Catharsis
The Misconception: Venting your anger is an effective way to reduce stress and prevent lashing out at friends and family.
The Truth: Venting increases aggressive behavior over time.
Source: chrislomasphotography.com
Let it out.
Don’t hold it all in.
Left inside you, the anger will fester and spread, grow like a tumor, boil up until you punch holes in the wall or slam your car door so hard the windows shatter.
Those dark thoughts shouldn’t be tamped down inside your heart where they can condense and strengthen, where they form a concentrated stockpile of negativity which could reach critical mass at any moment.
Go get yourself one of those squishy balls and work it over with death grips. Use both hands and choke the imaginary life out of it.
Head to the gym and assault a punching bag. Shoot some people in a video game. Scream into a pillow.
Feel better?
Sure you do. Venting feels great.
The problem is, it accomplishes little else. Actually, it makes matters worse and primes your future behavior by fogging your mind.
It’s an old assertion, probably much older than Aristotle and Greek drama from which the word was cobbled from kathairein and kathoros, to purify and to clean.
Building tension, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, and then releasing them right when they think they can’t take any more.
Releasing pent-up energy, or fluids, was Aristotle’s counter argument to Plato who felt poetry and drama filled people up with silliness and made them unbalanced.
Aristotle thought it went the other way, and by watching people go muck through a tragedy or rise to a victory you in the audience could vicariously release your tears or feel the rush of testosterone. You balanced out your heart by purging those emotions from the safety of your seat.
It seems to make sense, and that’s why the meme grafted itself to so much of human thought well before the great philosophers.
Releasing sexual tension feels good. Throwing up when you are sick feels good. Finally getting to a restroom feels good.
So, it seemed to follow, draining bad blood or driving out demons or siphoning away black bile to bring the body back into balance must be good medicine.
Be it an exorcism or a laxative, the idea is the same: get the bad stuff out and you’ll return to normal.
Balancing the humours – choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine – was the basis of medicine from Hippocrates up to the Old West, and the way you balanced out often meant draining something.
Fast forward to Sigmund Freud.
Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, Freud was a superstar of science and pop-culture, and his work influenced everything from politics and advertising to business and art.
The turn of the century, 19th to 20th, was an interesting time to be a scientist devoted to the mind because there weren’t many tools available. It was sort of like being an astronomer before the invention of telescopes.
The rising stars in psychology made names for themselves by constructing elaborate theories of how the mind was organized and where your thoughts came from.
These psychonauts were pioneers, explorers on an undiscovered continent. Since the mind was completely unobservable, and they didn’t have much data to fall back on, their personal philosophies and conjectures tended to fill in the gaps.
Thanks to Freud, catharsis theory and psychotherapy became part of psychology. Mental wellness, he reasoned, could be achieved by filtering away impurities in your mind through the siphon of a therapist.
He believed your psyche was poisoned by repressed fears and desires, unresolved arguments and unhealed wounds. The mind formed phobias and obsessions around these bits of mental detritus. You needed to rummage around in there, open up some windows and let some fresh air and sunlight in.
The hydraulic model of anger is just what it sounds like – anger builds up inside the mind until you let off some steam. If you don’t let off this steam, the boiler will burst. If you don’t vent the pressure, someone is going to get a beating.
It sounds good. You may even look back on your life and remember times when you went batshit, punched a wall or broke a plate, and it made things better, but you are not so smart.
In the 1990s, Psychologist Brad Bushman at Iowa State decided to study whether or not venting actually worked.
At the time, self-help books were all the rage, and the prevailing advice when it came to dealing with stress and anger was to punch inanimate objects and scream into pillows.
Bushman, like many psychologists before him, felt like this might be bad advice.
In one of Bushman’s studies he divided 180 students into three groups. One read a neutral article. One read an article about a fake study which said venting anger was effective. The third group read about a fake study which said venting was pointless.
He then had the students write essays for or against abortion, a subject for which they probably had strong feelings. He told them the essays would be graded by fellow students, but they weren’t.
When they got their essays back, half were told their essay was superb.
The other half had this scrawled across the paper: “This is one of the worst essays I have ever read!”
They then asked the subjects to pick an activity like play a game, watch some comedy, read a story, or punch a bag.
The results?
The people who read the article which said venting worked, and who later got angry, were far more likely to ask to punch the bag than those who got angry in the other groups. In all the groups, the people who got praised tended to pick non-aggressive activities.
…exposure to media messages in support of catharsis can affect subsequent behavioral choices. Angry people expressed the highest desire to hit a punching bag when they had been exposed to a (bogus) newspaper article claiming that a good, effective technique for handling anger was to vent it toward an inanimate object.
- Brad Bushman, Roy Baymeister and Angela Stack, from the study on catharsis
So far so good. Belief in catharsis makes you more likely to seek it out.
Bushman decided to take this a step further and let the angry people seek revenge. He wanted to see if engaging in cathartic behavior would extinguish the anger, if it would be emancipated from the mind.
The second study was basically the same, except this time when subjects got back their papers with “This is one of the worst essays I have ever read!” they were divided into two groups.
The people in both groups were told they were going to have to compete against the person who graded their essay. One group first had to punch a bag, and the other group had to sit and wait for two minutes.
After the punching and waiting, the competition began.
The game was simple, press a button as fast as you can. If you lose, you get blasted with a horrible noise. When you win, blast your opponent. They could set the volume the other person had to endure, a setting between zero and 10 with 10 being 105 decibels.
Can you predict what they discovered?
On average, the punching bag group set the volume as high as 8.5. The timeout group set it to 2.47.
The people who got angry didn’t release their anger on the punching bag, it was sustained by it. The group which cooled off lost their desire for vengeance.
In subsequent studies where the subjects chose how much hot sauce the other person had to eat, the punching bag group piled it on. The cooled off group did not.
When the punching bag group later did word puzzles where they had to fill in the blanks to words like ch_ _e, they were more likely to pick choke instead of chase.
Bushman has been doing this research for a while, and it keeps turning up the same results.
If you think catharsis is good, you are more likely to seek it out when you get pissed. When you vent, you stay angry and are more likely to keep doing aggressive things so you can keep venting.
It’s drug-like, because there are brain chemicals and other behavioral reinforcements at work. If you get accustomed to blowing off steam, you become dependent on it.
The more effective approach is to just stop. Take your anger off of the stove. Let it go from a boil to a simmer to a lukewarm state where you no longer want to sink your teeth into the side of buffalo.
Bushman’s work also debunks the idea of redirecting your anger into exercise or something similar. He says it will only maintain your state or increase your arousal level, and afterward you may be even more aggressive than if you had cooled off.
Still, cooling off is not the same thing as not dealing with your anger at all. Bushman suggests you delay your response, relax or distract yourself with an activity totally incompatible with aggression.
These results contradict any suggestion that hitting the punching bag would have beneficial effects because one might feel better after doing so (which is what advocates of catharsis often say). People did indeed enjoy hitting the punching bag, but this was related to more rather than less subsequent aggression toward a person…hitting a punching bag does not produce a cathartic effect: It increases rather than decreases subsequent aggression.
- Brad Bushman, Roy Baymeister and Angela Stack, from the study on catharsis
Freud and Aristotle are superstars of our culture, of world culture. Aristotle’s ruminations on drama and Freud’s attestations about repressed emotions both linger and permeate popular thought.
You might think a total overturning of common sense would lead to widespread social change, but anger management is still big business – especially since it is often court-ordered.
If you get into an argument, or someone cuts you off in traffic, or you get called an awful name, venting will not dissipate the negative energy. It will, however, feel great.
That’s the thing. Catharsis will make you feel good, but it’s an emotional hamster wheel. The emotion which led you to catharsis will still be there afterward, and if it made you feel good, you’ll seek it out again in the future.
Video games, horror movies, romance novels – all fun, but no psychologist would prescribe these outlets as a cure for anger or fear or loneliness.
Flailing in a mosh pit or screaming along to death metal doesn’t release your demons, it prolongs your angst.
Smashing plates or kicking doors after a fight with a roommate, spouse or lover doesn’t redirect your fury, it perpetuates your rancor.
If you spank your children while infuriated, remember you are reinforcing something inside yourself.
Common sense says venting is an important way to ease tension, but common sense is wrong. Venting – catharsis – is pouring fuel into a fire.
If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love). Watch the trailer.
Order now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - iTunes - Books A Million
Links:
Geen and Quanty reject Catharsis Theory
Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame
Angry People Seek Out Violent Video Games
An Overview of Aristotle’s Poetics
If You Believe God Sanctions Violence You Will Be More Aggressive
Leonard Ingram’s Anger Management
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Trackbacks
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Very nice article, thank you!
