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Can anger be a good thing? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house stuff Works dot com? And be sure to
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Speaker 1: check out the new stuff you should know blob. Now
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Speaker 1: I'm on the house Stuff Works homepage. Hey, and welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Or Chuck, how you doing? This is
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Speaker 1: stuff you should know? I should say, Uh, that's Chuck Bryant.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark as usual. I think by now you
0:27
Speaker 1: people know, right, I answer us. If not, they just
0:31
Speaker 1: stumbled upon us. They're like, you are these exactly? And
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Speaker 1: we just lost him right there, so everybody else it's
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Speaker 1: us Chuck. Do you remember watching The Incredible Hulk as well?
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Speaker 1: I was going to say as a kid. It ran
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Speaker 1: from eighty two, so you're what like twenty five maybe thirty? No, man,
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Speaker 1: that was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I just came
0:51
Speaker 1: in on the tail end, but every I had a
0:52
Speaker 1: significant impact. I love that show. So yeah, that was
0:55
Speaker 1: what Bill Bixby slash Lou Ferrigno sharing the title role duties. Right. Well, actually,
1:02
Speaker 1: Bill Bixby played Bruce Banner and Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk, right,
1:06
Speaker 1: and he was kind of a big guy, but not
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Speaker 1: hulk like. You know. I think they had to use
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Speaker 1: certain camera angles and shots and make him a pear
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Speaker 1: even bigger. And of course, since I'm nine years old,
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Speaker 1: I I remember Bill Bixby from the Courtship of Eddie's Father,
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Speaker 1: which was before that. Sorry, go ahead, okay, so well, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: you remember like oftentimes I don't think it was every episode,
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Speaker 1: but um, Bruce Banner when somebody was pushing him around
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Speaker 1: or something. I remember when I think at the in
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Speaker 1: the intro, he he would be hitchhiking or something and
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Speaker 1: he was picked up by somebody who mistreated him. Maybe
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Speaker 1: I could be making I make up memories a lot, right,
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Speaker 1: but yeah, in most episodes he would say something like,
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Speaker 1: please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when
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Speaker 1: I'm angry, and then inevitably this is some jerk made
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Speaker 1: him angry and then you know, get ripped and turned
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Speaker 1: green and just beat the tar out of him, right right.
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Speaker 1: My favorite part actually he would always turn away as
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Speaker 1: if he's trying to contain himself, and then with his
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Speaker 1: head back around, he'd had those green eyes. Yes, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1: He never bit his knuckles though, I've always found that
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Speaker 1: that helps to kind of keep things, you know, locked in.
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Speaker 1: He should have tried that. It would have been a
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Speaker 1: totally different show had he actually tried that. I think right, well,
2:14
Speaker 1: actually I bring up The Incredible Hulk, not because I
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Speaker 1: just wanted to reminisce although that was pleasant Chuck Um.
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Speaker 1: I wanted to use it as a segway. And what
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Speaker 1: I was going to segue into is that it is
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Speaker 1: entirely possible that the Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner was a
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Speaker 1: self actualized human being except for like throwing cars and stuff.
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Speaker 1: He was in touch with his anger and tried to
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Speaker 1: keep it down, but eventually it came out and ultimately
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Speaker 1: he would go back to normal. And the point of
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Speaker 1: the point is of this a sin I in intro um,
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Speaker 1: is that anger can be beneficial. We we tend to
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Speaker 1: think that anger is a just a bad thing, that
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Speaker 1: there's only negative repercussion, so that it's harmful. Um. And
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Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there was a think some
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Speaker 1: survey that I read UM that I found twenty eight
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Speaker 1: percent of people, when asked about their own anger, they
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Speaker 1: said that they thought it was a bad thing because
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Speaker 1: it was useless and harmful. That's not necessarily true, right,
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Speaker 1: they said inappropriate to which I thought was inappropriate. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I call anger inappropriate. I just I think it's completely
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Speaker 1: appropriate many times. Well, I think I think part of
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Speaker 1: the problem is, and this is just me positing here,
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Speaker 1: we live in a society that's that's has lots of
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Speaker 1: expectations on gentility. We're supposed to get along, go along
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Speaker 1: and all that, and so anger doesn't really have much
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Speaker 1: of a place that in a in a society like that.
