"The Rationality of Rage"

            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