Anger in different cultures
“Many of us in western societies naively believe that anger is something bad and very harmful to our health, and these beliefs seem to be scientifically based on facts and statistics” – says the psychologist< /strong> Shinobu Katayama of the University of Michigan.
“But our research shows that the anger largely comes from the fact that most people are angry about the fact that their pay is low, they don’t have what they want, they don’t live the life they want and etc.”
“These findings show how socio-cultural factors get under our skin to affect our vital biological processes,” adds Katayama.
In other words, these circumstances are caused by anger directed at our surroundings, not directed at ourselves.
Self-hatred and purposeful self-denial leads to a person building up anger against themselves, and yes, that is not healthy.
In their previous work, Katayama and his colleagues found that anger works in another way, too.
Studies involving only Asians show that higher amounts of accumulated anger can also be a good social indicator.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that anger in some Asians may also function as a signal of high status and some kind of established privilege.
In other individuals, however, the study showed a result that angrier individuals can also boast of better health.
Katayama tells about a very interesting case from the recent past that happened with Korean airlines.
The owner of the airline company happened to be on board a flight organized personally by his company.
And when he saw the stewardess who served the dishes extremely incorrectly, was inexperienced and unqualified for this job, he became furious.
He introduced himself and immediately ordered the pilot to return the plane back to the runway so he could fire the flight attendant and kick her off the board at the second.
In his case, it is anger born of high social position.
And although, it seems like a disproportionately high amount of anger for such a small act, the very fact that the owner of the company got angry based on his high social and professional position, it can be associated with good, not bad health condition.
To investigate what the connection was, the researchers who conducted the first experiment did the same experiment, only with American participants instead of Asians.
For the study, the researchers looked at various biological markers to determine cardiovascular function and inflammation that may occur in the participants’ bodies.
The combination of these two markers serves to represent the complete picture of human health.
The researchers also looked at how people reacted after getting angry. Some have slammed doors, others have used obscene words, etc.
And the overall result is simply shocking. It turns out that in Americans, accumulated anger is detrimental to health.
And the same cannot be said for Asians. Same groups, same age, same mannerisms, similar lifestyles, but it turns out that for Asians it’s better for health to get angry every now and then, and for Americans it’s harmful.
After all, it turns out that accumulated anger in American citizens can express the degree to which they experience negative emotions.
While among Asians, especially Japanese (the first study was entirely conducted on Japanese citizens) it turns out that with accumulated anger, it can be determined what their social position is, whether they have power, strength or are simply angry because of the increase in the prices.