There is one occurence where venting is kind-of allowed, and that is dialectical behavioral therapy, where the subject is allowed to scream into pillows or throw them against a wall in order to distract from self-destructive behaviours/emotions. But I believe that’s an extreme case, where venting serves a different purpose (e.g., distraction).
@simbel – Thanks to you! Bushman seems to be opposed to screaming and throwing, but does advocate distraction. Check the links section to see more on his approaches.
Interesting, thanks for the post… great blog in general!
Although I think the author’s conclusions here are a bit oversimplified. There is a flip side to not venting. For every person who dysfunctionally vents and thus sustains anger unnecessarily, there is someone else who is so out of touch with their feelings, they don’t realize they are angry until they are well past the point of control. Who doesn’t know someone who is usually quite mild-mannered except for the odd batshit-crazy outburst? Those outbursts aren’t because of “stored up anger”, they happen because such a person lacks the awareness of his/her feelings. People who are more functional with their anger realize much sooner that they are getting angry and act to deal with whatever is raising their ire in healthier ways before it ever gets to the point where a temper tantrum is inevitable.
I’m not advocating venting, but I am saying that always stuffing your anger is not necessarily an optimal strategy either. Realizing and expressing anger can be healthy, so long as it doesn’t become a crutch or a stand-in for actually dealing with whatever is causing the anger.
@Terren – Fantastic comment. The scope of this post is pretty narrow as it only addresses the idea of cathartic venting, but there are many alternative strategies for dealing with anger and learning how to predict your behavior. Bushman suggests: Delay, Distract, Relax, Incompatible Response (do something totally unrelated to aggression).
Bushman’s work also debunks the idea of redirecting your anger into exercise or something similar. It will only maintain your state or increase your arousal level, and afterward you may be even more aggressive than if you had cooled off or .
So, stuffing is bad; venting is bad.
Here are Bushman’s own words: “All emotions, including anger, consist of bodily states and mental meanings. To get rid of anger you can work on either of those. Anger can be reduced by getting rid of the arousal state, such as relaxing. Anger can also be addressed by mental tactics, such a by refraining from the problem or conflict or by distracting oneself and turning one’s attention to other, more pleasant topics.”
Thanks for pointing out the gap in this post. I’ll go back into it and mention these things.
Terren said: “I’m not advocating venting, but I am saying that always stuffing your anger is not necessarily an optimal strategy either. Realizing and expressing anger can be healthy, so long as it doesn’t become a crutch or a stand-in for actually dealing with whatever is causing the anger.”
Exactly what I was thinking. There’s more to anger than violent catharsis vs. suppression. The point is to encourage a healthy and moderate expression of anger (and also grief, which can be closely related). Punching a bag may or may not be a step towards getting there.
This article does open the door for the ‘video games make people violent’ argument, which I don’t really buy. In someone who is already unhinged, I can see how exposure to violent video games could lower the person’s inhibitions about real life violence. But I really don’t see them creating violence in a person who’s mentally stable.
@Mel V – Thanks for the comment. Check out the links concerning video games. Video games don’t make people violent, but people who have problems with anger or aggression often seek them out thinking they help vent their emotions, but instead they only reinforce them.
Very Interesting article. I think the title of this should really be “Venting” not “Catharsis” because I don’t think they’re exactly the same. A Cathartic experience can be a purging of an emotion into some type of art form not necessarily screaming about something. I can watch “Schindler’s List” and have a very Cathartic experience.
I was thinking about my older sister when I was reading this because she’s been a very big advocate for venting since she was in her teens. And she often points out that one of my major problems is that I don’t vent enough or I’m too mellow or laid back. Come to think of it she’s always angry or pissed off or anxious and the venting never really solves anything. And I think her venting spirals into trivial B.S. kind of stuff.
My college roommate was another big “venter” and he still is very bitter and angry and anxious and on top of that he smokes like a chimney and drinks tons of coffee. He’s very angry when he drives and yells and screams at everyone and his steering wheel is actually worn down in some spots because of the tension in his hands.
I’ve tried yelling and screaming and throwing things and it never really worked except for a few minutes and then I just feel like an idiot.
The only cathartic feeling I’ve ever had that felt really good and was sustained was when I channeled that angry energy into something positive. For instance: playing Music or listening to music, biking/running, watching a film or reading a book, or building something or fixing something.
Also, I’ve felt comedy/laughter to be very important and cathartic.
Love the site, but you know this is so similar, it almost sounds like it is lifted from the chapter on Stress in Richard Wiseman’s book ’59 Seconds’?
@John Key – I’ve never read the book, but any discussion of Bushman’s work will probably mention Aristotle, Freud and then Bushman. Thanks for reading.
Seems to make sense. I wonder if anyone ever looked into venting followed by a cooling off period – maybe catharsis works differently if one allows a subject who feels wronged to act out their aggressive feelings against some representation of who or whatever he/she feels angry at but then (and this is the important part) the subject is allowed to calm down and confront his/her own violent inclinations. Of course, this is a much more complex than just venting, since it involves actually thinking rationally about your own emotions…
@Ruben – Interesting concept. Check out the links to the actual studies at the end of the article, as Bushman did move the sequence around a bit during his research.
I had the same thought, so I read through Bushman’s study. Timing is an important variable to track, and I couldn’t be sure from the description of the procedure: from what I can tell, mostly the participants of study 2 first punched a bag (or not), then were given instructions for the next phase, then participated. So for one thing the instruction-giving time may have interfered with an effect of quiet time or punching-bag time.
More relevantly, my layman understanding of anger management and emotional catharsis in general is that the goal is to tire yourself out and/or get tired of feeling those emotions, then take time to let the emotions fade while you’re tired. That study drew its conclusion without addressing the possibility that 2 minutes of bag-punching followed by 2 minutes of quiet might have been more effective than either strategy separately. I find it illogical, and I wonder if there have been other studies along those lines.
As for myself, usually distraction helps with anger though I am often tempted to vent; the only more effective strategy is to productively address the source of anger if possible. Sometimes a very brief explosion helps, too, but nothing sustained even for 2 minutes. On the other hand when I vent sadness thoroughly, I find that I can cope with it much better afterwards and deal with its source. This in itself is evidence of very little, but is given as an example of how the exploration of catharsis is incomplete as presented. I enjoyed this article, thank you.
“This is one of the worst studies that i have ever seen!”
Catharsis makes you feel good, but you also need to learn to deal with your bad feelings. Let’s try to combine these methods instead of calling catharsis an “emotional hamster wheel” which is superficially dismissive and inane.
@rone – Venting does lower your arousal and makes you feel good, so if those are your goals, venting is good.
@Rone – You are right, you can’t just not deal with the problem. My point here is that venting should never be used as a method for reducing anger, but I can see how it seems like I’m saying cooling off is the only alternative. I’ve added a few paragraphs to clarify this. Thanks for calling me out on that.
I really enjoyed this article and found it very enlightening. One thing I wasn’t clear on is if or how the passage of time could mitigate the aggressive behavior caused by venting. If I vent my anger in some manner, will my aggressiveness subside given enough time?
Actually just realized that Ruben had already asked the same basic question.
It rather seems like the results of the study you focused on show that using a substitute for the object of anger is ineffective and likely to perpetuate aggression, rather than that all venting is ineffective and likely to perpetuate aggression.
I wonder if the people who used higher noise volumes to “punish” their essay grader would have done that if they’d been given the opportunity to verbally demolish the person prior to the button-pushing competition (for example, by being given an essay ostensibly written by the grader and having the opportunity to write “worst thing ever” on it).
[Aside: even more interesting would be to have two groups, one given a genuinely terrible essay and the other a really good one, then see if there was a difference in "punishment" response between people who wrote "this is awful" on the bad essay and people who wrote "this is awful" on the good one.]
If someone cuts you off on the highway, you’ll probably feel better flipping them off rather than if you punch your steering wheel and possibly bruise your knuckles (or worse, wait to go home and punch a pillow). Why is that? Nothing in the study you cited actually examines releasing anger at the object of anger, which makes your conclusions valid only for “substitute venting” rather than venting in general. Punching random stuff doesn’t work, okay, but to generalize it to all venting ever is an inaccurate stretch.
@Aislinn – Great insights. Bushman’s studies actually do look into whether it changes things to direct aggression toward the real target or a substitute. His research has lots of variables and multiple conditions. Check the links to read those studies in full.
Anger has been something that’s been involved in a large part of my past. When my mother was going through depression with the loss of her husband, she took on a mindset she called “Don’t get sad, get mad”. She would vent at my sister and I for a good 15 years, then after a trip to Europe, she didn’t feel she needed that coping mechanism anymore. I developed a bad mindset of my own, where any feelings of anger I had towards people, I would reflect back at myself. 8 years later of therapy, I’ve been able to put my life back in somewhat working order, but more knowledgeable about the goings on in my head. I also once had a friend who felt Catharsis was a great way to get rid of stress… needless to say, I’m not involved with her anymore.