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Speaker 1: Um so, I think we've kind of a lot of us,
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Speaker 1: including myself, have have lost our ability to express ourselves
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Speaker 1: through anger. Right. You know what Aristotle said? I love
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Speaker 1: this quote. Let's hear Aristotle said this. The famous philosopher,
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Speaker 1: of course, not Aristotle Jones, who as how do you
3:53
Speaker 1: know Aristotle Jones? We'll talk about that later. The famous
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Speaker 1: Aristotle said this, The man who was angry at the
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Speaker 1: right things and with the right people, and further as
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Speaker 1: he ought when he ought, and as long as he
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Speaker 1: ought is praised. So basically, he's saying that you can
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Speaker 1: be angry, but if if you're angry at the right
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Speaker 1: time and you handle it in the right way, then
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Speaker 1: you are to be patted on the back essentially right,
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Speaker 1: and he was right on the money if you asked me.
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Speaker 1: So I did a little research, um and found uh,
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Speaker 1: we have a great article on the site called how
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Speaker 1: anger Works. And um, I'm starting to notice a pattern here,
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Speaker 1: like all the great articles on the site. The byoline
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Speaker 1: says Molly Edmonds. Have you noticed that? I thought you're
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Speaker 1: gonna say yourself, No, I wouldn't do that even if
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Speaker 1: I thought it. Yes, Molly, who is a great writer
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Speaker 1: and a dear friend and has her own podcast, Yeah stuff, mom,
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Speaker 1: never told you with Christen Conger another great writer here. Um,
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Speaker 1: and we should probably stop all the plug in right
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Speaker 1: and get to the anger. Right. You're angry at Molly
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Speaker 1: because she's a better writer than you. That is not true, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: stop this please? Um okay, so what what? There's basically
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Speaker 1: three reason why people get angry, right, Uh, and one
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Speaker 1: of them is to correct someone else's bad behavior. When
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Speaker 1: you get angry, you're all of a sudden kind of
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Speaker 1: bursting forth with with energy. You're kind of pushing energy
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Speaker 1: from yourself onto somebody else, or at the very least
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Speaker 1: creating a startle response in them. Uh. And that's a
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Speaker 1: pretty good way of teaching somebody that they don't need
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Speaker 1: to do that to you. Again, sure, I find that
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Speaker 1: kind of distasteful behavior. Using untoward yes my favorite word
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Speaker 1: right now? Um uh that that that's one reason people
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Speaker 1: get angry, or one reason or one way people use anger.
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Speaker 1: Another UM is to demonstrate power, which is really again
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Speaker 1: off putting. Not big fans of two of these three reasons,
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Speaker 1: you know, like getting whoever can shout the loudest, or
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Speaker 1: you know, get the most irked and and and irritated winds.
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Speaker 1: And actually that's the case sometimes, especially again in our
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Speaker 1: genteel society. The third reason anger exists, I think um
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Speaker 1: is to address interpersonal conflict, right, Like, you're upset at
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Speaker 1: something you've done, No, you're upset with something someone else did,
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Speaker 1: and rather than just let it pass by, which will
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Speaker 1: give you the opportunity to stew on it indefinitely and
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Speaker 1: arguably and the relationship you are getting, you're using anger,
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Speaker 1: And this is not You shouldn't confuse this, this aspect
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Speaker 1: of anger with you know, coming into somebody's office, slamming
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Speaker 1: the door and like telling letting them have it. I
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Speaker 1: guess it's kind of a form of it. An unproductive form.
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Speaker 1: This would more be like recognizing your angry and saying,
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Speaker 1: I gotta do something about this or else I'm not
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Speaker 1: going to be friends with this person. So actually that
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Speaker 1: use of anger is UM, it's actually a kind gesture
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Speaker 1: because you're saying, I'm willing to confront you even though
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Speaker 1: it's gonna be uncomfortable for me including you, UM, because
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Speaker 1: I value our relationship. So those are reasons why you
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Speaker 1: might demonstrate anger. Yes, Well I found an interesting study.
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Speaker 1: It's it's a little dated it from but it's a
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Speaker 1: Clinton area, but it's still valid. Uh. Someone did a
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Speaker 1: women's anger study and interestingly they found that, um, five
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Speaker 1: out of the five women they surveyed, the three most
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Speaker 1: common roots to a woman's anger, which ties in nicely
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Speaker 1: with yours, is powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of others.
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Speaker 1: So that kind of makes sense from what you just said. Well,
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Speaker 1: I also read that women tend to become angered. There's
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Speaker 1: actually something called anger triggers, right, and they're actually age,
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Speaker 1: gender and culture specific. Often times there they're stimuli that
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Speaker 1: that trigger our anger. Uh. And women this is not
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Speaker 1: you know, the case across the board, but women tend
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Speaker 1: to UM have find anger triggers in affronts by people
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Speaker 1: that they're close to, family, friends, that kind of thing. Basically,
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Speaker 1: you can't you can't make a woman angry on average, uh,
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Speaker 1: if you're a stranger. The exact opposites the case with men.
