March 19, 2009 • 19 mins
Anger gets a bad rap, but this unpopular emotion can actually be beneficial to us. Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to get Josh and Chuck's entertaining take on why we lose our cool.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house stuff Works dot com? And be sure to
check out the new stuff you should know blob. Now
I'm on the house Stuff Works homepage. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. Or Chuck, how you doing? This is
(00:21):
stuff you should know? I should say, Uh, that's Chuck Bryant.
I'm Josh Clark as usual. I think by now you
people know, right, I answer us. If not, they just
stumbled upon us. They're like, you are these exactly? And
we just lost him right there, so everybody else it's
us Chuck. Do you remember watching The Incredible Hulk as well?
(00:42):
I was going to say as a kid. It ran
from eighty two, so you're what like twenty five maybe thirty? No, man,
that was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I just came
in on the tail end, but every I had a
significant impact. I love that show. So yeah, that was
what Bill Bixby slash Lou Ferrigno sharing the title role duties. Right. Well, actually,
Bill Bixby played Bruce Banner and Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk, right,
(01:06):
and he was kind of a big guy, but not
hulk like. You know. I think they had to use
certain camera angles and shots and make him a pear
even bigger. And of course, since I'm nine years old,
I I remember Bill Bixby from the Courtship of Eddie's Father,
which was before that. Sorry, go ahead, okay, so well, Chuck,
you remember like oftentimes I don't think it was every episode,
(01:28):
but um, Bruce Banner when somebody was pushing him around
or something. I remember when I think at the in
the intro, he he would be hitchhiking or something and
he was picked up by somebody who mistreated him. Maybe
I could be making I make up memories a lot, right,
but yeah, in most episodes he would say something like,
please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when
(01:50):
I'm angry, and then inevitably this is some jerk made
him angry and then you know, get ripped and turned
green and just beat the tar out of him, right right.
My favorite part actually he would always turn away as
if he's trying to contain himself, and then with his
head back around, he'd had those green eyes. Yes, yeah, yeah.
He never bit his knuckles though, I've always found that
that helps to kind of keep things, you know, locked in.
He should have tried that. It would have been a
(02:11):
totally different show had he actually tried that. I think right, well,
actually I bring up The Incredible Hulk, not because I
just wanted to reminisce although that was pleasant Chuck Um.
I wanted to use it as a segway. And what
I was going to segue into is that it is
entirely possible that the Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner was a
self actualized human being except for like throwing cars and stuff.
(02:36):
He was in touch with his anger and tried to
keep it down, but eventually it came out and ultimately
he would go back to normal. And the point of
the point is of this a sin I in intro um,
is that anger can be beneficial. We we tend to
think that anger is a just a bad thing, that
there's only negative repercussion, so that it's harmful. Um. And
(02:57):
as a matter of fact, there was a think some
survey that I read UM that I found twenty eight
percent of people, when asked about their own anger, they
said that they thought it was a bad thing because
it was useless and harmful. That's not necessarily true, right,
they said inappropriate to which I thought was inappropriate. Yeah,
I call anger inappropriate. I just I think it's completely
appropriate many times. Well, I think I think part of
(03:19):
the problem is, and this is just me positing here,
we live in a society that's that's has lots of
expectations on gentility. We're supposed to get along, go along
and all that, and so anger doesn't really have much
of a place that in a in a society like that.
Um so, I think we've kind of a lot of us,
including myself, have have lost our ability to express ourselves
(03:41):
through anger. Right. You know what Aristotle said? I love
this quote. Let's hear Aristotle said this. The famous philosopher,
of course, not Aristotle Jones, who as how do you
know Aristotle Jones? We'll talk about that later. The famous
Aristotle said this, The man who was angry at the
right things and with the right people, and further as
(04:02):
he ought when he ought, and as long as he
ought is praised. So basically, he's saying that you can
be angry, but if if you're angry at the right
time and you handle it in the right way, then
you are to be patted on the back essentially right,
and he was right on the money if you asked me.
