Anger, Part 1
I had a comment recently from Crystal at EwokMama: Parenting Left of the Middle asking about anger being a sign of depression. I did a little research, and have found that some lists of symptoms do have it listed while other don’t. I would say that if you aren’t normally angry, anger can be a sign of depression. This lead me to read more about anger and I was intrigued, as the body seems to react the same way to anger and aggression as it does to stress.
Six Core Emotions
Anger is on Ekman & Freisen’s list of “six core emotions” (along with happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust & fear). Anger is part of the body’s “fight or flight” reaction to the threat (or the perceived threat) of pain (physical/emotional/mental). (I have always found it highly interesting that there is only ONE positive “core” emotion listed, by the way!) Each of these core emotions are able to be deciphered in a photograph - looking at a face, you can normally categorize it into one of these six emotions.
We’re Not That Different
When threatened in nature, animals make loud noises (think about monkeys screeching when one takes something from another) , attempt to look physically bigger (think about cats puffing up & bristling when something starts to anger them), bare their teeth (think about dogs growing at the edge of the fence at a postman) and stare (think about the bear you run into on your hiking path just watching you). Humans seem to do this same thing (crying or screaming instead of growing, taking deep breaths to fill their chests with air, grimacing and showing teeth, and having a regular ‘ole stare down), only proving that we’re not that different than most mammals. Generally, anger is patterned to tell the anger-inducer; “stop your behaviors before I react in a harmful or threatening way in return.”
mental & emotional health, anger, core emotions
October 18th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Maybe it’s because of the times we’re living in, but I sense that people in general are a lot more angry now.
October 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
This is good! I never thought of anger in humans that way. Of course, I don’t deal well with anger. (Oh, and the connection I was thinking of between anger and depression has everything to do with one of my favorite quotes = “Depression is anger turned inward.”)
October 18th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
going from hyper happiness to rage in 2 seconds is generally a shoe-in for an up and coming manic period. some of my other manic friends have similar issues. but i’ve never read about documentation of this.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
[…] Today I’d like to continue my series on anger & it’s effect on our lives. […]
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:46 pm
[…] Live, was out of control and beat up three random people in NYC. Marston, who has had a history of anger management issues, having been arrested in 1999 for punching an ATM, went on a rampage, after what […]
November 11th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
[…] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here […]