people were more likely to succeed when they were angry and persistent. Get upset if you want to accomplish your aims.
source : NBC NEWS
According to recent studies, rage may be a useful tool for overcoming hurdles or problems that stand in the way of one’s goals.
According to a research that was just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, those who felt angry while completing a range of difficult tasks outperformed others who felt sad, infatuated, or entertained.
The study’s primary author, Heather Lench, a psychology and brain sciences professor at Texas A&M University, said that the results imply that humans may utilize rage as a motivation.
“We discovered that when faced with difficult circumstances and impediments to objectives, fury produced better results,” Lench stated. But the research found that when it came to simpler tasks, people’s performance did not become better when they were angry.
Six tests made up the research, all of which tested whether or not anger might facilitate the completion of certain tasks. The first trial, which counted the number of word puzzles individuals could complete in different emotional states, had the most intriguing results, according to Lench.
233 Texas A&M undergraduate students participated in the experiment. One of the following emotions was given at random to each student: neutral, amusement, sorrow, rage, or desire. They were given a succession of pictures, each lasting five seconds, in order to evoke the desired feeling. Invective recipients, for instance, saw derogatory remarks on the school’s football squad.
After that, the participants had twenty minutes to solve as many puzzles involving four sets of seven anagrams that were shown on a computer screen. The puzzles came at different difficulty levels, and once a person moved on from one, they couldn’t come back to attempt it again. The amount of time participants spent on each task was tracked by a computer software.
The findings demonstrated that people experiencing anger solved more problems than those experiencing any other emotion. Most remarkably, compared to pupils feeling neutral, furious students solved 39% more riddles. According to Lench, those who were furious also showed more perseverance by devoting more time to attempting to answer the riddles.
She said that “people were more likely to succeed when they were angry and persistent.” However, when they persevered in any of the other emotional states, they were more likely to fail. Therefore, it would appear to imply that when individuals were upset, they persisted more successfully.
Other studies investigated the possibility that anger may lead students to join a petition, get high scores in a video game, or cheat on logical and reasoning problems in order to receive rewards.
In all difficult scenarios, those who were furious had a higher chance of achieving their objective.
Is it ever beneficial to be angry?
Professionals in psychology have concluded that not all types of rage are helpful in reaching objectives.
Severe rage may sometimes be accompanied by physical symptoms including sweaty hands, trouble breathing, and a fast heartbeat. Anger has been linked to the development of several cardiovascular disorders, including heart failure in males and diabetes, according to a 2022 European Heart Journal research. A research published in the same journal in 2021 discovered a link between the development of strokes and intense rage.
Anger during a romantic altercation may result in combative and demeaning speech that might damage the bond, according to Lench. However, if the person’s objective is to feel understood and supported by their partner, it could also assist them in expressing their demands.
Anger has the power to inspire. However, it does not imply that we stop thinking, according to Lench. Therefore, pausing to consider the reasons behind our anger is definitely a crucial step to take when we experience anger.
Severe outbursts of rage may impair one’s productivity if they go too far, according to Raymond Tafrate, a clinical psychologist and professor at Central Connecticut State University’s department of criminology and criminal justice.
There’s a rather neutral area. Tafrate, who was not involved in the current study, said, “I believe we need to speak about that other side as well. Some anger is beneficial. “Most people probably find that mild to moderate anger improves their quality of life.”
According to Tafrate, the secret is to accept rage as a potentially beneficial feeling rather than trying to suppress it.
According to Tafrate, “angry can be a crucial indicator that something isn’t working well and that you need to make a change.”
A psychology professor at George Mason University who was not involved in the current study, Todd Kashdan, said that expressing anger in social situations early on may even inspire people to hear you out and improve the likelihood of reaching a settlement.
It just lets the other person know that you don’t want to be criticized for the way you say things. I refer to this as the uncomfortable caveat. All you want is for people to understand that there’s an issue here, that you want to draw attention to it, and that you want to provide a solution, Kashdan said. “Thereafter, you’re breaking down their barriers.”