I am a machine perfected over ten thousand years of evolution for but three purposes. 1)To stalk, subdue, kill, eat, and wear the skins of creatures weaker than myself. 2.)To evade, and if possible, kill, eat, and wear the skins of creatures stronger than myself. 3.) To reproduce my species. These behaviours are hard wired in my genes. I can hear you pansies now, “But everyone isn’t like that.” You are correct, everyone isn’t. Years ago they were called food. Years ago they failed to reproduce and their genes didn’t get passed on at the rate mine did. A saber toothed tiger had to eat just as my ancestors did and picked the weakest meal on the plain. Mother nature is working on it, we are beeing weeded out by natural selction, after all; one can’t reproduce in prison. Eventually it will work, and man will be cattle, but there will allways be that one bull. Count on it.
The habitual nature of actions affecting our perception of the world is how Affirmations work. It’s also what causes Venting to spiral out of control.
Wesley, in your narrative, we evolved the way to walk upright to keep the species going. We evolved the ability to grow thumbs to hunt better and survive. We hunted because it was necessary to survive then we learned agriculture because it was more beneficial. So who is to say we are not evolving beyond the necessity for anger? We evolved complex social grounds to survive. Your entire argument shoots itself in the foot with its own logic.
@David McRaney – I did read the specific studies you linked at the bottom, but I do not see where allowing venting against the source of anger was tested empirically vis a vis substitutes and cooling-off. Did you mean studies cited at the end of Bushman’s textbook? Any ones in particular? I do not own the book and Google won’t let me see the references.
I suppose that it just does not appear correct to me to conflate physical and nonphysical aggression, as “punching bags” vs “using fighting words” are rather different. For one, verbal aggression is very context-dependent and subjective, with almost infinite variations depending on temperament. Passive-aggressive responses are a way of venting anger, too, for example, but they’re rarely outright abusive. I once met a woman who could calmly and deliberately reduce people to tears without ever raising her voice or using a single expletive, and she believed she was not an angry/aggressive person.
By contrast, there aren’t very many gradations for physical aggression (the tools of violence and the ways in which people can contort themselves bodily to inflict physical damage are finite, in other words), plus we humans have a long history of using our bodies before we used our brains — so it is not difficult to see why violence against random stuff would establish a link between anger and aggression. However, I don’t think it’s quite so simple for non-physical aggression (verbal, body language, social interference, etc).
I will agree with you that the grocery store has outmoded most of our primal needs, and very few people have ever had to run for their lives. The systems in place to handle those responses are still there and will be for a long time. Anger won’t ever be outmoded until people quit screwing each other over, which also seems to have been around a while and shows no signs of slacking up.
Wow, every. single. sentence. is presented as a paragraph. I really dislike that aspect of this site. It would be easier to read, and more cohesive, if you used more conventional paragraph formatting.
Came across this, good timing… a little off-color language so may be NSFW.
http://www.thecomedynerds.com/2010/08/scream-for-scream-room/
Can escape, like for example, going to church or other peaceful places where you can reflect, be considered as an effective way to “stop” your anger at someone?
This article seems to be making a large leap in logic to me. Why would one assume based on one study using a punching bag that catharsis is impossible?
It seems to me that the obvious difference between a punching bag and a violent movie or video game is that the latter two allow the user a sort of resolution generally speaking. A movie will show the aftermath of violence for example and often have a happy ending whereas a punching bag only allows… punching.
@philippaopao
That completly depends on which church you are going to. If you are thinking of the West Boro Baptist church, you might want to look somewhere else.
here’s an analogy to consider – steam can be used to produce electricty and be valuable (productive, selective controlled venting) or it can burn and kill you (non or poorly directed venting). To say all venting is bad is an overgeneralization. I can release some emotional steam by an animalistic yell that then allows me to take a deep breath and relax and consider what has made me angry and then perhaps vent those feelings in a productive way towards the source of that anger.
Interesting that the word “venting” translates to “hitting a punching bag” in your interpretation of this study. I always considered “venting” to primarily mean “expressing my anger/frustration/concerns to a close friend/significant other/family member.” I would consider punching a hole in the wall or throwing dinner plates exactly the kind of violent outburts (verbal) venting is intended to AVOID, rather than considering it “venting” in and of itself.
Wow, this entire argument is based on the assumption that human emotion turns on a dime. What did you seriously expect to happen if you test someone -immediately- after they’ve punched a bag and are worked up?
What about testing them an hour or a day later, when they’re not still in an aggressive state from the punching bag? The point of that aggressive release is not to give the person a quiet, lamblike state in three seconds, but to reduce the tension of the bad event playing on someone’s mind.
Whether you think it works or not, the experimental procedure outlined here is a bad one to hang your hat on.
This is your best post from all that i have read before.
Thank fully i chose chase!!
I have history of anger bursts in the past and i completely agree that its a cycle.Its very difficult to get off that train and once off, just thank your lucky stars, pray it never happens again!
I love your blog!
Great going!
So if you had to give another opinion, would you say that venting also doesn’t work because swallowing the huge anger lump initially is less than the various times one would punch a bag added all up?
Your article has been linked to another article – about people should “shut up” about talking about P.R. China, and “behave”:
http://chinadivide.com/2010/catharsis-venting-reinforces-aggressive-behavior.html
As for the article in question, seen too many people “bottle it up” only to be eaten from the inside from stress, or just simply snap at a “higher level” – i.e. “Going Postal”
I don’t see how this article pin points a negative or a positive. The study seems unrealistic by perpetuating the actual act, rather letting the act come about it’s self.
Events happen in life where you have no control over, no one is at fault, yet you get angry or you want to scream about it. I don’t see how this is reflected in the study.
Agree with mj. First post I’ve read, and am fairly impressed, but the formatting is definitely a barrier.
Venting anger is just one method of acting on it, and depending on the circumstances might be “good” or “bad,” but it’s treatment of the symptom. If you scream in your partner’s face to ‘vent,’ arguably that’s pretty bad, and probably abusive. If you climb down a manhole into the sewer system and stand there alone screaming your head off, that might be said to be “good,” but if you’re doing that because you cannot communicate with your partner then you’re really just experiencing a symptom of that underlying communication problem.
The real need is to FEEL the emotions. Anger is a secondary emotion, usually a defense triggered by the feeling of shame. What shame message is occurring that is triggering the angry defensive reflex? If you can explore down to that level, you can start to FEEL the shame. Once you feel the shame, you can dispassionately examine it.
For example: “When you ask me if I’ve forgotten anything before we leave the house, I am reminded of the shame I used to feel when my mother did so. That triggers the angry reflex I developed with my mother, and at the same time casts you into her role in my head (which isn’t fair to you – you’re not my mother). That makes me angry, and then the way I act when I get angry at you triggers more shame in me, and becomes a reinforcing cycle.”
That’s noticing it. The next step is when you start to try to change this pattern, but you must become very good at NOTICING it, and at FEELING that shame, before you can intervene in your own behavior.
So first, notice it – “Wow, I’m feeling so much shame after you say that.” You may still get angry, you may still fight, but at least you know the process informing that fight. Just knowing that is going to change things.
Next, intervene and feel your feelings: “Wow, I’m feeling so much shame. I’m going to feel that shame. Wow I feel awful.” That invites intimacy and communication. Instead of fighting your partner sees that you are in distress.
Next, intervene and change behavior: “Wow, I’m feeling so much shame. I feel it. It’s awful. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother shamed me. But you know, I’m NOT a kid, and you’re not my mother. So while I feel defensive and angry, that’s just a habit. I don’t HAVE to do it.”
Suppressing anger doesn’t help. Stuffing your feelings doesn’t help. But neither does letting your anger distract you from your real underlying work. Anger is ALWAYS a secondary emotion – when you feel angry, it’s a reaction to some other feeling. Find that other feeling, embrace it, live through it, and your anger will change, maybe even go away.
Good reading: Arthur Janov; The Primal Scream
Studies that took two days at most, without considering long term effects, backing up a theory stating how effects having long-term repercussions.
“I don’t really understand it.”
I’d say it’s all bollocks.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to use the “emotional hamster wheel” analogy.
The way to get off the Hamster Wheel is to connect to the emotion, but in a way that decompresses it without “venting”. Venting just perpetuates the cycle, as this research suggests.
You know, I think cracked.com should contact you, or vice-versa, about having a column or something in their site. Since their site is based on the idea of providing information with a comedic twist, it would suit you. Just a thought (although I’d be surprised if it was a new one).
