Psychology and Pedagogy of AngerRichardson, Roy Franklin
Science
Psychology and Pedagogy of Anger
Richardson, Roy Franklin
Anger
A resolution or a settled judgment has a relieving effect. Whenever the
subject comes to a definite conclusion whether it refers to the
emotional situation or a contemplated mode of behavior toward the
offender, there is reported a sudden drop in the intensity of the
emotion, even though the attitude is but a tentative and temporary one.
The reason for this is evidently that such a mental attitude is contrary
to the immediate mental situation from which anger arises. Anger springs
from the fact that there is lacking a definite mental attitude as to
what should be done during the reactive stage of the emotion. One of the
most efficient controls is to have a well planned reaction to meet the
emotional crisis before it appears; when the injury occurs, if there is
a preparedness as to what should be done, even though the response is
but a subjective one purely attitudinal in its nature, anger fails to
develop to its intense stage.
SUCCESSFUL DISAPPEARANCE
The success with which the emotion of anger disappears is a matter of
wide individual difference with the persons studied. With some the
reporting of the emotion from the introspection notes tended to
reinstate the emotion. One subject was frequently disturbed by the
reappearance of the emotion during the report. In one instance he
refused to report to the writer for three days afterward. He reports he
could not recall the situation without the reappearance of the anger in
its unpleasant form. Other persons could rarely reinstate an emotion in
any unpleasant form over night. At times the anger was reinstated in its
pleasant aspect. Sometimes a feeling of exaltation was displayed. The
subject showed he enjoyed recalling the emotion. Imagined and carefully
devised schemes of retaliation were often rehearsed with pleasure. Again
the observation would be a feeling of indifference, as something past
and finished. Often the statement was given, “The whole thing seems
ludicrous and amusing to me now.”
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