------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wundt (21) has pointed out that there are two types of reaction to
an emotion, what he calls outer and inner volitional acts. The first
refers to the external bodily expression of an emotion and the latter
to the mental behavior. In the study of the emotions, attention has
for the most part been directed to the former. Darwin’s study of the
emotions in man and animals, early called attention to the finer
physical expressions of each emotion, explaining them as instinctive
habits which were formerly useful. Darwin’s study partly paved the way
for the James-Lange theory, which maintains that what we experience as
an emotion is but the sensation of the instinctive physical expression.
The aim of this chapter is to study the mental behavior during the
conscious period the anger exists. It is recognized that the motor and
physical expressions is primary and fundamental. For that reason it has
served so adequately in the objective study of the emotion. What we
shall attempt to study is the mental behavior of persons under the
influence of anger. Ethics tells us how we ought to act when angry, but
psychology has neglected to find out how in reality consciousness does
behave when the emotional excitement is on. David Iron’s (12) statement
is still apropos. He writes, “The neglect of the reactive side of human
consciousness is nowhere more conspicuous than in the case of the
emotions.”
The anger consciousness is characterized by heightened mental activity.
A multiple number of images, attitudes, fluctuations of the emotional
and feeling content appear in rapid succession till the emotion
disappears. This statement is true for even the more tenuous instances
of anger. In fact some of the milder experiences have the most marked
changeableness of conscious content. Objectively there may be little
activity, while simultaneously on the mental side, there is a wealth of
processes which must be considered in the psychology of the emotions.
After making a rather minute collection of the different kinds of mental
reaction to anger, as shown by the introspections, it is observed that
they fall into three rather clear types of conscious behavior. The first
type is in the general direction of the emotive tendency and is the one
that most impulsively follows on the stimulus of the emotion. It
expresses pugnacity in some form. This type of reaction expresses a
tendency similar to the basal instinct of the emotion of anger, such as
thinking cutting remarks, imagining the offender’s humiliation, hostile
witticism, joking and sarcasm. This type of a reaction will be called
_attributive reaction_. A second type is contrary to pugnacity; the
instinctive impulse is reversed. A friendly attitude may be assumed
toward the offender, an adequate excuse it found for his offense, an
over polite attitude may be taken. This type of behavior will be called
the _contrary reaction_. A third type is one that is entirely of a
conscious attitudinal character. The subject becomes indifferent to the
whole situation exciting the emotion. The offense may suddenly be
apathetically ignored and the subject behaves unconcerned and assumes an
“I don’t care,” or a “What-is-the-use” attitude. This will be called
_indifferent reaction_. These three types of behavior are characteristic
of the reactive consciousness to anger. The emotion may contain one, or
it may contain all three of these types before it finally ends. Going
over the results of the observations of all the subjects, about fourteen
hundred sixty eight reactions are counted in the six hundred cases of
anger studied. Seventy one percent of such reactions are classified as
attributive reaction, eighteen percent are the contrary type, and eleven
percent are the indifferent.
The initial reaction to anger is always of the attributive type.
Whatever other reactions may follow in the course of the entire anger
period, the attributive reaction in some form is characteristic of the
early stage of the emotion. The contrary and indifferent types are
secondary in point of time and occur after the initial hostile
tendencies have been restrained. If an emotion of anger is made up
entirely of the attributive type, which frequently occurs, and continues
for any length of time, it is always noted that some of the reactions
are more crude and unsocial and others are refined, disguised it may be,
covered up, and when the emotion is most intense whether it be in the
initial stage or elsewhere, the unsocial attributive tendencies are
usually found at those places.