Go ahead, said the encounter group facilitator, hit each other! Let it out! Let the other know how angry you are and stop holding it in! Think about your anger and let it out now!
It looked to my seven-year-old eyes like a pillow fight gone very wrong. It was the first time I recall encountering the idea that venting anger is a good thing and I’ve heard it countless times since. Few workshops and courses go by that someone doesn’t mention the value of venting.
I’ve also had experienced mediators and conflict coaches in my advanced trainings and courses tell me they invite or teach their clients to “blow off steam” so they can calm down and do better work.
There’s a problem with this thinking: The value of venting is a myth. The theory on which the idea of venting anger is based has been repeatedly disproven since the 1950s.
While it may feel cathartic, venting anger doesn’t purge aggression from your system or improve psychological state. In fact, it’s more likely to increase anger and aggressiveness. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Why venting anger is a bad idea
I tell my clients and grad students these top reasons to break the venting habit:
- A 2001 study by University of Michigan psychology professor and aggression researcher Dr. Brad Bushman concluded that “venting to reduce anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire—it only feeds the flame. By fueling aggressive thoughts and feelings, venting also increases aggressive responding. Venting did not lead to a more positive mood either.”
- Outbursts of rage pump up the brain’s state of arousal, increasing what Goleman calls emotional flooding.
- Rumination, the act of focusing on your angry feelings, has been shown to increase angry feelings and increase displaced aggression (lashing out at someone unrelated to the event that provoked the anger).
- Activities such as punching a pillow or pounding nails – essentially serving as substitute targets – don’t reduce arousal and have been shown to increase hostility. Bushman calls this type of venting the “worst possible advice to give people.”
- Intense physical activity after provocation is more likely increase anger than reduce it.
- If the act of venting becomes repeated, it risks becoming a habit – a bad habit. It is, after all, “practicing how to behave aggressively,” says Bushman.
What to do instead of venting anger
There are three excellent alternatives to the venting habit. I recommend you practice the first two in low-stakes situations to build your “muscle memory” (capacity) to pull them off in the higher stakes moments.
If you’re a mediator looking for tips to help your clients in escalated situations, you’ll probably find the second and third approaches most useful. You can help with the distraction.
- Do nothing. Yes, you read that right. Nothing. Bushman’s research has found that people who sat quietly for two minutes after the angering event, without being given any particular thing to think about, had the lowest anger and aggression levels.
- Distract yourself. I’ve been recommending this approach for years. Pull your mind away from dwelling on the angering event by forcing it to do something else entirely, ideally something that you have to focus on – the crossword puzzle in today’s paper, helping your teenager study for a Spanish exam, singing along to your favorite upbeat tunes. Research also supports this approach.
- When able, look beneath the anger. Psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter describes anger “as much a symptom as it is an emotion.” What’s going on for you? What does the anger help you discover about yourself? What can you do to negotiate a resolution to the problem that precipitated the anger?
About the author
Making mediation your day job: The manual 
Calm down: How to de-escalate emotionally charged conflict 
Keeping your cool in conflict
Hi Tammy
Wise words and interesting advice. In my UK training, which took a psychotherapeutic approach, venting was suggested as being worthwhile. I never agreed, but didn't have the benefit of your wisdom to support my position.
In my opinion, venting rarely let's people "move on", but rather creates more anger, entrenched positions etc. The role of the mediator is to expose those inner emotions and convert them to create a positive way out.
I"ve added your blog to my blogroll on my site smather.com – always good to learn from the best!!
Thanks
Steven
Steven, it sounds like you had good instinct about venting all along! Thanks for taking the time to comment. It's good to meet you and I enjoyed reading through your lovely site.
I wonder if the myth of venting being positive has been perpetuated because most of us feel guilty and mumble an apology afterwards. Then, it looks like the "positive outcome" of apology came from the negative cause.
Emily, as I understand it, venting originally gained traction as a direct result of Freud's hydraulic model of anger. He believed that, much like hydraulic pressure building up in a closed environment, anger builds up inside people. Unless released via some kind of emotional catharsis, explosion would be the ultimate outcome. Turns out he wasn't quite right on this one!
Tammy, there's a fourth approach. Works for fear and sadness, too.
1. Feel where the emotion is in your body and notice what it's doing there – whether it's hot, cold, constant, pulsing etc. Allow this feeling to be there without trying to change it.
2. Name the feeling. This creates a mental circuit between the amygdala (where the powerful emotions are processed) and the more rational, verbal part of the brain and starts to bleed off the arousal.
3. As it starts to diminish, let the feeling go.
I've used this approach many times and it works quickly and effectively. It's based on Mary Mrozowsky's Welcoming Practice.
Thanks for the additional approach, Mike. I teach something similar in my workshops but haven't heard for Mrozowsky…I'll have to look her up!
Very interesting to hear about some research about this topic. In Sweden, where I work, suppressed anger is a large problem. My approach as a conflict coach and mediator is usually to help the client figure out ways to communicate his or her frustration before it escalates to other emotions that are harder to deal with.
Still, anger builds up a lot of energy in the body that can cause tense muscles, headaches and whatnot. I think physical exercise can be used as a way of releasing some of that energy. It would then be important to first resolve the initial provocation, to avoid being angry while exercising, as that obviously would increase the level of anger as the same time as the energy level.
Any thoughts on that?
Henrik, in his 2001 study, Bushman concluded, "Although it might be good for your heart, intense physical activity is
probably not an effective technique for reducing anger and aggression." He believes that when used as a form of distraction, intense physical activity does not necessarily increase anger, but that it can increase anger if the person is provoked again after the physical activity due to misattribution. So, it seems to me that physical exercise can be helpful only if the person is rigorous about distracting themselves from the thing that provoked them and being careful to avoid that provoking person or situation again until well after the physical activity is over. That's certainly what I tell my clients.
I'll admit that I'm a bit of a Mr. Spock. For me, once I understand
something, it is almost impossible to partake in behavior that is not
logically justifiable. I now understand anger in a way I never did
before. Anger is a reaction. Anger is secondary. Anger is a signal that
some underlying thought has been triggered. Anger is the red flag. It
makes no sense to attack the flag. Instead, figure out what its message
is and deal with that.
Anger is the medium, not the message. Once one understands that, venting
it and giving it any substance is nonsensical.
Hi, Keith (or shall I say Mr. Spock
?) –
Nicely said – anger is the red flag that there's something underlying that's the important thing to attend to. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment!
My favorite new acronym is WAIT (from The Empathy Factor by Marie Miyashiro). Why Am I Talking? What Am I Telling myself? What Am I Thinking? And when I have given myself enough self-empathy, What is Alive In Them?