Reading most of the replies, it seems that there are a lot of people who want to offhandedly dismiss the findings provided here. A part of me wonders, is it possible that some of these commentators simply refuse to listen to something debunking their belief that venting is is good for them?
Anger has it’s place, certainly, but do we really need to scream, curse, or hit things to deal with it? I didn’t see anything in the article about being a placid sheep all of your life, just a recommendation that you approach anger and the problems related to it with calm wisdom, thus allowing you to remove your obstacle rationally, as opposed to making hasty, irrational decisions based on prolonging your fury with venting.
… just a recommendation that you approach anger and the problems related to it with calm wisdom, thus allowing you to remove your obstacle rationally…
But I don’t want remove my obstacle. I want it to realize that I was hurt and to regret and to apologize.
Of course I could take another path. I could treat people like they were inanimated objects that I can move around like pieces on a chess board and every now then they fail to move as I wished. But wouldn’t get angry at them. I don’t get angry to a rain either when it wets me .
I wish I could take that path but I am afraid I can’t.
@SH The point is that you can let the obstical know that you were hurt in a more rational state of mind than when you are angry. Perhaps it is better to make decisions when you are calm.
Also, from what I got from the article, it is more about catharsis not being a good long term solution to anger. And that using violence to deal with your anger makes you more likely to use violence in the future. It is a classic case of negative reinforcement (or positive reiforcement, depending on how you look at it).
Buddhists has been knowing this for the past 2500 years !! To know how to negate the effects of bad feelings and to promote the good feelings is the key to self-control and happiness. Venting out is just loosing control to your emotions instead of being in control of them.
A minor point on a minor point, but the games study showed that angry people who believe in catharsis were more likely to pick a violent video game to play than a non-violent one (fitting the other studies). It, of course, says nothing about playing the games themselves when angry, etc.
Personally I think playing a violent videogame is a pretty good method to calm down after getting angry. Before you even get started you’ll spend a minute or so sitting through your PC/console booting and loading screens etc. Then when you finally get playing you’ll find in most of them that it fits the bill of “activity incompatible with venting”. These games usually require concentration and fine motor skills. Not something you easily retain when throwing a hissy fit.
Of course it might make matters worse if you then go online and have your ass handed to you by some kid. But it just doesn’t seem like an action that really allows you to express your anger.
Fantastic post.
Wow. What a giant pile of metrosexual modern “man” psychobabble.
Hmmm… a lot to process in this article: everything from the working definition of the word “venting” to how an act affects individuals. I’d start with defining venting as that seems to be a sticking point here. Then, I’d address different personality types. I know from personal experience that I am really good at mentally talking myself into a high state of agitation, no violent behavior necessary. Having said that, it is entirely possible that someone just sitting there contemplating the unfairness of the grade could just as easily increase their state of agitation as someone hitting a punching bag. Having read just the article, I would say that a lot of conclusions have been drawn that may suggest oversimplification.
Additionally, there are many ways people get angry: some people tend to have explosive tempers, they blow their stack and then are done; some are arguers and can and will argue a point for days; some are grudge holders, outwardly they seem to have let things go but inside they keep simmering; some people get angry at every little thing separately, others it takes a huge number of things before they finally become actually angry. I’d be interested to know how these variations are addressed or accounted for within this study because I think it speaks to the conclusions of the study.
I would also add that certain situations may trigger different types of anger even within the same person. When I get extremely frustrated for example, I tend to blow my stack and then it’s over, but in general, it takes a whole lot to set me off and once I am angry, it can take days for me to fully let it go. In my experience, different methods of calming down work for different types of anger. How is that considered or addressed in this study?
the issues at hand seem somewhat conflated…
it seems to me the participants were primed for violence or reflection… but as others, in comments, have observed, there are numerous ways to experience and dispense with negative emotions… who’s surprised that someone primed for violence as an outlet would use it as a tool to overcome disappointment…
the larger problem is that people often, it seems, fail to consider their options… employ their capacity for empathy… and ultimately think for themselves …
testing for a propensity to seek vengeance seems to miss the point…
I don’t see why Aristotle should be punched just because a few people were punching bags and it didn’t work out so well for them.
What does punching bags even have to do with the ancients Greeks and practices of theatre? The way I see it, catharsis in the Aristotelian sense is specifically something you don’t cause to yourself, but let happen because of the emotions arising from something you observe, passively. Games hardly apply here, either.
1) Your mileage may vary, but just about the most difficult time to form a rational, effective decision to deal with anger is when one is actually angry.
2) I didn’t really find the very general advice to do something totally incompatible with aggression to be effective “advice on what to do instead.” What exactly is incompatible with aggression, and how do I convince myself and/or remind myself to seek it out when I’m already angry?
As you might suspect, I have had anger issues my entire life, and have never really found an effective outlet for it. About all I’ve been able to do is learn about the causes behind my anger and avoid them. Unfortunately, many of them relate to my underemployment, which makes them a bit of a vicious cycle, since I’m pretty sure that my anger management and stress management issues have also contributed to my underemployment.
Ever tried to put things in perspective?
I’ve hardly ever needed to vent anything. Sure, I get annoyed, but then I calm down and either realize it’s (partially) my own fault, the result of certain events or I realize the person causing the annoyance is doing “it” because it’s “normal” from their perspective.
And otherwise I sent a complaint letter to the firm involved.
If it’s a person (whom I would never have to meet again anyway), I let it rest.
I do occasionally complain to my wife (not about my wife), but she doesn’t mind ;-)
No punching or screaming. Haven’t done that since I was 20 and I feel much better now than I did then.
Love this blog. All these articles are great, filled with self actualization, and have helped me grow. I am someone who thought of himself as quite wise in his young age, who also thought venting was the correct vector.
Now I know why I am often angry, all the time, for inexplicable reasons. I have been blaming it on being Irish.
It stops today.
Thanks!
I like this place. I read all the posts and kept thinking one would mention what came to my mind. No one did. So I will put it out here. Due to early and uncontrollable connditions I was raised in a violent home. In my own ignorance I made some bad decisions where relationships are concerned. I have found that a person can go fairly consistantly from an abusive word..to a weak push..to a full fledged assult on another human being. Any bearing on this whole concept?
I have to add that after living in the woods, eight hours a day, and watching mother nature, wesley may be speaking the truth. There is much war in nature and the weak always loose.
Great post!
Especially funny reading all of the comments… people love trying to defend their world view, even when confronted with evidence that contradicts it.
I easily get angry, and I often vent to my friends about whatever “injustice” I’ve discovered that day… and yet, unsurprisingly I am still easily angered by many things.
People can bitch about the study all they want over the Internet; here’s an idea… go do your own damn study and prove that aggression is diminished through venting. Get your study published in a peer reviewed journal, and then come back and post a link to your study here.
Otherwise, STFU because your words only serve to rationalize your illogical beliefs and are of no benefit to anyone else.
What this article describes makes perfect sense to me, based on my own understanding of how the brain works. Basically, the more you do things, the better you get at them.
Whether it comes to spotting deer in the woods, riding a motorcycle, doing crossword puzzles, or finding things to get angry about… the more you practice, the more energy you spend reliving the experience, the more resources your brain devotes to that activity.
You are not a boiler. You are not steam powered. By “venting” your angry feelings… you are not venting… what you ARE doing is sending electric/chemical signals in your brain through neural networks. The more you send electrical/chemical signals along a specific network, the stronger that network becomes (that’s how you “learn” to do things like ride a bike, etc.)
If you keep yourself feeling angry longer (by yelling about it, by punching a bag while thinking about it, etc), the more you reinforce those anger neural networks in your own brain. Essentially you are practicing getting/feeling angry and hardwiring yourself to become better at being angry…you are learning anger!
Also… that Wesley guy… LOL!!!
For a machine “perfected over ten thousand years of evolution” you sure as shit aren’t perfect. Maybe you should go back and re-read some evolution textbooks… along with maybe some anthropological works.
I think you might come to realize that Neanderthals were killed off by Homo Sapiens… not because H. Sapiens were better at fighting and being angry… but because they were smarter.
You can be the strongest guy all you want, but you piss off a clever weakling and you get shot in the face with an arrow before you ever get the chance to club him to death with your fist ; )
All of the things you enjoy in life (even guns/hunting bows) were not created by brutes–they were created by smart people. So next time you want to rant about how big and bad you are, just STFU and realize we don’t live 20,000 years in the past.
@Bogdan:
“Otherwise, STFU because your words only serve to rationalize your illogical beliefs and are of no benefit to anyone else.”
Well, I’m glad YOU certainly have the perspective of a well-balanced, rational individual who clearly has his emotions in check.