So I did a little research, um and found uh,
we have a great article on the site called how
(04:22):
anger Works. And um, I'm starting to notice a pattern here,
like all the great articles on the site. The byoline
says Molly Edmonds. Have you noticed that? I thought you're
gonna say yourself, No, I wouldn't do that even if
I thought it. Yes, Molly, who is a great writer
and a dear friend and has her own podcast, Yeah stuff, mom,
never told you with Christen Conger another great writer here. Um,
(04:44):
and we should probably stop all the plug in right
and get to the anger. Right. You're angry at Molly
because she's a better writer than you. That is not true, Chuck,
stop this please? Um okay, so what what? There's basically
three reason why people get angry, right, Uh, and one
of them is to correct someone else's bad behavior. When
(05:06):
you get angry, you're all of a sudden kind of
bursting forth with with energy. You're kind of pushing energy
from yourself onto somebody else, or at the very least
creating a startle response in them. Uh. And that's a
pretty good way of teaching somebody that they don't need
to do that to you. Again, sure, I find that
kind of distasteful behavior. Using untoward yes my favorite word
(05:27):
right now? Um uh that that that's one reason people
get angry, or one reason or one way people use anger.
Another UM is to demonstrate power, which is really again
off putting. Not big fans of two of these three reasons,
you know, like getting whoever can shout the loudest, or
you know, get the most irked and and and irritated winds.
(05:50):
And actually that's the case sometimes, especially again in our
genteel society. The third reason anger exists, I think um
is to address interpersonal conflict, right, Like, you're upset at
something you've done, No, you're upset with something someone else did,
and rather than just let it pass by, which will
(06:12):
give you the opportunity to stew on it indefinitely and
arguably and the relationship you are getting, you're using anger,
And this is not You shouldn't confuse this, this aspect
of anger with you know, coming into somebody's office, slamming
the door and like telling letting them have it. I
guess it's kind of a form of it. An unproductive form.
This would more be like recognizing your angry and saying,
(06:34):
I gotta do something about this or else I'm not
going to be friends with this person. So actually that
use of anger is UM, it's actually a kind gesture
because you're saying, I'm willing to confront you even though
it's gonna be uncomfortable for me including you, UM, because
I value our relationship. So those are reasons why you
might demonstrate anger. Yes, Well I found an interesting study.
(06:57):
It's it's a little dated it from but it's a
Clinton area, but it's still valid. Uh. Someone did a
women's anger study and interestingly they found that, um, five
out of the five women they surveyed, the three most
common roots to a woman's anger, which ties in nicely
with yours, is powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of others.
(07:20):
So that kind of makes sense from what you just said. Well,
I also read that women tend to become angered. There's
actually something called anger triggers, right, and they're actually age,
gender and culture specific. Often times there they're stimuli that
that trigger our anger. Uh. And women this is not
you know, the case across the board, but women tend
(07:41):
to UM have find anger triggers in affronts by people
that they're close to, family, friends, that kind of thing. Basically,
you can't you can't make a woman angry on average, uh,
if you're a stranger. The exact opposites the case with men.
Men have a lot more patients with maybe um the
(08:03):
family and friends. But like a stranger will just send
him off the rail traffic. Oh yeah, I hate strangers. Yeah,
who who likes them? That's not true nobody, But yeah,
I find that that's actually the case with me. I
would get extremely angry at someone I don't know, because
I'm a big injustice Scott injustices really make me angry
people that don't think the rules apply to them. Like
(08:25):
let's say I'm sitting in traffic and we have the
the commuter lanes here in Atlanta, the carpool lane, and
I'll see people single writers whizzing by me in the
carpool lane, and it just it furies knock them off
the road. Now because I'd have to get in the
carpool lane. Oh and you wouldn't do that, well, no,
because I'd get caught. Plus also, you would have no
right to be angry at somebody else. You know what
(08:47):
that is. That's reason. Uh So basically, when when we
are when our anger is triggered by by whatever it is, UM,
we have two things going on. Two it just in
our brains. Start wrestling in like thirty like Greco Roman wrestling.
