When I look at the kinds of articles people post on social media and the comments under them, it feels like there’s an overwhelming amount of hate and anger in the world - or at least among the people posting and commenting. (Maybe it’s just that non-angry people don’t spend much time in this kind of spaces.)

In contrast, when I think about my own life, I realize that I’m almost never angry. I feel many other negative emotions, sure, but anger isn’t one of them, and even when it arises it’s usually quite short-lived. I can’t even name a single person I hate - neither in my personal life nor in the media. I simply don’t spend time dwelling on people I’m not interested in or being angry at the world for not meeting my expectations.

This makes me wonder: is my experience rare or unusual? Or is hate and anger simply overrepresented in the media because those emotions motivate people to engage, making them seem far more widespread than they actually are?

I’m trying to understand rather than criticize. I can’t take credit for not being angry because whatever tha skill is doesn’t translate into other things like anxiety. I’m anxious about equally trivial things and I can’t help myself. I guess I’m just glad I don’t need to deal with this constant anger too.

    • Free_Opinions@feddit.ukOP
      4·
      9 months ago

      No, I don’t think the feeling of anger is foreign to anyone. It’s a basic human emotion and we’re all capable of it. By my question I’m rather asking about dwelling in anger thorought the day/week rather than the acute sense of it when something anger-provoking has just happened.

      When someone cuts me off in traffic I might go “You son of a…” but then I catch myself getting angry and the feeling of it just kind of vanishes. It doesn’t really withstand any sort of observation. I guess the difference here is getting angry and staying angry.

    • katA
      21·
      9 months ago

      Isn’t anger a masking emotion or something like that (can’t remember the term). So it’s not like a primordial emotion since it’s always rooted in another emotion.

        • katA
          1·
          9 months ago

          Ah I remember, anger is considered a secondary emotion. So it does usually stems from underlying feelings like frustration, fear, hurt, or even sadness. It’s like a defense mechanism.

          Here’s an article on it.

            • katA
              1·
              9 months ago

              Definitely feel free to read up on it and see if any of the science of the model resonates better than my explanation. I barely remember the topic 😅

          • Fighter_Moo@discuss.online
            1·
            9 months ago

            I’m afraid the article you linked also says anger can be a primary emotion or a secondary emotion.

            Is anger always a secondary emotion?
            It makes sense to feel angry as a response to injustices, perceived threats, or frustrations, and anger might truly be your primary emotion in the moment. It isn’t always masking another, more vulnerable emotion. For example, if an acquaintance made an inappropriate, derogatory comment about you in front of others, you might immediately be angry that someone unjustly crossed a boundary. In this case, anger is still functioning to alert you to something getting in the way of your goal (e.g., of respect), plus it’s an immediate, instinctual response to the situation.

            Tbh I’m not a big fan of the article. It does not match up very well with my understanding of the emotions.
            For example, Anger is a problem-solving emotion. Fear is the defensive emotion. Yet the article seems to mix up the two.

            • katA
              1·
              9 months ago

              For sure, feel free to find other articles from a scientific journal to find something with less discrepancy. I just picked something that seemed to be accessible. And unfortunately I don’t remember much on the topic to be of use.

              • Fighter_Moo@discuss.online
                1·
                9 months ago

                Alright. Hopefully your memory comes back eventually. The idea of anger not being a primary emotion is an interesting thought I hadn’t considered before.

                • katA
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  Totally, kind of why the idea has lingered in my brain all these years. If I do any further reading I’ll check back in. Since there were others also curious on the topic.

          • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            I’m not certain I buy that in every single case, but do buy into it for many, many cases.

            It’s actually something I tried to pass on to other folks when I worked a phone customer service job - there’s cases where it’s obvious the anger is coming from somewhere else if you’re paying attention (example I had and shared was clearly fear), so told people to pay attention to exactly what folks are saying to try and elicit that, and speak/address the actual problem/emotion.

            Fuck I miss that job some days…feels like the only thing I’ve done that I was really, really good at. Was also a small team with very little corpo oversight at the time, so don’t know if these approaches would fly as well today v. scripted responses.