Also, the question of whether all the Neandertals were killed off by the Cro-Magnons at all is still very much up in the air. At present, conflict is only one of four possible scenarios for the extinction of the Neandertals about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago; the other three are nonviolent competition for resources, climate change (fairly nonviolent), and interbreeding (also likely not so violent, but one never knows).
@ Mike Reeves-McMillan:
“I’m glad I’m not the only one to use the “emotional hamster wheel” analogy.
The way to get off the Hamster Wheel is to connect to the emotion, but in a way that decompresses it without “venting”. Venting just perpetuates the cycle, as this research suggests.”
This is a good description of the “what”; I’m open to suggestions as to the “how.”
@ept:
“What about testing them an hour or a day later, when they’re not still in an aggressive state from the punching bag? The point of that aggressive release is not to give the person a quiet, lamblike state in three seconds, but to reduce the tension of the bad event playing on someone’s mind.”
Kinda like testing someone’s skin for moisture an hour after they’ve toweled off, and not right after they get out of the pool? :)
I really want to read this article. However, having a paragraph break after every single sentence makes reading this article like stabbing pins in my eyes – it’s impossible to skim effectively.
Please try constructing paragraphs based around sensible units of thought.
Obviously, punching a bag is not true cartharsis. The experiment is a flop.
Liked the article. I’ve promoted the steam/venting notion during the first half of my indignant life. Then a wise friend & doctor urged me to reconsider. But the methods, such as distraction or simply cooling down before taking action, have never seemed very effective.
What’s missing in the entire set of article + studies + discussions is an extremely key point: we are not just minds, or brains, or neuroglandular response systems. We experience life through all these systems, but who “I” am is quite a bit more vast, and quite a bit less discrete than any “processor.”
I love the first chapter title of Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now: “You are not your mind.” Seems to me that a simply-behavioral approach to a disruptive anger problem is bound to fail, or even it if looks successful, is actually just setting up suppression which can create the so-called “cancer personality,” etc. But what if we presume at the beginning that this requires, at the minimum, an acknowledgement that we experience events as a bodymind. (So-called mindbody medicine is starting to gain a lot of traction, and that’s a good thing.)
Somebody mentioned how Buddhists have known how to deal with this for 2500 years. Certainly the Dalai Lama is often encouraging us to not get angry… that it only makes things worse. What he means is, do not become identified with the anger. We cannot stop primary or even secondary emotions from arising, but we can recognize that “I am not this feeling.” And we can then put the one power we actually possess–the power of attention–on the place in the body where the emotion appears to reside or emanate from. Doing this, which is a classic Tibetan Buddhist awareness technique, one finds that the raw energy driving the emotion then becomes available for our more-enlightened use. It is, after all, only energy; not “good” or “bad.” Anger, the Tibetans say, transforms into clarity. It is a single energy with a dual expression, and attention or awareness is the one tool that allows us to flip the expression into a more useful form. Of course, we have to train our attention even to put these concepts to use. Thus all the mind-training/meditation techniques offered by Buddhism and all other mystical systems.
I’d like to see the Bushmans of the world do more studies, and design them to look at the role attention plays in our experience of the world.
David, interesting article, but I think you didn’t go deeply enough into the subject to differentiate sources of anger. I totally agree that screaming in one’s car, for example, when one has been cut off in traffic, probably increases the propensity to vent over trivial occurances. OTH, people who have ptsd from abuse at pre-verbal stages of their lives (I was raped by a caregiver when I was five) need to release subconscious rage that is taking a lot of energy to suppress and which cannot totally be processed cognitively or verbally. I found I was better after venting rage physically (and safely) over a period of years; I have heard of many other cases where the only way to release anger from traumatic experiences is to vent. Perhaps you didn’t mean to address these cases, but your article reads as if you didn’t consider them, which you probably did. If someone regularly becomes excessively emotional over everyday occurences, they should consider ptsd as a cause.
I totally agree with you, though, that a shallow understanding of anger is contributing to many ignorant people making our society much more narcissistic and uncivil. Venting over incidents that could more properly be handled cognitively is becoming epidemic.
I totally agree that screaming in one’s car, for example, when one has been cut off in traffic, probably increases the propensity to vent over trivial occurances. OTH, people who have ptsd from abuse at pre-verbal stages of their lives (I was raped by a caregiver when I was five) need to release subconscious rage that is taking a lot of energy to suppress and which cannot totally be processed cognitively or verbally. I found I was better after venting rage physically (and safely) over a period of years; I have heard of many other cases where the only way to release anger from traumatic experiences is to vent. Perhaps you didn’t mean to address these cases, but your article reads as if you didn’t consider them, which you probably did. If someone regularly becomes excessively emotional over everyday occurences, they should consider ptsd as a cause.
I totally agree with you, though, that a shallow understanding of anger is contributing to many ignorant people making our society much more narcissistic and uncivil. Venting over incidents that could more properly be handled cognitively is becoming epidemic.
BTW, Eckhart Tolle is quite probably suffering from dissociation and delusions. His books should not be a guide to anything.
Wow, you can really see by the comments that the idea of catharsis still has a powerful hold over the imagination, even though many attempts to demonstrate the phenomenon have found the opposite.
I think it’s easier to accept the science when you use the frame of cognitive dissonance — we seek to maintain and reinforce our concept of ourselves and the world, and, usually, to believe in the justness and necessity of our own actions. When we express anger, we strengthen our concept of ourselves as angry people who have the kind of outburst we are having. We likely become more convinced of the badness of whatever we are angry at, because no one wants to see themselves as somebody who gets enraged by trivial things. This in turn makes us more angry. And so on.
This is not, as a few people claimed, a viewpoint of “metosexuals” spouting “psychobabble.” It can be found in many spiritual and philosophical traditions. Buddhism was mentioned. One could equally cite the Bible — which repeatedly warns us that hateful thoughts and hateful words are just as sinful and destructive as hateful actions. We know where the Stoics would come down on a matter like this. Or take a real “tough guy” ethos, like that you might find in the Marine Corps today — do you think they are encouraged to “vent” their anger? Maybe at a learner for teaching purposes, but in the face of the enemy or in general, I think not. When it comes right down to it, a lack of self-control is nowhere admired.
I think AA is one of the savviest modern advocates of the anti-catharsis view. They understand that venting any destructive feeling reinforces it, be it anger or self-pity or resentment. “Resentment” they like to say, “is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” What if you have a burning anger inside of you? “Fake it till you make it” AA says; do the right thing and eventually your feelings will follow. Bushman and an army of cognitive behavioral therapists have said it no better.
Robert, I agree that anger can lead to poor decision-making, and certainly there are situations where absolutely nobody benefits from an angry reaction to stimuli. But I think just as validating oneself based on one’s angry response to stimuli is poor reasoning, I also think that invalidating one’s own feelings, which seems to me to be what you are suggesting, is also completely wrongheaded.
Yes, I do believe that we all must learn to understand what makes us angry, and to strive to ensure that our response to those stimuli allow us to move beyond (or, where possible, neutralize) the stimuli in a safe and positive way. However, we must not assume that anger is never justified, which again is how I read your comment. If someone steps on my foot, a brief rush of what can only be called anger (after, of course, the shock) is perfectly natural. The question then becomes how I deal with what I feel, followed in short order by finding out what caused someone to step on my foot, and working to avoid a recurrence.
@BF Burns:
Thank you for this thoughtful response. I think we’re looking at emotions in a somewhat different way. For example, you say:
“I also think that invalidating one’s own feelings, which seems to me to be what you are suggesting, is also completely wrongheaded.”
I don’t see our emotional responses as needing our benefiting from our validation. An emotional reaction may be appropriate or inappropriate, but to me the more important question is whether it is useful to give expression to it. What we give sincere expression to, we will come to feel more strongly over time. I think that’s what the research shows, and it’s also been my experience. So while I feel my feelings, I try to chose carefully what feelings I give expression to, and which I let “die on the vine” by refusing to give voice to them. I try to go heavy on expressions of gratitude, admiration, and cheerful awe at the world. I try to skimp on rage, resentment, self-pity and hopelessness. It’s like being on a diet. I recognize the pleasure (of a sort) in indulging those feelings, but they aren’t good for me, so I abstain (with many lapses).
“However, we must not assume that anger is never justified, which again is how I read your comment.”
Nowhere do I say anger is never justified. I’ll go further and say anger for the right reasons may push us to undertake useful corrective action. I’m angered by the inefficiencies in my hospital, and I work to correct them. What I rarely find useful is “venting” my anger at an object. As the research shows, that just stokes the furnace, and mine is plenty hot without the help, believe me.