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Speaker 1: Men have a lot more patients with maybe um the
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Speaker 1: family and friends. But like a stranger will just send
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Speaker 1: him off the rail traffic. Oh yeah, I hate strangers. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: who who likes them? That's not true nobody, But yeah,
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Speaker 1: I find that that's actually the case with me. I
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Speaker 1: would get extremely angry at someone I don't know, because
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Speaker 1: I'm a big injustice Scott injustices really make me angry
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Speaker 1: people that don't think the rules apply to them. Like
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Speaker 1: let's say I'm sitting in traffic and we have the
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Speaker 1: the commuter lanes here in Atlanta, the carpool lane, and
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Speaker 1: I'll see people single writers whizzing by me in the
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Speaker 1: carpool lane, and it just it furies knock them off
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Speaker 1: the road. Now because I'd have to get in the
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Speaker 1: carpool lane. Oh and you wouldn't do that, well, no,
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Speaker 1: because I'd get caught. Plus also, you would have no
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Speaker 1: right to be angry at somebody else. You know what
8:47
Speaker 1: that is. That's reason. Uh So basically, when when we
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Speaker 1: are when our anger is triggered by by whatever it is, UM,
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Speaker 1: we have two things going on. Two it just in
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Speaker 1: our brains. Start wrestling in like thirty like Greco Roman wrestling.
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Speaker 1: Right winner take off pretty much possibly with Shanks. I haven't.
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Speaker 1: I haven't determined that yet. UM. But the frontal lobe,
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Speaker 1: which is responsible for reason, starts getting into it with
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Speaker 1: the amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and all. This
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Speaker 1: wrestling match usually lasts about two seconds, it is um,
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Speaker 1: and most of the time the frontal lobe wins. Did
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Speaker 1: you know that? I didn't, but it kind of I
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Speaker 1: get that, yeah, because think about it, like we'd all
9:35
Speaker 1: be walking around like half cock powdered kegs if the
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Speaker 1: amygdala one. You know, have you ever known anyone that
9:41
Speaker 1: was like that, that was really angry and would fight
9:45
Speaker 1: people and just made you nervous being around them. I
9:49
Speaker 1: wish I I would say his name because I still
9:51
Speaker 1: did this sixth grade. I still to this day hate
9:55
Speaker 1: this kid's guts UM, and I would love to say
9:58
Speaker 1: his name so that it's somebody could hear it and
10:02
Speaker 1: go punch him in the stomach. Um, but I know
10:04
Speaker 1: Jerry will bleep it out and beep beep exactly what
10:08
Speaker 1: is yeah? So um? But yeah, this kid he was.
10:11
Speaker 1: He was short and he was really mad that he
10:14
Speaker 1: was short. He bore a striking resemblance to um jever
10:18
Speaker 1: see uh was that Captain Caveman and Son cartoon. He
10:23
Speaker 1: bore a resemblance to the Sun really just kind of
10:26
Speaker 1: very you know, cavemanesque, right. And he was just such
10:30
Speaker 1: a little manipulative bully he was. He was mockiavellian actually,
10:34
Speaker 1: and he used to have us get into um fights
10:37
Speaker 1: and he would turn the whole class against he was.
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Speaker 1: He was an angry little kid and you know what,
10:42
Speaker 1: he was all amigdala really apparently. Yeah, I knew a
10:46
Speaker 1: guy like that when I lived in Arizona. That was
10:48
Speaker 1: just I was uncomfortable being around him because he would
10:52
Speaker 1: go to a bar or someplace and just invite trouble.
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Speaker 1: It was written all over his face. It was his energy,
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Speaker 1: and he scared me. I didn't like being around the guy.
11:00
Speaker 1: You want to stay away from people. No, I'm a
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Speaker 1: pacifist man, I'm a lover. I don't need that. I
11:04
Speaker 1: know you are Chuck not very angry. Well, I have
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Speaker 1: some issues here and there with anger, but like Aristotle says,
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Speaker 1: I want to channel in the right direction, exactly and
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Speaker 1: at the right times, right right. So there was actually
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Speaker 1: a guy who is a perfect case study in UM
11:19
Speaker 1: you know how the brain processes anger. And his name
11:22
Speaker 1: was Phineas Gage, and he was this affable railroad man.
