Does aggression help soothe anger? My personal experience.
In Grade Ten, I signed up for my high school boy's football team. I had always been quite aggressive. The previous year, I got suspended after getting in a rowdy schoolyard fight with a boy in my class. My friends and family thought that football would be the perfect way to "get out" my ferociousness and energy.
At first, this made sense. I could quickly dispel the build-up of anger or tension in my body once I was at the daily two-hour-long practice that I attended after school every day. I was able to tackle, wrestle, push, and shove, all while being rewarded for it.
My coaches, teammates and I all viewed football as a source of catharsis. A ferocious tackle or a forceful shove could expel all the stress, tension, or frustration built up over the day. After practice, I was always relaxed, in a state of peace.
However, every day, I would wake up and still feel that tidal wave of anger; knowing that I would have to wait to take it out on somebody later that day only made me more frustrated. This feeling would build up throughout the day until I was aching to get back onto the field and shove someone to the ground. Slowly, I realized that this idea that "getting out your anger" through aggression is not adequate - in fact, this "catharsis" method only made me angrier.
I never understood exactly why this method of releasing energy didn't work until I read about catharsis, and its setbacks, in my Social Psychology class. Several experiments have proven that physical activity and venting do nothing to dissipate one's anger. In fact, many experiments have shown the opposite—the more someone behaves aggressively to reduce their anger, the angrier they stay and the more subsequently aggressive they become!
In addition, similar experiments have shown that people who believe in catharsis are more likely to use physical aggression to improve their mood—all in vain, of course.
One of the reasons this may be is through the mechanism of testosterone, a hormone that is related to physical aggression. Both sexes have this hormone, although men have higher amounts of it. Experiments prove that although testosterone can often lead to more aggressive behaviour, aggressive behaviour can also increase the release of testosterone. This mechanism explains why "catharsis" is not an effective way of dispelling aggression and typically only increases violent behaviour in individuals.
How do you typically react to your anger? Do use methods of catharsis? If so, are they helping you?
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