Anger is one of the basic human emotions, as elemental as happiness, sadness, anxiety, or disgust. These emotions are tied to basic survival and were honed over the course of human history.

Anger is related to the "fight, flight, or freeze" response of the sympathetic nervous system; it prepares humans to fight. But fighting doesn't necessarily mean throwing punches. It might motivate communities to combat injustice by changing laws or enforcing new norms.

Of course, anger too easily or frequently mobilized can undermine relationships or damage physical health in the long term. Prolonged release of the stress hormones that accompany anger can destroy neurons in areas of the brain associated with judgment and short-term memory, and weaken the immune system.

For those who struggle with chronic anger, or for those who only experience occasional outbursts, learning skills to identify and navigate this powerful emotion can lead to growth and change.

The Experience of Anger

Everyone knows the feeling. It's that rage that rises when a driver is cut off on the highway or an employee is demeaned by his boss. People have trouble managing anger and other negative emotions. However, unleashing anger doesn't produce the sense of catharsis people crave-it tends to feed on itself instead. The best path forward may be to understand anger-its roots, its triggers, its consequences-and cultivate the ability to manage it.

What causes anger?
The question of why some shrug off annoyances while others explode in rage is a fascinating one. One model of anger, put forth by psychologist Jerry Deffenbacher, posits that anger results from a combination of the trigger event, the qualities of the individual, and the individual's appraisal of the situation.

The trigger is the event that provokes anger, such as being cut off in traffic or yelled at by a parent. The qualities of the individual include personality traits, such as narcissism, competitiveness, and low tolerance for frustration, and the pre-anger state, like levels of anxiety or exhaustion. Perhaps most importantly is cognitive appraisal-appraising a situation as blameworthy, unjustified, punishable, etc. The combination of these components determines if, and why, people get mad.

Anger is a core emotion, but it may manifest differently based on its source. Justifiable anger is moral outrage at the injustices of the world, such as the oppression of human rights or an abusive relationship. Justifiable anger may have benefits in the short term because its intensity can be channeled into action for change.

Annoyance anger can arise from the many frustrations of daily life. Aggressive anger is used in situations where one individual attempts to exercise dominance, intimidation, manipulation, or control over another. Temper tantrums are disproportional outbursts of anger when an individual's wants and needs are not fulfilled, no matter how unreasonable and inappropriate.

In contrast to anger arising from interpersonal conflict-a transgression, or betrayal-moral outrage focuses less on outing someone else's problematic behavior than inflating one's own sense of self. This type of outrage, called virtue signaling or moral grandstanding, may underscore one's virtuous attributes by pointing out non-virtuous attributes in others. Essentially, putting others down unconsciously raises oneself up.

From an evolutionary perspective, humans aimed to obtain and maintain strong social standing within small-scale communities. Expressing outrage about the behavior of others may partly function to elevate the status of the person expressing the outrage, which may explain why outrage often feels so good.

Revenge involves embitterment, the sense of having been let down or victimized, coupled with a desire to fight back. Feeling helpless to do so then leads to fantasies of revenge or aggression.

Vengeful thoughts may arise in an attempt to protect the self from damaged confidence and self-efficacy, calm feelings of frustration, humiliation, and insult by settling the score between the victim's suffering and the perpetrator's actions, and offer a mechanism to regain power and stability.

Thoughts of revenge are especially likely in individuals who have been victimized and traumatized by others. They are more likely in individuals diagnosed with PTSD.

Anger, like all emotions, should be monitored with self-awareness. This can prevent it from spiraling into hostile, aggressive, or violent behavior toward others or oneself.

Support groups for anger management can help people understand anger, identify its triggers, and develop skills to manage their emotions. In groups or individual settings, cognitive restructuring can coach patients to reframe unhealthy, inflammatory thoughts.



Outside of therapy, techniques from deep breathing and emotion labelling to adopting a problem-solving mindset can help people learn to navigate anger on their own.

Everyone experiences anger at some point. It becomes problematic, however, when the frequency or severity of anger interferes with relationships, work performance, legal standing, or mental health.

While there is no official "anger disorder," dysfunctional anger and aggression can be a symptom of Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Conduct Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. It may also play a role in manic episodes, ADHD, and narcissism.

Anger doesn't require a formal diagnosis to be disruptive, or to benefit from help with its management.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) is an impulse control disorder characterized by repeated angry outbursts, representing a failure to control aggressive impulses. These outbursts can involve verbal or physical aggression and result in property damage or physical injury. These reactions are also severely out of proportion to the event that sparked the episode.

Of the various disorders related to anger, perhaps IED most accurately describes the escalating explosions of violence we are witnessing today such as mass shootings. It may emerge from a failure to recognize and consciously address anger as it arises, before it becomes pathological and dangerous, perhaps starting in childhood.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a disruptive behavior disorder that involves a pattern of angry and irritable moods and defiant or vindictive behaviors. People with oppositional defiant disorder may lose their temper, lash out impulsively, become resentful, argue with authority figures, refuse to comply with requests, and deliberately annoy and blame others.

Two parts of the brain implicated in this reactive aggression include an overactive amygdala and an underactive prefrontal cortex-the region that helps regulate impulses and inhibit aggression. Medication and therapy-particularly a newer approach called Collaborative and Proactive Solutions-can reduce defiance and anger and teach healthy coping skills.

Anger is an emotional state that occurs when unexpected things happen to you, or around you, that you don't like.The feelings you have can be as mild as annoyance, and as extreme as fury and rage.The American Heritage dictionary describes anger as "a strong feeling of displeasure or hostility," and explains that the word itself is rooted in a Middle English word "angr," that meant sorrow.