11:26
Speaker 1: He was a railroad worker and in forty eight he
11:29
Speaker 1: took a rod through I think his right eye owl uh,
11:33
Speaker 1: and it went into his brain and he actually they
11:37
Speaker 1: I don't know if they ever got it out all
11:38
Speaker 1: the way, but they managed to um keep him alive
11:42
Speaker 1: and he survived and continue to live. But he had
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Speaker 1: frontal lobe damage. The reason part his amigea was perfectly fine.
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Speaker 1: So we went from this affable, friendly guy to a
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Speaker 1: jerk for the rest of his life. Ye yeah, Phineas Gauge.
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Speaker 1: I've got some more gender related anger thing if you
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Speaker 1: want to talk about that. It's interesting women and women are.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing we ever get together, how different we are.
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Speaker 1: I'm often awed at that. Uh. They found when they
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Speaker 1: studied women in anger UM and men that men scored
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Speaker 1: higher on physical aggression go figure, passive aggression and experiences
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Speaker 1: of impulsively dealing with their anger, and men usually had
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Speaker 1: more or more often had a revenge motive and scored
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Speaker 1: higher in coercing people. And women they found were found
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Speaker 1: to be angried, longer, more resentful, and less likely to
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Speaker 1: express their anger. But they also found interestingly that women
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Speaker 1: um used indirect aggression. They were more likely to write
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Speaker 1: someone off that they knew and like, I'm never going
12:47
Speaker 1: to speak to her again. Women do that, according to
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Speaker 1: the study, and it kind of makes sense. I've known
12:52
Speaker 1: some women that have written off people in their life,
12:55
Speaker 1: but I don't know many men that have ever said,
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Speaker 1: you know, I'm never going to speak to him again.
13:01
Speaker 1: I have. I was about to say, I think I'm
13:03
Speaker 1: very feminine in that way, because it's not the only way, buddy.
13:07
Speaker 1: That's not well. I guess we should probably get to
13:10
Speaker 1: the last part of this clunker. What's that you see?
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Speaker 1: Santa Barber study. Okay, so these two psychiatrists, psychologists shrinks
13:19
Speaker 1: um put a bunch of college students together in a room,
13:22
Speaker 1: and I think they gave him They said, you are
13:25
Speaker 1: to remain neutral and this this other group, or we're
13:28
Speaker 1: gonna make angry. So they had them Um. They had
13:32
Speaker 1: them right about I think extensively some past experience they
13:37
Speaker 1: had that made them angry. Um. And then they took
13:42
Speaker 1: both groups and had them analyze a series of essays
13:46
Speaker 1: about whether or not college students are any good at
13:48
Speaker 1: saving or what you know, we're good with finances? And
13:52
Speaker 1: some were good essays, some were terrible. Um. And they
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Speaker 1: basically the distinction was the good essays, the the the
14:02
Speaker 1: the arguments that had basis were um, they cited old
14:06
Speaker 1: studies or you know, facts or they they backed up
14:09
Speaker 1: their argument, whereas the bad studies didn't. Right, but they
14:12
Speaker 1: were well written. And they found that the kids who
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Speaker 1: were angry, um were had better analytical skills. They were
14:19
Speaker 1: they scored consistently higher in picking out the good arguments
14:22
Speaker 1: from the bad. Right. Was were they shifting through the
14:25
Speaker 1: muck and focusing on, you know, just the parts that
14:29
Speaker 1: they needed to? Was that what was going on there?
14:32
Speaker 1: Just jumped from a to see each other. We'll tell
14:35
Speaker 1: me about B Well, I was trying to tell you
14:38
Speaker 1: about the anyway. Yes, that that's exactly right. I think
14:42
Speaker 1: let's just strangle this horse. It's almost dead. Um. They
14:46
Speaker 1: found that well, they concluded, uh, it wasn't proven, but
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Speaker 1: they concluded that when you're angry, um, you're you're very
14:54
Speaker 1: focused and so you're you're kind of you're you're cutting
14:58
Speaker 1: away the fat as it were. So and if you're neutral, um,
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Speaker 1: you're more likely to be taken in by flowery language
15:05
Speaker 1: or something like that. You're angry, you're focused. The other
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Speaker 1: theory that they had was when you're angry, you want
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Speaker 1: to punish somebody, So you're probably going to punish, uh,
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Speaker 1: somebody who's not doing is good a job, or some
15:18
Speaker 1: somebody who's not quite up to snuff. And in this case,
15:21
Speaker 1: it would have been a poorly argued essay. Right, So
15:24
Speaker 1: there you go. Well, I think the secret is to
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Speaker 1: channel your anger into positivity. There's nothing wrong with being angry,
15:31
Speaker 1: but I know that there are studies that that show
15:34
Speaker 1: that if you suppress anger, you're more likely to die
15:37
Speaker 1: then if you don't hold onto those feelings. So suppressing
15:39
Speaker 1: your anger is not a good move. Anyone who's ever
15:42
Speaker 1: seen the Angry Dead episode of The Simpsons can tell
15:44
Speaker 1: you it is life threatening, true, but blowing up at
15:47
Speaker 1: someone and going off on someone and being physically aggressive
15:52
Speaker 1: is also not good. So it's all about doing it
15:55
Speaker 1: in the right way. Sure, good advice, Chuck. I hope
15:58
Speaker 1: it didn't reign on your parade there with no no,
16:00
Speaker 1: you totally didn't get did great, buddy? Thanks? Yeah, Um,
16:03
Speaker 1: I would want you to be angry. You wouldn't like
16:05
Speaker 1: me when I'm angry. You would rain blows upon me
16:08
Speaker 1: a little bit. Well, let's just get to listener mail time.
