I’ve been confused by anger for awhile, or at least several common contexts in which it comes up. My assumption is that it was useful in a bunch of circumstances for some reasons (such as nature’s precommitment device, a source of motivation, and dominance contests), and initially there were fewer social strategies available in which anger would be anti-helpful, and most of the maladaptive instances of it weren’t as maladaptive).
Related thing: once, someone was really mean to a friend of mine. This came after a very bad day, and it was one thing too many, and my friend shut down, not really able to do anything, completely overwhelmed. By contrast, I got angry, and wanted to punish the person who was being cruel.
And this is interesting a) because anger seemed like a useful thing to have to counterbalance the overwhelmed feeling (it could give you more motivation to stick up for yourself). But, also, what is the totally shut down when overwhelmed behavior doing in the first place? That seems super pointless. It makes sense that you can’t handle that many things, but why can’t you just, like, focus on one particular thing and get that done, you know, like you’d probably want to have done anyhow?
(Pixar’s Inside Out hypothesizes that Sadness is there to arouse sympathy in others and get support, but that just raises more questions)
But, also, what is the totally shut down when overwhelmed behavior doing in the first place? That seems super pointless.
Straightforwardly this seems to be a submission behavior. I’m not sure where it originated but social mammals seem to universally exhibit behaviors to submit to the aggression of conspecifics. Submission is often useful for surviving aggression that might otherwise result in injury or death.
Seems also like the “playing dead” behaviour. If you’re under attack and aren’t going to summon/indicate allies (via sadness) or enforce your boundary yourself (via anger) or appease the attacker (via submission), another option is to give up on active response and hope that if you play dead just right, they’ll lose interest for some reason. Many attackers’ goals are better served by a responsive opponent; and attacking someone dead is both potentially unhealthy and no fun.
I’ve been confused by anger for awhile, or at least several common contexts in which it comes up. My assumption is that it was useful in a bunch of circumstances for some reasons (such as nature’s precommitment device, a source of motivation, and dominance contests), and initially there were fewer social strategies available in which anger would be anti-helpful, and most of the maladaptive instances of it weren’t as maladaptive).
Related thing: once, someone was really mean to a friend of mine. This came after a very bad day, and it was one thing too many, and my friend shut down, not really able to do anything, completely overwhelmed. By contrast, I got angry, and wanted to punish the person who was being cruel.
And this is interesting a) because anger seemed like a useful thing to have to counterbalance the overwhelmed feeling (it could give you more motivation to stick up for yourself). But, also, what is the totally shut down when overwhelmed behavior doing in the first place? That seems super pointless. It makes sense that you can’t handle that many things, but why can’t you just, like, focus on one particular thing and get that done, you know, like you’d probably want to have done anyhow?
(Pixar’s Inside Out hypothesizes that Sadness is there to arouse sympathy in others and get support, but that just raises more questions)
Straightforwardly this seems to be a submission behavior. I’m not sure where it originated but social mammals seem to universally exhibit behaviors to submit to the aggression of conspecifics. Submission is often useful for surviving aggression that might otherwise result in injury or death.
Seems also like the “playing dead” behaviour. If you’re under attack and aren’t going to summon/indicate allies (via sadness) or enforce your boundary yourself (via anger) or appease the attacker (via submission), another option is to give up on active response and hope that if you play dead just right, they’ll lose interest for some reason. Many attackers’ goals are better served by a responsive opponent; and attacking someone dead is both potentially unhealthy and no fun.
Anger about asserting your rights