Anger is a very subjective emotion.What makes one person angry may not bother another person at all.There are three basic types of anger that psychologists recognize as being different emotional states. The first is a defense mechanism that occurs when we feel threatened or trapped. The second form of anger exists as a reaction to the interpretation of events in which we believe that we are deliberately being harmed or being treated unfairly. The last type of anger is the irritable, sullen anger more closely associated to personality than to emotion.

Basically, anger is the emotional response you feel when your expectations are not met. It might be an unmet expectation that people will do the "right" thing (like return your wallet, money intact, when you lose it in a restaurant or at the mall); or that people will do things the "right" way (like when you asked your son to wash the car and he didn't rinse off the soap and you had to re-wash it yourself, but you didn't discover it right away so there was more work involved). It might be an expectation that you will have a good day, that traffic will flow smoothly - and then you get caught behind a 14-car pileup on the freeway. It may even be an expectation that you have of yourself -- expecting yourself to be able to do a certain specific task or perform a certain function, and then when you are unable to perform at the level you expected of yourself, you become angry.

Whenever the expectation we have in our minds for a particular outcome is not met, we can become angry.The emotion of anger is simply the feeling or psychological response we have to the unmet expectation, or disappointment, or perceived threat. Our reaction to the feeling, however, can cause us to act inappropriately toward other people, or even toward objects. (Have you ever punched a wall or thrown something across a room when you're mad? That is the reaction to anger.) Many times, people do not realize they are angry until it is too late -- when they are saying horrible things to someone whom they love, or behaving violently toward someone.Some people will not realize anger has done any damage until well after the reaction they have had, when they are dealing with the consequences of the action (like getting arrested for domestic violence, or brawling in a pub)

The emotion of anger can be set off by both internal and external triggers. Internal triggers may include reactions to things you may already be sensitive about, like being teased. External triggers are things beyond your control that don't happen in the way they should. Certain situations can make you angry - particularly when you feel like you have no control over circumstances (you show up for a doctor's appointment you've been waiting to go to for more than a month, and when you get there, the doctor has been called away to surgery).People can make you angry. Even memories can make you angry.

Anger is an instinctual emotion that can cause an aggressive urge. It is a completely normal response; it is an ancient part of our defense mechanism that allowed us to survive, adapt, and defend, making it a necessary survival instinct.Anger is a completely normal and natural feeling to have.However, inappropriate anger response is often the cause of altercations, run-ins with police, domestic violence issues, and other less favorable outcomes.

Sometimes, our behavior when we're angry becomes a comfortable habit - a feeling we are used to having. We recognize the feeling of anger, without even realizing we are angry, and react in a habitual, but unhealthy way without stopping to think about what it was that made us angry, or why.Part of anger management is to learn to stop that habit of reaction

When an animal in the wild (or even a house cat) becomes angry because of a perceived threat, it growls or hisses, shows its teeth, and attempts to seem more threatening. The human response to anger is very similar, in that the response is designed to make the perceived threat stop and go away. (You are teasing me and I want you to stop, so I am going to lash out at you or threaten to hurt you because I don't want to feel this way anymore). Unfortunately, like with everything in the human mind, anger in humans tends to be more complicated than in the animal world. Humans are often doing more than just protecting themselves against threats.

The psychological response to anger stems from the physiological response. The hormones surge through your body, and you begin to feel a heightened sense of power and energy. Unfortunately, that same psychological response that saved us from the saber-toothed tiger when we lived in caves, is also the cause of a lack of reason, clarity, and judgment when not managed properly today. When you become angry and lose control, you often feel justified in your reaction, because you are not capable of logically thinking through the effects of your actions once you stop controlling the anger.

It's sometimes very easy to see when someone is angry. Sometimes you can see it in the facial expression; even children know how to draw an angry face by narrowing the eyebrows and pointing them down toward the nose. It's not just the eyebrows, though -- your skin turns red from a rush of blood, your nostrils may flare out, and your jaw may clench.

The body releases hormones that tense the muscles, as if the body is preparing for battle. You will see people who are angry stand up straighter and more squarely. It's an instinctual preparation for attack and defense. All of these physical actions make you feel more invulnerable.

Your body physically responds to all of your emotions; when you are sad, your shoulders droop, your heart rate slows, your face frowns - you cry. When you are happy, your body produces surges of serotonin, you smile, your energy levels increase, and you feel more confident. When you are angry, your body experiences a surge of hormones similar to those you experience when scared or threatened: adrenaline and noradrenaline. These hormones are produced as part of the fight-or-flight response to danger. The physiological experience of anger can be quite disturbing, leaving you with a pounding heart, a dry mouth, and a shaky feeling.

Humans differentiate themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom by their cognitive functions - their higher thought processes concerning their instinctual responses. It is these cognitive responses that keep psychologists and psychiatrists in business, particularly when it comes to the more complicated emotions like anger, love, and jealousy!

People are capable of having both conscious and unconscious cognitive responses to anger. There are three main cognitive responses to anger, which are the thinking choices behind how we respond to anger: expressing your anger, suppressing your anger, and calming your anger. There are healthy ways to express anger and unhealthy ways to express anger. Healthy expression of anger happens when you are capable of discussing the way you feel in an open and healthy communication. Anger can also be suppressed either in a healthy way, or an unhealthy way. Suppression of anger by means of a calculated redirection of your energy can be healthy, but suppressing anger by "stuffing" it inside can lead to high blood pressure, increased stress, depression -- and yes, more anger.