16:12
Speaker 1: But first, I know Chuck wants to tell everybody about
16:15
Speaker 1: something we like to call our web blog or blog.
16:20
Speaker 1: We like of people around the world now have a blog.
16:24
Speaker 1: We have joined the blog sphere and the blog is
16:27
Speaker 1: through the website now stuff works dot com and you
16:30
Speaker 1: can find it on via the homepage. It's called stuff
16:33
Speaker 1: you Should Know and it's my buddy Josh and I
16:36
Speaker 1: just kind of hang out some interesting topics to talk
16:39
Speaker 1: about and trying to engage the stuff you Should Know community. Yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: and it's updated at least twice a day, Chuck post
16:46
Speaker 1: ones I post once. So go check it out. And
16:49
Speaker 1: like Chuck said, you can access that through the homepage
16:51
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And Chuck, please is
16:54
Speaker 1: it time for listener mail you today? John H. I
17:00
Speaker 1: have just a single listener mail. This is from this
17:02
Speaker 1: must be significant. Yeah, this is from Adam Asher. And
17:05
Speaker 1: I don't know where Idam's from, but he says cheers,
17:07
Speaker 1: So he may be from the UK. He may be
17:09
Speaker 1: one of those guys that says cheers. He's an anglophile. Yeah, perhaps,
17:13
Speaker 1: Uh he says this. This is about the c I
17:16
Speaker 1: a LSD episode quick recap. Uh. Yeah, the CIA used
17:21
Speaker 1: to um dose heroin addicts um John's and um you
17:26
Speaker 1: know black inmates at prisons with LSD to find out
17:29
Speaker 1: if they could use it as a truth serum or
17:31
Speaker 1: something like that. Perfect And the name of the program
17:33
Speaker 1: was MK Ultra. Yes it was. That was the Umbrella Project, right,
17:37
Speaker 1: So I found this very interesting, uh, he says. I
17:41
Speaker 1: just had a comment on that episode. A few years back,
17:43
Speaker 1: maybe ten or twelve years ago, there was a video
17:45
Speaker 1: game made called mk Ultra. Uh. In it, you were
17:50
Speaker 1: a weird costumed a man with a gun for an arm,
17:53
Speaker 1: and you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
17:57
Speaker 1: The world you were in was very interesting, different called ors,
18:00
Speaker 1: the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
18:03
Speaker 1: It's your sidekick, and uh he said that when we
18:07
Speaker 1: talked about the MK Ultra program, he you know, made
18:09
Speaker 1: him think his video game. The thing is, he can't
18:12
Speaker 1: remember it and doesn't have any further details. So I'm
18:15
Speaker 1: really interested to know if there was if that was
18:17
Speaker 1: the name of the game, and if they were there
18:20
Speaker 1: was a video game that literally poked fun at the
18:21
Speaker 1: CIA for doing this kind of thing, or if that
18:24
Speaker 1: guy was on LSD. So if anyone out there knows
18:27
Speaker 1: of this game and has any more details, I'd love
18:28
Speaker 1: to hear about it and uh get a copy of it.
18:32
Speaker 1: I want to play this game. Yeah, well that's to
18:34
Speaker 1: thank you, Adam Asher. Sure, if you want to share
18:37
Speaker 1: any of your acid flashbacks with us or just say hi,
18:40
Speaker 1: you can shoot us an email. If you can see
18:43
Speaker 1: the keys and they're not speaking to you at stuff
18:46
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
18:53
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
18:55
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Speaker 1: thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you