Anger

Anger is a negatively experienced psychobiological state. It is associated with verbal labels (e.g., “I feel really angry”), autonomic arousal (e.g., heart and respiration rate increases), rigid thoughts and blaming (e.g., “You shouldn’t have done that! This problem is your entire fault!”), and desires to approach, fight, and/or get even (e.g., “I just want to punch a wall” or “I’ll teach her to never do that to me again!”). When anger is frequent, intense, and enduring, it creates havoc in interpersonal relationships and conflicts in the home, schools, the workplace, incarceration facilities, and other environments. Although in our evolutionary past, anger promoted human survival by helping to fight off potential threats, in the current world, strong, frequent, and enduring angry reactivity is no longer warranted, ...