Having taken a number of courses on neuroscience, especially the neuroscience of emotion, professors have touched a great deal on the way we manage anger. While the subject of “venting” was never discussed, it is proven to be detrimental to your mood and health to suppress negative emotion. This as opposed to reappraisal: actively reinterpreting the meaning of an emotionally evocative stimulus to lessen it’s impact. In a study, people were shown emotionally jarring images and movie clips. Those who reappraised their emotion scored markedly less negative emotion than those who were instructed not to show emotion on their faces. People were identified as emotion suppressors also reported a higher incidence of negative emotion in their life, and a decreased feeling of “well-being”.
I can’t speak to venting, but don’t let this article convince you that “holding it in” is good for you. Good science suggests otherwise. (The Neural Bases of Emotion Regulation: Reappraisal
and Suppression of Negative Emotion. By Philippe R. Goldin, Kateri McRae, Wiveka Ramel, and James J. Gross)
Looking at the paper you cite:
“Reappraisal resulted in early (0–4.5 sec) prefrontal cortex (PFC) responses, decreased negative emotion experience, and decreased amygdala and insular responses. Suppression produced late (10.5–15 sec) PFC responses, decreased negative emotion behavior and experience, but increased amygdala and insular responses.”
I don’t find any support for your assertion that “[suppression] is proven to be detrimental to your mood and health to suppress negative emotion.” First, fMRI scans are not a direct window into “mood and health.” You need to follow actual end outcomes to say anything about that. Second, both suppression and “reappraisal” seemed to be effective at reducing self-reported negative emotion. Lastly, neither, as you rightly point out, represent a catharsis strategy.
I don’t see any evidence here that suppression of negative emotions (if by that you refer to controlling yourself and choosing not to express destructive emotions) is a bad thing. I fear your neurosciences professors may be suffering a Freudian hangover.
One more point about this study; outside the protocol, these strategies are in no way mutually exclusive. One can both reflect on and reappraise a response and control our reaction to it. Declining to express a feeling to the outside world is not the same as trying to hide it from yourself.
To prove whether or not venting helps assuage anger don;t you have to first prove that the subject of your experiment actually vented?
In my mind lamely hitting a pillow a few times does not constitute proper venting.
Perhaps blasting the test grader with sound or making them eat a ton of hot sauce was the actual venting.
I’d like to see how these two groups reacted a few weeks or a month later. Would those who vented still feel animus towards the grader? Would those who did not still be neutral or benign
Additionally, what about adding a constructive anger release component to the experiment? Some subjects are able to confront the grader who gave them the low mark before choosing his punishment or completing the word fill-in page.
How would that affect the conclusions on the effectiveness of venting?
Robert, you seem convinced of your argument beyond any possibility of revising it, but I think the comments made here are valid and instead of addressing them, you seem to climb on a high horse of erudite-sounding but unverified ‘theory.’
Are you really so informed on all aspects of emotions? Emotions are part of our survival and the Pollyanna (sorry, but you’ve been name-calling, too) -like notion that you can glibly “feast” on some emotions that you like and “starve” others you find ugly is just a theory of yours. Your point that pop-psychology is harmful to people is correct; anyone who thinks that venting inappropriately or as the only means of dealing with emotion is beneficial is just wrong. I think your article was a superficial glance at the issue and the comments are urging you to look deeper, which is not a bad thing. And, finally, do you really want to piss off a lot of people who are obviously experts on anger? : )
YOU are not so smart… for not updating your blog;)
Love your work. You are a high priest.
Thank you from the deepest pit of my psyche.
@Jingo – Regular posting will now resume. Thanks for reading. Big news soon too.
“Robert, you seem convinced of your argument beyond any possibility of revising it, . . .”
Always a promising way to begin a conversation. “I know you’re too stupid and stubborn to listen, but here’s the truth . . .”
“I think the comments made here are valid and instead of addressing them, you seem to climb on a high horse of erudite-sounding but unverified ‘theory.’”
It seems to me I’ve addressed the arguments point by point. That you don’t specify any of the arguments I’ve supposedly dodged reassures me that this is so. Rather than making an argument, you seem to be staking out a rhetorical position in which you attack my writing (“erudite-sounding”) my character (because I think my way of looking at things is the correct one — as opposed to what, exactly?) and resort, as you admit, to name-calling.
Your efforts to justify this childishness are puerile. Talk about getting on a high horse — you show up without anything substantive to say, engage in name-calling and ad hominem, and for the cherry on top you want to lecture me about how to conduct a discussion. Sorry, your credibility on that front is somewhere south of nil.
Come back when you have something to say about catharsis.
“I’d like to see how these two groups reacted a few weeks or a month later. Would those who vented still feel animus towards the grader? Would those who did not still be neutral or benign”
In “Mistakes were Made” they quote “The Brothers Karamazov”:
“He has done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since then I have hated him.”
On a more rigorous note, there are many other studies, for example Berkowitz (2007), “Experimental investigations of hostility catharsis.” Money quote:
“It is concluded that the catharsis hypothesis blinds us to the important social principle that aggression is likely to lead to still more aggression.”
Or take Green et al, also 2007, “The facilitation of aggression by aggression: Evidence against the catharsis hypothesis.”
But both of those are short follow-up as well. I know I’ve seen some longer ternm stuff; I’ll try to find it.
Thanks for this great article. I didn’t realize there was research on this specific subject. I’m curious how catharsis affects children, as well. We employ time outs more often than not, but I have occasionally counseled my 3 year old daughter to hit a pillow etc. rather than throwing toys or hitting a person. Maybe not the best idea in the long run, though we do know that the brains of children work differently.
Holding anger in is much much worse than venting it out. Releasing it in an un-harmful way helps get rid of it. The reduction in stress and increase in well-being is worth it.
Holding anger in could result in much more aggressive behavior once that person can no longer hold it in – it will come out as an explosion.
For those who are wondering what to do for an action that is completely incompatible with anger, here are a few suggestions:
garden, knit, do some carpentry, paint, masturbate
@Jason: Not all those activities are completely incompatible with anger. I have, just for instance, ma–err, mowed the lawn while I was really upset.
I have to say, the “distraction” strategy doesn’t cut it for me. It is like poison ivy. You can try to take your mind off the itch, but sooner or later the itch will come back. Catharsis is scratching the poison ivy. Feels good, makes it worse.
When I am angry and I attempt some other behavior, I cannot help but go over and over in my mind the situation that has prompted the anger. The only effective way I have found to deal with anger, if I have the awareness, is to attempt to deal with the situation that is causing me anger, but that requires skill, patience, and maturity, and I often come up short.
To me the distraction strategies are useful for one reason only – to calm down enough where you become able to deal with the problem, if you choose to do so. Trying to constructively deal with the problem while still hot-blooded is very nearly impossible.
I did make two points which you chose to ignore:
There are different types, occasions and purposes of venting.
The benefit of choosing which emotions to embrace and which to suppress has no research to back it up.
But you are obviously so angry about being challenged that you couldn’t address them.
Janice,
He didn’t seem particularly angry to me. This brings up a completely separate point, in fact: we are all calibrated differently. What seems like an expression of anger to you might seem to someone else like an expression of minor annoyance, or passive aggression, or some other emotion, if even that.
I was walking across a tent when I was a kid, not really thinking about anything in particular, and in a fairly good mood overall, and one of my friends came up to me and said, “Wow! You look like you’re heading off to kick somebody’s [expletive deleted]!”
Of course, it helps to know that I have no neck, a huge forehead with a heavy brow, and big shoulders. So, as I learned on that day, I have to remember to stand very straight and keep my face very relaxed in order to avoid people thinking I’m about to cause bad things to happen.
This brings up another point, for that matter: we are always taught to avoid misapplying our anger. So how negative is it when a kid is constantly being told that that’s exactly what he’s doing? I’m not saying I wasn’t bad-tempered, but when everything I did that wasn’t exactly what someone else wanted me to do was labeled as an expression of anger…looking back, I wonder how on Earth I grew up at all.
I believe that’s part of the reason I got into writing, criticism, and analysis: when a person who looks like me can articulate his viewpoint and discuss it assertively (instead of aggressively), and clearly display intellect in a positive way, every conversation becomes a much happier experience.
I’m not sure if you say that playing video games or going wild to death metal increases your aggressiveness, even if you weren’t angry before, because if you do, I’m feeling insulted :-\ . At least for me that’s not the case. Metalheads are normally rather (loud but) peaceful natures.
Freud was an idiot. But, moving on, you obviously have not dealt with people who are so traumatized that they are numb. Sometimes venting is necessary to get the e-motions moving again. But continuing anger & hatred any longer than that is not much use, i would agree. Trying to hold off “negative” emotions is no answer either. Just be with them, let them flow, but don’t feed them unnecessarily.
Re: the video, that experiment went the way it did simply because pillow punching is a poor workout. Substitute for 20min of high intensity exercise to make the opposite conclusions.