Right winner take off pretty much possibly with Shanks. I haven't.
(09:10):
I haven't determined that yet. UM. But the frontal lobe,
which is responsible for reason, starts getting into it with
the amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and all. This
wrestling match usually lasts about two seconds, it is um,
and most of the time the frontal lobe wins. Did
you know that? I didn't, but it kind of I
(09:32):
get that, yeah, because think about it, like we'd all
be walking around like half cock powdered kegs if the
amygdala one. You know, have you ever known anyone that
was like that, that was really angry and would fight
people and just made you nervous being around them. I
wish I I would say his name because I still
did this sixth grade. I still to this day hate
(09:55):
this kid's guts UM, and I would love to say
his name so that it's somebody could hear it and
go punch him in the stomach. Um, but I know
Jerry will bleep it out and beep beep exactly what
is yeah? So um? But yeah, this kid he was.
He was short and he was really mad that he
was short. He bore a striking resemblance to um jever
(10:18):
see uh was that Captain Caveman and Son cartoon. He
bore a resemblance to the Sun really just kind of
very you know, cavemanesque, right. And he was just such
a little manipulative bully he was. He was mockiavellian actually,
and he used to have us get into um fights
and he would turn the whole class against he was.
(10:40):
He was an angry little kid and you know what,
he was all amigdala really apparently. Yeah, I knew a
guy like that when I lived in Arizona. That was
just I was uncomfortable being around him because he would
go to a bar or someplace and just invite trouble.
It was written all over his face. It was his energy,
and he scared me. I didn't like being around the guy.
(11:00):
You want to stay away from people. No, I'm a
pacifist man, I'm a lover. I don't need that. I
know you are Chuck not very angry. Well, I have
some issues here and there with anger, but like Aristotle says,
I want to channel in the right direction, exactly and
at the right times, right right. So there was actually
a guy who is a perfect case study in UM
you know how the brain processes anger. And his name
(11:22):
was Phineas Gage, and he was this affable railroad man.
He was a railroad worker and in forty eight he
took a rod through I think his right eye owl uh,
and it went into his brain and he actually they
I don't know if they ever got it out all
the way, but they managed to um keep him alive
and he survived and continue to live. But he had
(11:45):
frontal lobe damage. The reason part his amigea was perfectly fine.
So we went from this affable, friendly guy to a
jerk for the rest of his life. Ye yeah, Phineas Gauge.
I've got some more gender related anger thing if you
want to talk about that. It's interesting women and women are.
It's amazing we ever get together, how different we are.
(12:06):
I'm often awed at that. Uh. They found when they
studied women in anger UM and men that men scored
higher on physical aggression go figure, passive aggression and experiences
of impulsively dealing with their anger, and men usually had
more or more often had a revenge motive and scored
(12:28):
higher in coercing people. And women they found were found
to be angried, longer, more resentful, and less likely to
express their anger. But they also found interestingly that women
um used indirect aggression. They were more likely to write
someone off that they knew and like, I'm never going
to speak to her again. Women do that, according to
(12:50):
the study, and it kind of makes sense. I've known
some women that have written off people in their life,
but I don't know many men that have ever said,
you know, I'm never going to speak to him again.
I have. I was about to say, I think I'm
very feminine in that way, because it's not the only way, buddy.
That's not well. I guess we should probably get to
the last part of this clunker. What's that you see?
(13:12):
Santa Barber study. Okay, so these two psychiatrists, psychologists shrinks
um put a bunch of college students together in a room,
and I think they gave him They said, you are
to remain neutral and this this other group, or we're
gonna make angry. So they had them Um. They had
(13:32):
them right about I think extensively some past experience they
had that made them angry. Um. And then they took
both groups and had them analyze a series of essays
about whether or not college students are any good at
saving or what you know, we're good with finances? And
some were good essays, some were terrible. Um. And they
(13:57):
basically the distinction was the good essays, the the the
the arguments that had basis were um, they cited old
studies or you know, facts or they they backed up
their argument, whereas the bad studies didn't. Right, but they
were well written. And they found that the kids who
were angry, um were had better analytical skills. They were
(14:19):
they scored consistently higher in picking out the good arguments
from the bad. Right. Was were they shifting through the
muck and focusing on, you know, just the parts that
they needed to? Was that what was going on there?
