In a fit of anger, a person is more productive
Last reviewed: 07.06.2024
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In a state of anger, people are better able to cope with tasks that require some effort on their part. Anger often prompts to action, helps to evaluate events faster, to form one's behavior and attitude to others, to communicate one's experiences.
Negative emotions have always been considered undesirable because they predominantly prevent most people from performing normal activities, living a normal life, learning and working. Such negative emotions can include sadness, anger, worry, frustration, disappointment, etc. However, there is a lot of evidence that negative emotions can stimulate action, encourage a person to a certain activity. For example, a recent work of psychologists from the University of Texas was devoted to the benefits of anger: it was found that sometimes anger can help to achieve their goals.
More than one thousand volunteers took part in the study. All participants were shown different images that activate their emotional state. Thus, they had to evoke some emotion, be it sadness or anger. Among the images there were also neutral pictures that did not cause any reaction. The psycho-emotional state of all participants was assessed several times before and after viewing the image.
At the next stage, participants were asked to solve several word puzzles and play computer games. It is noteworthy that the feeling of anger helped people to solve their tasks requiring certain efforts - for example, when difficulties in the tasks appeared. For example, after viewing an anger-inducing image, participants showed more correct reactions, reached the goal faster and were generally more active, and as a result, they won more often. Somewhat worse results were observed after such an emotion as surprise.
Obviously, emotions, both positive and negative, play their separate roles in our lives. The demonstration of sadness indicates to others that the person requires participation and consolation. Feeling bored provokes an active search for something interesting. In a burst of anger and anger, people begin to look for all possible ways to solve the problem, while trying to solve it as soon as possible. However, it is important to realize that anger is not a "good friend" in all problems. For example, an angry person can often say things that in a calm state and will not think. In addition, it is important to consider the type of personality. For sure, people with different temperaments, introverts and extroverts will show dramatically different results. Therefore, the study cannot yet be considered complete: the work of scientists in this direction continues.
Information presented at Journal of Personality and Social PsychologyJournal of Personality and Social PsychologyJournal of Personality and Social Psychology