Wonderfully expressed.
An efficient remedy can also be addressing the cause of the anger. We can’t always do so directly, but just focusing on what the reason for a negative emotion was can put the mind at ease and leave us with a lesson learned.
science is almost like magic, except they start with different letters. (s and M) way different actually
Oooooooooohhhh SHIT…your article just got backed up by the most reputable source of news and information on the internetz, Cracked.com. I think this finally settles the long discussion from this article.
http://www.cracked.com/article/85_6-bullshit-facts-about-psychology-that-everyone-believes/
So, let me get this straight:
Because people were more likely to set volume too high, while doing a button pressing game–or were more likely to put slightly more spicy sauce on somebody else’s food, they are said to only be perpetuating their anger.
Well, first off–being the angry screaming bitch I am, I at least can understand that after I have had a good scream out, it is harder to hear things. So, I would set the volume too high, mostly because my ears have adjusted to the higher volume due to what probably amounts to me screaming at people.
And–on the spicy sauce stuff… I am just going to point you guys over to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.
Especially, when these later tests had no control group. That is, a group designed to let people know the normal response on an unfettered experiment. That is, people who went straight in and did it. Maybe that higher volume thing is normal–even without the violent tendencies before.
I mean, I have had people try to put me in time out rooms (I have spent a few times, where it was more my room, than the one I slept it–that ought to be nice for your statistics)–that has done nothing but have me rage even more the next time. However, normally after coming out of a quiet room that I had spent quite some time in not making noise–what most normal people would consider a normal volume seemed screamingly loud here.
And–okay… so… people put more hot sauce on another persons food… how… how in the bloody twelve depths of hell does that mean they are more likely to seek revenge? It seems petty, and seems stupid. I mean–that is a bloody retarded way to get revenge. I know that I would give a normal amount for how much I’d enjoy eating.
And–again, having people wait is not a control–it is a separate testing group. A control, would just have the people go onto the next part immediately. By having a waiting group–you are introducing another element.
Looking at the Penn and Teller video, I am going by my idea that much like Mythbusters, it is for entertainment purposes only. Not for actual knowledge. As apparently, six people is a proper pool of a study. And by setting up a random environment, doing two separate techniques for calming down–without any control–they have shown really nothing.
Myself, I looked at that, and put in “chore”. “choke” really does not seem like a word I would do. Neither is “chase”. I am certain that with enough the English language as it is, there is definitely enough different words that could be put into there, that just because the anger group put “choke” there, does not mean anything.
Even then, since we are giving two different ways of coping with it, how about I present a third one. Thinking for a bit: what is what I am doing going to change the situation? Do I even care if I change it? How are my actions affecting it?
Which, at that point, I can decide, “okay, punching this person in the face will change something.” or “you know what, punching this person in the face will not make him any less of a contemptible douche, and will only confirm to others, his douche baggery.”
Essentially, the studies used for this point are bullshit psuedoscience that really do not do a proper test–and have no control what so ever (controls do NOT involve introducing further conditions into them… that is called a contaminated control). They just test two flawed methods with dealing with the anger.
Instead, I say, your anger is real. Understand this. Look into the environment around you–and figure out, what the heck is pissing me off? Now–what can I do for a constructive change to my environment to fix the fact that I am ticked off? Punching a pillow seems nice–but it does nothing to solve the fact that I am ticked off somebody did not like my opinion. And really, giving somebody a large amount of hot sauce is not going to change their opinion. Hitting a volume louder to punish them is not going to change the situation–except, since this is a game, it will make it harder for them to win at it.
Realise that yes, you may be angry–and understand that yes, this is real. Now look around you–what is the reason that you are ticked off. And you know what, do something that makes it so that this reason is not in your environment in a way that ticks you off. This is a method that is called simple problem solving.
In before “that is the worst essay ever, F-” ~.n
I *heart* cussing catharsis. There was once a study done on how cussing in response to pain & the decrease in amount of pain experience…
A lot of comments about what works for differnt people!!
Whats it matter?? if venting works for you, do it! if it doesnt, don’t!
venting doesn’t work. That is the problem. It exponentiates the problem. If you delude yourself into thinking it works, you will reap the rewards of a life shunned by others, or in like company of venters. Not recommended if mental health is actually your objective.
but if mental health or consideration of others are objectives, then have at it. I will sit well back in the bleachers and laugh my ass off. What a wonderful demonstration of abject helplessness, the inner toddler grabbing the keys to the car, painting the windshield with its vivid imagination, and driving the road it thinks it is on.
but that is pretty much the state of our affairs. Quite silly and tragic.
“Video games, horror movies, romance novels – all fun, but no psychologist would prescribe these outlets as a cure for anger or fear or loneliness.”
Isn’t the point to do something different, and take your mind off the anger? If that’s the case, games, movies, and books are excellent distractions. You just need to be able to pick media that’s not going to perpetuate the destructive emotions. Granted, there are people who are going to get pissed off no matter what game they’re playing, but that seems like a pretty extreme case. I’ve always found Tetris to be a wonderful pacifier, personally, and I find other games (Portal comes to mind) are excellent at redirecting my anger into frenetic, gleeful kind of energy.
This article confirms my previously-held beliefs, so I AGREE WITH IT! But seriously, I dislike the idiom, “express your anger”. It gives an (I think) erroneous impression that you have a certain amount of anger inside you (one quart, say), and you can press it out, and then it’s gone (sprayed all over your loved ones, presumably). I like the expression, “practice your anger”, because the more you do it, the more you want to do it, and the ‘better’ you get at it. Behaving angrily can be addictive and thrilling, giving you a feeling, for a minute, of dominating. Very seductive, especially if you have nagging feelings of persecution.
i understand that this article is about the “catharsis” or purging of anger. But please do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Catharsis also is a process of its own accord, working out much deeper complexes. It is a process that naturally occurs but is quite painful and frightening. You can do it alone or with the help of a knowledgeable layperson or professional.
It happens as we ease through the stratified defenses, allowing hugely pressured nodules to rise within. These are bundles of undigested and charged particles of material, memories too shocking to a developing psyche to properly assimilate, without the guidance and support of loving adults.
it is a lost art, as most seem more interested in popping pills, making themselves feel better without doing the work. Treating the symptoms, repressing and burying the problem to pressure up even more. So now we have pill addicts who can’t get off their antidepressants for the murderous depths to which they sink when they try. It’s as if the problem stays right where you put it, except it is yeasty and cancerous, so it tangles and strangles the depths while making a person feel ok about that.
wonderful! Progress!
psychpoop abounds, in and out of school, by laypeople and professionals alike. Everyone likes fads. Everyone loves that little shot of certainty when they think they know something. But if anyone had actually sat with their own anger, developed understanding of the hydraulics, looked a little deeper under the hood, well, the obvious would have been waiting. And it still is, if anyone dares.
I wonder how this could be related to ideas about dominant behavior and social ranking.
I’m thinking of Robert Sapolsky’s field studies of baboons.
Maybe displays of anger provide other advantages besides feeling good: they can intimidate others, assert dominance, increase the social rank of an individual in a group.
There is another form of catharsis that is completely natural and benign. It doesn’t requires a comprehensive biological understanding of how the human body deals with the effects of stressful stimuli, but an understanding does help to give one the basis of letting the process happen.
For the sake of discussion, I divide anger into two types—necessary and unnecessary. Necessary anger is purposeful for the one receiving it, i.e., that person needed to be blasted to drive home a point, and the point is for that person’s own good. Unnecessary anger is everything else from mildly irrational snarkiness to rampaging rage. It is this Unnecessary anger I’m talking about.
Anger, and any negative emotions, creates neuro-chemicals and brain neuro-connections that are destructive to the functioning of the physiology. The chemicals bind to cells and cause destructive events, even disrupting DNA. They speed up aging. These results are what is properly known as stressful conditions in the physiology. These conditions can be corrected quickly, or linger on for years, even decades, or a whole lifetime. The neuro-connections and resulting memory storage are the basis of such deep emotions as a grudge. It’s just a stress in the body. If that stressful condition can be dissolved, then the disruptive emotions that go with it can just not arise again.
What has been found to be the most effective treatment for these and any stressed conditions of the body is deep rest. This is entirely consistent with Bushman’s findings. The time out is actually become popular in western culture as the “just count to 10″ advice, but it is just a safety valve for preventing an explosion, it doesn’t put out the fire which can smolder. Deep rest extends the “time out” to a much greater extent and actually allow the body to correct the distorted and damaged conditions caused by anger.
Everyone is familiar with waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states of consciousness. People most often associate deep rest with deep sleep. Indeed, sleep is when the body repairs the normal wear and tear of the day, and dreaming is when the more emotionally based stresses are dissolved. But these often can’t quite get rid of the more powerfully induced stresses completely, or at least not very fast. Thus the same types of dreams over and over, and the continuation of the stress.