Just jumped from a to see each other. We'll tell
me about B Well, I was trying to tell you
about the anyway. Yes, that that's exactly right. I think
(14:42):
let's just strangle this horse. It's almost dead. Um. They
found that well, they concluded, uh, it wasn't proven, but
they concluded that when you're angry, um, you're you're very
focused and so you're you're kind of you're you're cutting
away the fat as it were. So and if you're neutral, um,
(15:02):
you're more likely to be taken in by flowery language
or something like that. You're angry, you're focused. The other
theory that they had was when you're angry, you want
to punish somebody, So you're probably going to punish, uh,
somebody who's not doing is good a job, or some
somebody who's not quite up to snuff. And in this case,
it would have been a poorly argued essay. Right, So
(15:24):
there you go. Well, I think the secret is to
channel your anger into positivity. There's nothing wrong with being angry,
but I know that there are studies that that show
that if you suppress anger, you're more likely to die
then if you don't hold onto those feelings. So suppressing
your anger is not a good move. Anyone who's ever
seen the Angry Dead episode of The Simpsons can tell
(15:44):
you it is life threatening, true, but blowing up at
someone and going off on someone and being physically aggressive
is also not good. So it's all about doing it
in the right way. Sure, good advice, Chuck. I hope
it didn't reign on your parade there with no no,
you totally didn't get did great, buddy? Thanks? Yeah, Um,
I would want you to be angry. You wouldn't like
(16:05):
me when I'm angry. You would rain blows upon me
a little bit. Well, let's just get to listener mail time.
But first, I know Chuck wants to tell everybody about
something we like to call our web blog or blog.
We like of people around the world now have a blog.
We have joined the blog sphere and the blog is
(16:27):
through the website now stuff works dot com and you
can find it on via the homepage. It's called stuff
you Should Know and it's my buddy Josh and I
just kind of hang out some interesting topics to talk
about and trying to engage the stuff you Should Know community. Yeah,
and it's updated at least twice a day, Chuck post
ones I post once. So go check it out. And
(16:49):
like Chuck said, you can access that through the homepage
at how stuff works dot com. And Chuck, please is
it time for listener mail you today? John H. I
have just a single listener mail. This is from this
must be significant. Yeah, this is from Adam Asher. And
I don't know where Idam's from, but he says cheers,
So he may be from the UK. He may be
(17:09):
one of those guys that says cheers. He's an anglophile. Yeah, perhaps,
Uh he says this. This is about the c I
a LSD episode quick recap. Uh. Yeah, the CIA used
to um dose heroin addicts um John's and um you
know black inmates at prisons with LSD to find out
if they could use it as a truth serum or
(17:31):
something like that. Perfect And the name of the program
was MK Ultra. Yes it was. That was the Umbrella Project, right,
So I found this very interesting, uh, he says. I
just had a comment on that episode. A few years back,
maybe ten or twelve years ago, there was a video
game made called mk Ultra. Uh. In it, you were
a weird costumed a man with a gun for an arm,
(17:53):
and you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
The world you were in was very interesting, different called ors,
the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
It's your sidekick, and uh he said that when we
talked about the MK Ultra program, he you know, made
him think his video game. The thing is, he can't
remember it and doesn't have any further details. So I'm
(18:15):
really interested to know if there was if that was
the name of the game, and if they were there
was a video game that literally poked fun at the
CIA for doing this kind of thing, or if that
guy was on LSD. So if anyone out there knows
of this game and has any more details, I'd love
to hear about it and uh get a copy of it.
I want to play this game. Yeah, well that's to
thank you, Adam Asher. Sure, if you want to share
(18:37):
any of your acid flashbacks with us or just say hi,
you can shoot us an email. If you can see
the keys and they're not speaking to you at stuff
podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two
(19:01):
thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house stuff Works dot com? And be sure to
check out the new stuff you should know blob. Now
I'm on the house Stuff Works homepage. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. Or Chuck, how you doing? This is
(00:21):
stuff you should know? I should say, Uh, that's Chuck Bryant.
I'm Josh Clark as usual. I think by now you
people know, right, I answer us. If not, they just
stumbled upon us. They're like, you are these exactly? And
we just lost him right there, so everybody else it's
us Chuck. Do you remember watching The Incredible Hulk as well?
(00:42):
I was going to say as a kid. It ran
from eighty two, so you're what like twenty five maybe thirty? No, man,
that was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I just came
in on the tail end, but every I had a
significant impact. I love that show. So yeah, that was
what Bill Bixby slash Lou Ferrigno sharing the title role duties. Right. Well, actually,
Bill Bixby played Bruce Banner and Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk, right,
(01:06):
and he was kind of a big guy, but not
hulk like. You know. I think they had to use
certain camera angles and shots and make him a pear
even bigger. And of course, since I'm nine years old,
I I remember Bill Bixby from the Courtship of Eddie's Father,
which was before that. Sorry, go ahead, okay, so well, Chuck,
you remember like oftentimes I don't think it was every episode,
(01:28):
but um, Bruce Banner when somebody was pushing him around
or something. I remember when I think at the in
the intro, he he would be hitchhiking or something and
he was picked up by somebody who mistreated him. Maybe
I could be making I make up memories a lot, right,
but yeah, in most episodes he would say something like,
please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when
(01:50):
I'm angry, and then inevitably this is some jerk made
him angry and then you know, get ripped and turned
green and just beat the tar out of him, right right.
My favorite part actually he would always turn away as
if he's trying to contain himself, and then with his
head back around, he'd had those green eyes. Yes, yeah, yeah.
He never bit his knuckles though, I've always found that
that helps to kind of keep things, you know, locked in.
He should have tried that. It would have been a
(02:11):
totally different show had he actually tried that. I think right, well,
actually I bring up The Incredible Hulk, not because I
just wanted to reminisce although that was pleasant Chuck Um.
I wanted to use it as a segway. And what
I was going to segue into is that it is
entirely possible that the Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner was a
self actualized human being except for like throwing cars and stuff.
(02:36):
He was in touch with his anger and tried to
keep it down, but eventually it came out and ultimately
he would go back to normal. And the point of
the point is of this a sin I in intro um,
is that anger can be beneficial. We we tend to
think that anger is a just a bad thing, that
there's only negative repercussion, so that it's harmful. Um. And
(02:57):
as a matter of fact, there was a think some
survey that I read UM that I found twenty eight
percent of people, when asked about their own anger, they
said that they thought it was a bad thing because
it was useless and harmful. That's not necessarily true, right,
they said inappropriate to which I thought was inappropriate. Yeah,
I call anger inappropriate. I just I think it's completely
appropriate many times. Well, I think I think part of
(03:19):
the problem is, and this is just me positing here,
we live in a society that's that's has lots of
expectations on gentility. We're supposed to get along, go along
and all that, and so anger doesn't really have much
of a place that in a in a society like that.
Um so, I think we've kind of a lot of us,
including myself, have have lost our ability to express ourselves
(03:41):
through anger. Right. You know what Aristotle said? I love
this quote. Let's hear Aristotle said this. The famous philosopher,
of course, not Aristotle Jones, who as how do you
know Aristotle Jones? We'll talk about that later. The famous
Aristotle said this, The man who was angry at the
right things and with the right people, and further as
(04:02):
he ought when he ought, and as long as he
ought is praised. So basically, he's saying that you can
be angry, but if if you're angry at the right
time and you handle it in the right way, then
you are to be patted on the back essentially right,
and he was right on the money if you asked me.
So I did a little research, um and found uh,
we have a great article on the site called how
(04:22):
anger Works. And um, I'm starting to notice a pattern here,
like all the great articles on the site. The byoline
says Molly Edmonds. Have you noticed that? I thought you're
gonna say yourself, No, I wouldn't do that even if
I thought it. Yes, Molly, who is a great writer
and a dear friend and has her own podcast, Yeah stuff, mom,
never told you with Christen Conger another great writer here. Um,
(04:44):
and we should probably stop all the plug in right
and get to the anger. Right. You're angry at Molly
because she's a better writer than you. That is not true, Chuck,
stop this please? Um okay, so what what? There's basically
three reason why people get angry, right, Uh, and one
of them is to correct someone else's bad behavior. When
(05:06):
you get angry, you're all of a sudden kind of
bursting forth with with energy. You're kind of pushing energy
from yourself onto somebody else, or at the very least
creating a startle response in them. Uh. And that's a
pretty good way of teaching somebody that they don't need
to do that to you. Again, sure, I find that
kind of distasteful behavior. Using untoward yes my favorite word
(05:27):
right now? Um uh that that that's one reason people
get angry, or one reason or one way people use anger.
Another UM is to demonstrate power, which is really again
off putting. Not big fans of two of these three reasons,
you know, like getting whoever can shout the loudest, or
you know, get the most irked and and and irritated winds.
(05:50):
And actually that's the case sometimes, especially again in our
genteel society. The third reason anger exists, I think um
is to address interpersonal conflict, right, Like, you're upset at
something you've done, No, you're upset with something someone else did,
and rather than just let it pass by, which will
(06:12):
give you the opportunity to stew on it indefinitely and
arguably and the relationship you are getting, you're using anger,
And this is not You shouldn't confuse this, this aspect
of anger with you know, coming into somebody's office, slamming
the door and like telling letting them have it. I
guess it's kind of a form of it. An unproductive form.
This would more be like recognizing your angry and saying,
(06:34):
I gotta do something about this or else I'm not
going to be friends with this person. So actually that
use of anger is UM, it's actually a kind gesture
because you're saying, I'm willing to confront you even though
it's gonna be uncomfortable for me including you, UM, because
I value our relationship. So those are reasons why you
might demonstrate anger. Yes, Well I found an interesting study.
(06:57):
It's it's a little dated it from but it's a
Clinton area, but it's still valid. Uh. Someone did a
women's anger study and interestingly they found that, um, five
out of the five women they surveyed, the three most
common roots to a woman's anger, which ties in nicely
with yours, is powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of others.
(07:20):
So that kind of makes sense from what you just said. Well,
I also read that women tend to become angered. There's
actually something called anger triggers, right, and they're actually age,
gender and culture specific. Often times there they're stimuli that
that trigger our anger. Uh. And women this is not
you know, the case across the board, but women tend
(07:41):
to UM have find anger triggers in affronts by people
that they're close to, family, friends, that kind of thing. Basically,
you can't you can't make a woman angry on average, uh,
if you're a stranger. The exact opposites the case with men.
Men have a lot more patients with maybe um the
(08:03):
family and friends. But like a stranger will just send
him off the rail traffic. Oh yeah, I hate strangers. Yeah,
who who likes them? That's not true nobody, But yeah,
I find that that's actually the case with me. I
would get extremely angry at someone I don't know, because
I'm a big injustice Scott injustices really make me angry
people that don't think the rules apply to them. Like
(08:25):
let's say I'm sitting in traffic and we have the
the commuter lanes here in Atlanta, the carpool lane, and
I'll see people single writers whizzing by me in the
carpool lane, and it just it furies knock them off
the road. Now because I'd have to get in the
carpool lane. Oh and you wouldn't do that, well, no,
because I'd get caught. Plus also, you would have no
right to be angry at somebody else. You know what
(08:47):
that is. That's reason. Uh So basically, when when we
are when our anger is triggered by by whatever it is, UM,
we have two things going on. Two it just in
our brains. Start wrestling in like thirty like Greco Roman wrestling.
Right winner take off pretty much possibly with Shanks. I haven't.
(09:10):
I haven't determined that yet. UM. But the frontal lobe,
which is responsible for reason, starts getting into it with
the amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and all. This
wrestling match usually lasts about two seconds, it is um,
and most of the time the frontal lobe wins. Did
you know that? I didn't, but it kind of I
(09:32):
get that, yeah, because think about it, like we'd all
be walking around like half cock powdered kegs if the
amygdala one. You know, have you ever known anyone that
was like that, that was really angry and would fight
people and just made you nervous being around them. I
wish I I would say his name because I still
did this sixth grade. I still to this day hate
(09:55):
this kid's guts UM, and I would love to say
his name so that it's somebody could hear it and
go punch him in the stomach. Um, but I know
Jerry will bleep it out and beep beep exactly what
is yeah? So um? But yeah, this kid he was.
He was short and he was really mad that he
was short. He bore a striking resemblance to um jever
(10:18):
see uh was that Captain Caveman and Son cartoon. He
bore a resemblance to the Sun really just kind of
very you know, cavemanesque, right. And he was just such
a little manipulative bully he was. He was mockiavellian actually,
and he used to have us get into um fights
and he would turn the whole class against he was.
(10:40):
He was an angry little kid and you know what,
he was all amigdala really apparently. Yeah, I knew a
guy like that when I lived in Arizona. That was
just I was uncomfortable being around him because he would
go to a bar or someplace and just invite trouble.
It was written all over his face. It was his energy,
and he scared me. I didn't like being around the guy.
(11:00):
You want to stay away from people. No, I'm a
pacifist man, I'm a lover. I don't need that. I
know you are Chuck not very angry. Well, I have
some issues here and there with anger, but like Aristotle says,
I want to channel in the right direction, exactly and
at the right times, right right. So there was actually
a guy who is a perfect case study in UM
you know how the brain processes anger. And his name
(11:22):
was Phineas Gage, and he was this affable railroad man.
He was a railroad worker and in forty eight he
took a rod through I think his right eye owl uh,
and it went into his brain and he actually they
I don't know if they ever got it out all
the way, but they managed to um keep him alive
and he survived and continue to live. But he had
(11:45):
frontal lobe damage. The reason part his amigea was perfectly fine.
So we went from this affable, friendly guy to a
jerk for the rest of his life. Ye yeah, Phineas Gauge.
I've got some more gender related anger thing if you
want to talk about that. It's interesting women and women are.
It's amazing we ever get together, how different we are.
(12:06):
I'm often awed at that. Uh. They found when they
studied women in anger UM and men that men scored
higher on physical aggression go figure, passive aggression and experiences
of impulsively dealing with their anger, and men usually had
more or more often had a revenge motive and scored
(12:28):
higher in coercing people. And women they found were found
to be angried, longer, more resentful, and less likely to
express their anger. But they also found interestingly that women
um used indirect aggression. They were more likely to write
someone off that they knew and like, I'm never going
to speak to her again. Women do that, according to
(12:50):
the study, and it kind of makes sense. I've known
some women that have written off people in their life,
but I don't know many men that have ever said,
you know, I'm never going to speak to him again.
I have. I was about to say, I think I'm
very feminine in that way, because it's not the only way, buddy.
That's not well. I guess we should probably get to
the last part of this clunker. What's that you see?
(13:12):
Santa Barber study. Okay, so these two psychiatrists, psychologists shrinks
um put a bunch of college students together in a room,
and I think they gave him They said, you are
to remain neutral and this this other group, or we're
gonna make angry. So they had them Um. They had
(13:32):
them right about I think extensively some past experience they
had that made them angry. Um. And then they took
both groups and had them analyze a series of essays
about whether or not college students are any good at
saving or what you know, we're good with finances? And
some were good essays, some were terrible. Um. And they
(13:57):
basically the distinction was the good essays, the the the
the arguments that had basis were um, they cited old
studies or you know, facts or they they backed up
their argument, whereas the bad studies didn't. Right, but they
were well written. And they found that the kids who
were angry, um were had better analytical skills. They were
(14:19):
they scored consistently higher in picking out the good arguments
from the bad. Right. Was were they shifting through the
muck and focusing on, you know, just the parts that
they needed to? Was that what was going on there?
