A New York Times article published
last September, entitled The Rationality
of Rage, discusses the ways in which anger can prove useful and harmful in
negotiation situations. The article
details several studies, one of which demonstrated that in negotiation
experiments, negotiators conceded more to those who expressed anger. They did not concede, however, in cooperative
or competing circumstances, only in situations balanced in between these two. Another study found that people induced anger
when they were about to enter a confrontational negotiation, although they only
did this if there was something to gain from the negotiation. This revealed that anger was purposefully
induced with the perceived benefit in mind, and that anger was not just an
uncontrollable reflex. An additional
experiment found that anger only worked as a strategy when it was perceived as
genuine. In one study, when negotiators
sensed that the anger was fake, they did not concede but rather they increased
their demands. Further experiments concluded that anger was not effective when
utilized by someone who was in a lower power position than that of the person
with whom they were negotiating. The
article then noted a paper in which the authors found that anger was more
likely to lead to a positive outcome when it was not high in intensity. The last discovery the article cited was that
anger can be the motivation for substantial political movements, as long as
there was no perceived hatred or animosity between the parties.
In
many cases, emotions are seen as irrational and should not be the basis of any
major decision-making. When one tries to
be rational, they often cast their emotions aside and attempt to think
logically. Stifling one’s emotions uses
up a great deal of directed attention, thus one can only do so for so long
until directed attention must be restored.
According to this article, emotion, particularly anger, can prove rather
beneficial in certain situations. There
are, however, numerous caveats that one has to keep in mind before utilizing this
tool. Just letting one’s emotions run
wild and acting solely based on feelings would likely not use much directed
attention, however that is not the case here.
On the contrary, considering all the scenarios in which anger is and is
not appropriate and carrying out the correct kind of anger (genuine, not too
aggressive, low intensity) would take up a great deal of directed attention. One must think rationally about how to tune
into and exercise a potentially irrational emotion. Anger can sometimes be seen as just that,
irrational, but when utilized rationally it can actually be quite effective.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/the-rationality-of-rage.html?_r=0
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