But what can dissolve the deepest stresses is what has been identified as a fourth major state of consciousness called transcendental consciousness. Waking state is characterized by activity of the mind through the senses; dreaming is constant activity of the more or less drowsy mind in completely illusory realms of thinking; deep sleep is characterized by complete dullness, a lack of any wakefulness. Transcendental consciousness is characterized by wakeful alertness but with no activity: restful alertness. This state of transcendental consciousness is completely natural, and quite enjoyable. It also has the remarkable ability to produce a uniquely deep state of rest that has been found to release the deep stresses that even deep sleep can’t fully dissolve. Coming out of it back to waking state, one feels rested and refreshed. This is borne out by hundreds of studies.
This deep rest in transcendental consciousness can be achieved effortlessly in just a matter of minutes using the proper technique, but, like learning a language, it must be learned properly to get the results. You get what you pay for.
I’d be interested to see what sort of long term difference (if any) there would be between immediate anger release and “cooling off”.
Females like to vent. I think this cements the case against venting.
Whenever I feel mad, I feel the need to release it upon something that would not get hurt. For me this is much better than say continue shouting at someone, or attacking them physically.
Soooo…. develop OCD instead of venting anger.
No, I’m just kidding. Brilliant article. Your philosophy is amazing :)
nice posting.
Cooling off is good, but this article doesn’t address how to most productively deal with anger, or transform it into something positive. For example if someone rudely cuts you off in traffic you can make a joke about it (which is a helpful way that a lot of people deal with real tragedy), or say/think a statement describing the fact: i.e. “That was rude. I didn’t deserve that.” Followed by a well-wish for the greater good or a call to personal action: i.e. “I hope that person learns manners so no one else has to go through that,” or “I’m going to try to forgive that person who just cut me off.”
Recently a Chase bank teller was very rude to me & I had to really gather my thoughts to be able to say to myself: “She was rude. There was no reason for this. I don’t deserve that & neither does anyone else. I’m going to report her to her supervisor so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” And I did.
This is something I’ve been thinking about. I’m not sure Aristotle means venting specifically when he speaks of catharsis. Venting occurs when emotions are too hot to handle, and Aristotle I think suggests running through the full gamut of emotions in smaller doses to prevent an imbalance from occurring. So in the sense of balance, there is still agreement. The Poetics of Aristotle are notoriously terse, and various interpretations circulate. I am in the middle at the moment, between Plato, who damned poetry for basically turning people into hysterical flakes by encouraging and habituating emotions which would never arise, and catharsis, which I’m beginning to suspect may be interpreted as preventing the build-up to venting from ever occurring.
But yes, I do agree that a more proper response is learning new reactions to events instead of habitually reacting by learned “defaults”, which are entirely unnecessary, and consonant with cognitive behavioral psychology. This is why I think Freud was an idiot, and why the cog folks have a better grasp of things. In this sense, they agree with the Aristotelean tabla rasa.
Advocates of “venting” might argue the following: Obviously there is an increase in aggression when you vent, however, that is only short-term. The short-term increase in violence (and subsequent purging) might outweigh a life-time of festering.
Great blog.
Great article, for the most part. I agree with many points but I really think it misguides, generalizes and oversimplifies more than it informs when it comes to the approach of catharsis and it’s methods. To my understanding, a catharsis definitely isn’t as simple as venting out, i.e. punching, kicking, screaming your lungs out, ripping or smashing. That’s too direct. That’s strictly and directly venting out emotions on the surface. No more, no less.
I personally thought this article should have not been titled “Catharsis” much less address the study it to the word “Catharsis” as much as it should of been titled and addressed as “Venting” instead, or something along those lines, since the concept of catharsis takes a more deeper, precise and sensitive approach to the purging of -repressed- emotions. That misguiding misconception is the only thing that kept me from completely appreciating how effective the article is.
I can even relate with it for the most part since I can use myself as an example. I practice MMA and Shotokan Karate, so i’ll be frequently practicing combinations, strength and resistance on my heavy bag, but there was a time I used to grow more and more dependent on venting out most of my angst and frustrations on the punching bag while I was at it practicing and like a drug, I grew physically and mentally more and more dependent on hitting it with the anger I had pent up inside as the propeller to my blows to feel relaxed, better. At the moment, it definitely worked for me, but like the article explains, I eventually noticed hints of inclinations towards impulsive aggressiveness when I found myself in an argument or in any frustrating situation, to the point I started noticing in myself strong impulses to simply shatter someone’s face if I found that person crossed the line in something or made a bad decision that affected me. Those were the worst and most negative 4 months of that year, for me. Then again, I was at it with the punching bag, almost on a daily basis.
Luckily, at the time, I had been observing my changes for a while and I remember taking mental notes of my inclinations and behaviors frequently, eventually making various modifications to not end up like a violent mess so easily, until I realized I had to stop mixing my practice with my venting, almost completely. It’ll be one or the other now and if it’s venting time, I definitely look for ways to not keep it in, but before that, I look for ways that are more realistic and effective in the long run while I weaken the angst in the heat of the moment before I start getting on with venting out. That way, the venting effort is obviously reduced.
My interpretation on catharsis is different from the article’s. I find a catharsis deals with more profound, old and beneath-the-surface kinds of emotions and issues. It’s not really about venting out already surfaced feelings.
This post had me thinking, and I agree with those who pointed out that venting is not catharsis, for one reason: catharsis gives a closure.
Let’s put violence aside for a moment, and let’s think about sex. If i’m aroused and I “watch without touching” a porn, of course I’ll be more and more aroused, unless I distract myself, as the article suggests. But if I “watch and touch” then, I guess everyone knows how it ends.
I think the same can be applied to violence. If I just engage in a random violent behaviour – punching a bag – without reaching a goal, I won’t have my closure. My guess is that if – instead – I cut a tree with an axe, until the tree falls down, I’ll have my closure and afterwards my violence levels will be lower than the start.
I don’t know much about Aristotles, but Greek tragedies had such kind of closure – emotions were developed during the story, but the real catharsis came from watching the extreme consequences (the “closure”) of these emotions, usually on the ending.
This article leaves me wondering about something I read regarding adrenaline. Sorry, I don’t remember the source but it’s something along these lines…
When you experience anger, it’s accompanied by a release of adrenaline. This is a natural part of your “fight or flight” reflex that served us well for many thousands of years.
Adrenaline is great when you need to run fast, fight hard, or scare the poop out of an adversary, but many of the things we get angry about in this century don’t have us running from bears or beating someone up. So the adrenaline just sits there in our blood. The source I can’t find detailed why this is bad for your health.
So the conclusion was that exercise in times of anger/stress was using up or neutralizing that excess adrenaline, and this was what resulted in the cathartic feeling of release.
Framed like that, (and ignoring Bushman’s work) it would seem that the physical activity is the important part of venting and is a good thing.
Even considering Bushman’s work, I’m not sold on the interpretation of his results. Could it be that venting conditions someone to simply be more assertive, and stuffing conditions them to be submissive? While I assume most people would choose to be called civilized rather than violent, things change when you instead call the actions assertive and submissive, even if you’re talking about the same behavior. If someone wants to be more assertive and especially if the adrenaline/health issue is legit then it would seem that venting would be better.
Maybe.
On a whole I agree that with the article, however I feel that the scope of studies is too narrow to support some of the conclusion.
You have a favorite similie! “It was sort of like being an astronomer before the invention of telescopes.” Is awesome!
Nice article, I just wanted to say it should be Roy Baumeister, not Baymeister.
Unrelated point: I like how you use the term ‘Psychonauts’. I love that game.
I also love non-sequiturs.
This article is SO RIGHT ON!! I used to vent until I read about this study a few years ago. When I learned that my brain could become addicted to anger and seek it out, I stopped. I just stopped. I learned to communicate in a way that I feel heard, even if it’s nothing more than, “This is so frustrating for me.” Nothing festers. Ever since I’ve felt so much more in control of myself and have been more peaceful and happier. I wish more people knew about this!
There’s a logical fallacy in this blog post… it conflates the popular usage meaning of catharsis and Freud’s meaning of catharsis. In Freudian terms, catharsis is about letting emotions out through talking and processing, and it has been shown to be therapeutic. In the experimental setting, the “sitting it out/cooling off” condition could be a form of catharsis–it forces participants to sit with their feelings and then let go. And anger isn’t the only emotion for which catharsis can be beneficial. For example, many of Freud’s subjects had repressed their sexuality, as a result of the uptight culture of the time. Is it wrong for women to overcome their repressed sexuality by… having sex?