Founder and President,
Leadership Performance Systems and Qualifying.org
While researchers may disagree on how the emotion of anger is developed and expressed throughout life, everyone agrees that anger is an emotion with significant consequences in your life. Often “feeling terms” such as resentment, annoyance, or frustration are associated with anger, and none of these are positive.
Yet, anger may serve various constructive purposes, when properly understood and managed. At its root, anger is an expression that you are unable (for various reasons) to achieve a certain goal or objective. Anger is a “feedback energy” to your psyche that things are not going as you might like or expect. The question is how to manage anger for constructive purposes.
Information in this emotion:
When you are angry, the internal feedback is that you perceive an individual has:
- Failed to fulfill an expectation or agreement
- Intentionally violated an important value or principle
- Created a barrier to reaching an objective
- Misused or misjudged you in some way
- Gotten in your way intentionally
This emotion serves you by:
The emotion of anger prompts your body to prepare to fight or demonstrate protest. With anger, you are preparing for a physical response such as yelling or even physical contact. This emotion serves to focus attention, and when prompted for good reason, it can harness motivation to change policies, laws, and influence others. This contributes to a state of motivated interest even if it is negative.
Variations by Type
When we experience anger, everyone has the same neurological event. However, the triggers of anger vary by personality type. What one type experiences as a violation of trust, principles, or agreements is not the same as another. Summarized below are the triggers by the mental functions of psychological type:
Sensing +Thinking Triggers:
- Lack of attention to detail
- Lack of verification of information
- Failure to follow through as specifically described
- Inefficiency
Sensing + Feeling Triggers:
- Failure to respond to personal inquiry
- Failure to acknowledge hands-on efforts
- Lack of attention to personal needs
Intuiting + Feeling Triggers:
- Perceived condescension, insensitivity
- Focus on “it” or “task” rather than on the individual’s needs
- Failure to acknowledge efforts
- Judgmental
Intuiting + Thinking Triggers:
- Incompetence
- Irrationality
- Lack of logical basis for decisions
- Failure to address competence after it has been identified
Short Cut: Transform this emotion to a constructive use by:
- Acknowledging the anger and reflecting with the individual on the prompter for the response (e.g. feel misunderstood, obstructed, etc)
- Exploring the desired outcome of “setting things right”
- Discussing how anger relates to what you feel is important -- how you feel threatened and how to redirect that energy into less stressful strategies that will produce a positive outcome (e.g. problem solving)
4 comments:
Roger,
I very much like the angle you postulate here. The link to EQ and the MBTI is not so much a link as an application. Bravo to your around the box thinking.
Bob Freese
I would add to Roger's thoughts about anger, and its purpose. The view I've learned from Chinese medical philosophy and acupuncture can be summed up as: anger is a signal that you are feeling threatened or under attack. It is to be trusted, not rejected. AND... it's not always easy to identify the source, or even to see how you are feeling threatened. Our perception of what's happened/ happening is malleable - in the moment of anger, perception has resulted in a sense of 'attack.'
The issue is not whether we are really under attack. It's what feels jeopardized inside us by our experience. Self awareness and reflection, as well as self management (consciously choosing how we react given a specific set of emotions in a specific situation) are the critical places to begin.
This is opposite what many think of when they feel angry - that the other party is 'wrong' and 'needs to stop.' The attention is best focused on self, what is at risk (from the self's point of view), and what the wisest choice of reaction would be.
We are smart beings, and when we use the emotional data we receive to help us make wise choices, our behavior reflects our inner intelligence!
SRK:
Indeed...there are those for whom anxiety and distress have become generalized and chronic. I've found that personality type often magnifies issues and it provides a pathway to find relative homeostasis (with the proper guide). Nonetheless, the very root of anxiety is a fear that the demands being faced cannot be met with the capabilities an individual believes he or she has. For example, when an individual fears conflict, usually it is because he or she fears they can't handle the "emotional" aspects of a conflictual interaction in a constructive way. An individual can be taught, provided he or she is willing, to enhance capabilities and reduce the fears. When it becomes part of the psychological character of an individual, however, it seems that the entire psychic system is hell-bent on proving itself right (that is, "I can't handle thus and so"). All of this is complex to be sure and the beauty of personality type is that it invites an exploration of one's psychological dynamics in which we may find doors for self-acceptance and understanding.
I hate to be Anger. Now I learning how to control it.
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