The success with which the emotion of anger disappears is a matter of
wide individual difference with the persons studied. With some the
reporting of the emotion from the introspection notes tended to
reinstate the emotion. One subject was frequently disturbed by the
reappearance of the emotion during the report. In one instance he
refused to report to the writer for three days afterward. He reports he
could not recall the situation without the reappearance of the anger in
its unpleasant form. Other persons could rarely reinstate an emotion in
any unpleasant form over night. At times the anger was reinstated in its
pleasant aspect. Sometimes a feeling of exaltation was displayed. The
subject showed he enjoyed recalling the emotion. Imagined and carefully
devised schemes of retaliation were often rehearsed with pleasure. Again
the observation would be a feeling of indifference, as something past
and finished. Often the statement was given, “The whole thing seems
ludicrous and amusing to me now.”
It is rather pleasing to recall the situation exciting anger when the
original emotion is short-circuited, as it were, allowing a pleasurable,
gossipy vituperation against the offender without the initially
unpleasant stage of anger. In fact the subject may re-experience a
little of the unpleasant humiliation through imaginative stimulus, if
the pleasantly reactive stage is successful enough to compensate. If the
subject is aware he has a sympathetic hearer, it is far easier to pass
over the initially unpleasant stage of the reinstated anger and enjoy a
hostile, gossipy reaction. The writer in the course of the study became
so intimately acquainted with the private emotional life of the subjects
studied and had been a sympathetic listener of the emotional experiences
so long, that after the period of observation had ended, he would find
himself the recipient of emotional confidences which the subjects took
pleasure in relating to him. Says one on reporting, “I really was not
interested so much in the scientific side of this emotion as I was to
tell you of my resentment, and as I look over it now, I am really aware
that I assumed a scientific interest as a means of gaining full sympathy
and giving me full freedom to speak everything in mind.” Another subject
says, “I went to tell X. for I believed he would get angry too and I
hoped that he would.” The same situation does not usually allow anger to
continue to reappear in its unpleasant form, for repeated appearance
tends to eliminate the active unpleasant stage.
An emotion of anger which has been unsuccessfully expressed may continue
to reappear in consciousness again and again. Crowded out, it will
suddenly return at times by chance associations. It may become so
insistent that it is an unpleasant distraction from business affairs and
the subject must find some sort of reaction to satisfy it. F. observes,
“I could not do my work. Just as I would get started, the idea would
reappear suddenly and I would find myself angry, tending to think
cutting remarks and planning what I should do. Each time I tried to
escape from it, it would come back again. Finally I determined
deliberately to get rid of it. I recalled all the good qualities of X.,
what favors he had bestowed upon me and in fact felt quite friendly
toward him. Before I had finished, the anger had disappeared and did not
return. Later, as I recalled the situation incidentally, I felt
indifferent toward it.” Such deliberate behavior is unusual. The
reaction to an emotion is mostly involuntary. In many instances, when
emotion is prolonged, it is much like a trial and error process, one
reaction after another is tried out in imagination until a rather
successful one is found. This reappearance of an emotion when it has
been repressed gives opportunity for a new trial and mode of attack.
There are two general conditions under which anger disappears most
successfully. First, if the mental situation from which anger arises is
changed directly by the addition of a new idea that gives an entirely
new meaning content to the incident so that it will no longer be
humiliating or irritating, as when the subject can thoroughly come to
believe that the motives of the opponent’s offense were not hostile but
friendly, anger disappears rather successfully with no unpleasant after
effects; the anger is cut off directly at its source. To illustrate,
C.’s anger at X. which had been a source of unpleasant disturbance for
two days, completely disappeared when he was finally informed that what
X. did was not meant as personal. The subject at times finds himself
trying to assume a little of the attitude of make-believe. He really
wants to believe the offender meant well. A second successful condition
for the removal of anger is when the subject reacts so that he feels he
has fully mastered his opponent. He has given full restitution for the
offense and feels a pleasureable satisfaction in the results. Feeling is
an essential factor, whatever the method employed. If a feeling of
complete victorious satisfaction is accomplished in connection with the
disappearance of anger it is usually successful. The circumstances are
rare in which the direct verbal or physical attack would be fully
satisfactory. A substitution in the form of hostile wit, teasing, irony,
or it may be a favor bestowed with a hostile intent, may accomplish the
same result as far as feelings are concerned and completely satisfy the
anger. The imagined victory, or a make-believe one, may serve the same
purpose.
The most unsuccessful condition for the disappearance of anger is one
commonly used in emergencies—that of changing the attention and avoiding
the offensive idea. Intense anger usually returns when diminished in
this manner. The attitude of indifference and over-politeness usually
serves only as a temporary device of removal for the purpose of
expeditious control. Mere repression is not always most successful.
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