  useful  in provoking concessions. According to a  2013  paper in the Journal  of Experimental  Social Psychology, faking , anger, compared with playing it cool ,leads  a negotiation partner to see you as less trustworthy, and  actually increases his demands on you.
    There are other important caveats. While expressions of anger can elicit compromises, they can also lead  to covert retaliation, according to a 2012 paper  in Organizational Behaviour and Human  decision Processes. In two  experiments, negotiators overtly made concessions when opponents expressed anger but, evidently feeling mistreated, covertly sabotaged their opponents afterward. Outside the laboratory, this dynamic might  take the form of acquiescing to an angry colleague's demand but then spreading negative gossip about him around the office.
 Anger also works better in negotiations when it's directed at an offer  rather  than  at the person making the offer, according  to a  2011 article in the Journal of Experimental Social  Psychology. Many  of the same researchers also reported, in a 2012 paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, that expressing anger when you're in a position of low power merely irritates  your  opponent and leads to a backlash. If you have less power than your opponent, they found, showing
disappointment is a better strategy than  expressing anger, as it can induce feelings of guilt in your opponent.
  Expressing  anger can sometimes benefit all the parties involved , not just  one of them, by clarifying boundaries , needs and concerns . Think of the loved one who doesn't realize how strongly you feel  about  the relationship  until you express feelings of frustration  with it. In a 2009 article in Negotiation and Conflict Management  Research , the authors found that anger is more  likely to lead to such mutually positive outcomes when it is low in intensity; expressed verbally rather than physically;  and takes  place in an organization that considers it appropriate  (like a labour union or a university athletic department).
   Finally , anger can also motivate large- scale political progress. Researchers  reported in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 2011 that among Israeli Jews,  inducing anger at Palestinians  increased  their desire  to make  necessary compromises in upcoming peace talks- as long as the  attitudes of the Israelis toward  Palestinians  were not hateful. This finding suggested that while some angry people may try  to remedy a frustrating situation  with aggression,  others- even those who are just  as angry- may funnel their anger into less antagonistic solutions.
   We tend to associate anger with the loss of control , but anger has clear applications  and obeys  distinct rules.  It may be blunt, but it has  its own  particular  logic. And used judiciously , it can get us better deals, galvanize coalitions and improve all our lives.
   Mattew Hutson  is the author of  " The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking : How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane"