Why is anger such a seductive emotion? We are in love with anger. Watch almost any of our movies, read a novel, hell - watch the news any night, and at some point you will encounter information intended to make you good and angry. We even have a whole entertainment genre dedicated to the airing of unpleasant emotions like anger and sadness - it's called "drama."
When you look at how anger actually affects the social fabric among people, you wonder why we put up with it being so prevalent. Anger shuts down communication, and it is designed to force an outcome, when working cooperatively to let one evolve often results in a solution that is both more appropriate and more robust. Still, getting your anger on just feels good. Giving in to our emotions and our impulses feels good. For that matter, eating a Twinkie feels good.
And yet, we exercise self-control in the face of that tempting Twinkie, in order that we have a healthier body. But does that self-denial come at a price? Studies have shown that people who exercise restraint in the face of one temptation are measurably more quick to anger right afterward. They call this effect "ego depletion." Psychologists David Gal and Wendy Liu, however, have been studying self-control and anger, and they have found evidence that not only does exercising self-control tend to make it harder for us to contain our anger later on, but that self-control may in fact be inherently aggravating.
Maybe this is why we love fictional drama and angry news so much - it gives us an outlet for all of that aggro ego.
Read more here: Where Do Bad Moods Come From? via Wired.com
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