What makes us angry
As the wise Yoda once said, anger leads to hate and hate leads to... err I forget. Anyway, a new study has shown which groups of people are more likely to lose their rag.
Making the top of the list are younger people, those with children and the less-educated.
The University of Toronto research also showed that feeling rushed for time was the strongest cause of going postal, while being strapped for cash didn't do anything for your mood either.
Professor Scott Schieman claims to have found some basic social patterns for rage, such as:
Younger people experience more frequent anger than older adults. This is mainly due to the fact they are more likely to feel time pressures, economic hardship, and interpersonal conflict in the workplace;
Feeling rushed for time is the strongest predictor of anger, especially the "low-grade" forms like feeling annoyed;
Having children in the household is associated with angry feelings and behaviour (i.e., yelling) and these patterns are stronger among women compared to men;
Compared to people with fewer years of education, the well-educated are less likely to experience anger, and when they do, they are more likely to act proactively (e.g., trying to change the situation or talking it over);
Individuals who experience more financial strain tend to report higher levels of anger. This relationship is much stronger among women and younger adults.
Weird Science Factoid: The average office worker spends 50 minutes a day looking for lost files or other items. Only 50 mins?!
Join the Weird Science Facebook group here, or follow us on Twitter here or by searching for weirdsciblog.
Want to be sent the 'best' of the Weird Sci Blog every month? Then sign up for Weird News - a newsletter containing more info about the subjects we cover, plus some extra stuff that didn't make the blog. Interested? Subscribe by e-mailing wscience@me.com with the title 'count me in' and we'll do the rest.
Older/Newer
2 Comments
Authors
Daniel Smith - a long time ago, in a galaxy far away just north of Watford, Daniel fancied himself as a scientist but turned out to be the worst scientist since that bloke who mapped out all those canals on Mars that turned out to be scratches on his telescope's lens. Luckily, he is now not working on the Large Hadron Collider inadvertently creating a black hole that would swallow the world but is safely behind a desk writing this blog, bringing you the fantastical underbelly of nature... weird science.
that was absolutely correct experiment made by you.......but that was all about young people......what about students
Thanks for this interesting update on anger. Although this isn't mentioned in the article, I would imagine that the reason younger people are more likely to get angry is also due to people maturing and learning how to manage their anger as they gain the wisdom of experience over the years.