It has been a long while since I last posted about the value of getting angry. For a review of some of the emotion's benefits, please read these past posts:
- Good brain, bad brain? Bring it all to the negotiation table
- Anger—your inner fiend or your friend? Or both? What's the role of emotion?
- Grit your teeth and bear it: Get angry for all the right reasons
I was reminded today of the plus side of getting a bit heated when reading "Anger Gives You a Creative Boost" (Scientific American). From the article:
Perhaps, in some contexts, feeling angry [is] actually beneficial. This counterintuitive idea was pursued by researchers Matthijs Baas, Carsten De Dreu, and Bernard Nijstad in a series of studies recently published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They found that angry people were more likely to be creative – though this advantage didn’t last for long, as the taxing nature of anger eventually leveled out creativity. This study joins several recent lines of research exploring the relative upside to anger – the ways in which anger is not only less harmful than typically assumed, but may even be helpful (though perhaps in small doses).
Of course, the benefits of anger are not universal; they are situational and more true for some people than for others. Nevertheless, in some situations, good, clean anger can be honest, productive, and aligned with one's most deeply held values.
I don't know why, in some circles, anger is nearly always shunned or considered unskillful communication. Give me a little