Just jumped from a to see each other. We'll tell
me about B Well, I was trying to tell you
about the anyway. Yes, that that's exactly right. I think
(14:42):
let's just strangle this horse. It's almost dead. Um. They
found that well, they concluded, uh, it wasn't proven, but
they concluded that when you're angry, um, you're you're very
focused and so you're you're kind of you're you're cutting
away the fat as it were. So and if you're neutral, um,
(15:02):
you're more likely to be taken in by flowery language
or something like that. You're angry, you're focused. The other
theory that they had was when you're angry, you want
to punish somebody, So you're probably going to punish, uh,
somebody who's not doing is good a job, or some
somebody who's not quite up to snuff. And in this case,
it would have been a poorly argued essay. Right, So
(15:24):
there you go. Well, I think the secret is to
channel your anger into positivity. There's nothing wrong with being angry,
but I know that there are studies that that show
that if you suppress anger, you're more likely to die
then if you don't hold onto those feelings. So suppressing
your anger is not a good move. Anyone who's ever
seen the Angry Dead episode of The Simpsons can tell
(15:44):
you it is life threatening, true, but blowing up at
someone and going off on someone and being physically aggressive
is also not good. So it's all about doing it
in the right way. Sure, good advice, Chuck. I hope
it didn't reign on your parade there with no no,
you totally didn't get did great, buddy? Thanks? Yeah, Um,
I would want you to be angry. You wouldn't like
(16:05):
me when I'm angry. You would rain blows upon me
a little bit. Well, let's just get to listener mail time.
But first, I know Chuck wants to tell everybody about
something we like to call our web blog or blog.
We like of people around the world now have a blog.
We have joined the blog sphere and the blog is
(16:27):
through the website now stuff works dot com and you
can find it on via the homepage. It's called stuff
you Should Know and it's my buddy Josh and I
just kind of hang out some interesting topics to talk
about and trying to engage the stuff you Should Know community. Yeah,
and it's updated at least twice a day, Chuck post
ones I post once. So go check it out. And
(16:49):
like Chuck said, you can access that through the homepage
at how stuff works dot com. And Chuck, please is
it time for listener mail you today? John H. I
have just a single listener mail. This is from this
must be significant. Yeah, this is from Adam Asher. And
I don't know where Idam's from, but he says cheers,
So he may be from the UK. He may be
(17:09):
one of those guys that says cheers. He's an anglophile. Yeah, perhaps,
Uh he says this. This is about the c I
a LSD episode quick recap. Uh. Yeah, the CIA used
to um dose heroin addicts um John's and um you
know black inmates at prisons with LSD to find out
if they could use it as a truth serum or
(17:31):
something like that. Perfect And the name of the program
was MK Ultra. Yes it was. That was the Umbrella Project, right,
So I found this very interesting, uh, he says. I
just had a comment on that episode. A few years back,
maybe ten or twelve years ago, there was a video
game made called mk Ultra. Uh. In it, you were
a weird costumed a man with a gun for an arm,
(17:53):
and you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
The world you were in was very interesting, different called ors,
the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
It's your sidekick, and uh he said that when we
talked about the MK Ultra program, he you know, made
him think his video game. The thing is, he can't
remember it and doesn't have any further details. So I'm
(18:15):
really interested to know if there was if that was
the name of the game, and if they were there
was a video game that literally poked fun at the
CIA for doing this kind of thing, or if that
guy was on LSD. So if anyone out there knows
of this game and has any more details, I'd love
to hear about it and uh get a copy of it.
I want to play this game. Yeah, well that's to
thank you, Adam Asher. Sure, if you want to share
(18:37):
any of your acid flashbacks with us or just say hi,
you can shoot us an email. If you can see
the keys and they're not speaking to you at stuff
podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two
(19:01):
thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you
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