Psychology and Pedagogy of AngerRichardson, Roy Franklin
Science
Psychology and Pedagogy of Anger
Richardson, Roy Franklin
Anger
There is evidence that the affective state in the after-period of anger
has a compensating relation to the emotion that has just passed, not
unlike the compensation role played between the anger proper and the
feeling fore-stage from which it arises. The reactive stage of anger
tends to over-compensate for the unpleasant feelings of irritation and
humiliation in the fore-period of anger by either increasing the
pleasantness or diminishing unpleasantness. If the reaction is
incomplete and has not adequately met the emotional crisis of the
moment, irritation may follow with a tendency to continue further the
emotion, or if the reaction has gone too far, it is paid for by the
appearance in the after-stage of other emotions of social origin, such
as fear, shame, pity, etc. The feeling of relief occurs after the
expression has nearly restored consciousness to about the same affective
level as before the beginning of the emotion; but with active pleasure,
a higher affective level has been attained and the subject feels he was
glad to have been angry. There is a heightened effect in the affective
state following anger; a sort of over-compensation, which is a little
out of proportion to the behavior apart from the anger itself. If the
after-period is one of pleasantness, the feeling is increased far more
because of what the subject has done during the emotion, for it is
evident if the same mental processes and behavior occur without anger,
the pleasantness is less. Joy is a good example of the intensification
of the emotion in the after-period of anger which is out of proportion
to the idea stimulating it. The relation between the fore-period, the
anger proper, and the after-period is so intimate in anger that the
writer has had it repeatedly impressed upon him in making the present
study, that to solve some of the important problems of our emotional
life, this relation must be taken into account. The entire gamut of the
emotional consciousness for each emotion must be studied from the
initial feeling stage to the termination of the conscious content after
the emotion has disappeared. The emotions do not appear as separate
effective entities, but have an intimate relation which is important in
the study of their psychology.
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