Why do people become angry, what triggers anger?

From a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) perspective we become angry, first and foremost, because of broken rules. Our own personal rules (that we’re sometimes not even aware of).

We all have our rules and want the world to abide by them.

A few simple examples might be:

• Public transport must run on time when I’m running late and have an appointment to get to.
• If I stop to let a car pass, the driver must say thank you.
• My computer and electrical appliances must never break down.

If and when these rules are inevitably broken, we become angry.

So, looking at this problem rationally… Is it really reasonable to expect the world to run according to our own rules (and not other people’s) – simply because that’s the way we’d like it to be?

Picture the scene… A room full of people attending a company meeting. Naturally, everyone in the room wants things to go according to their own set of rules (in the belief that theirs is obviously the best way). But if their rules contradict each other’s, they cannot all have their own way. For as long as these people feel angry when others don’t abide by their rules, they will be unable to find a way to solve problems or move forward.

And, of course, this also applies to personal relationships. Two people, who both want things to go their own way, will repeatedly clash until they find a compromise or part company.

As individuals, we all have different reasons for becoming angry, and factors such as tiredness or illness are likely to make us more irritable, but in my work with anger management, certain themes seem to come up over and over again. Namely:

Hurt when we feel that someone doesn’t care about or respect us.
Often we feel so angry, that we don’t even notice that our anger has actually resulted from feeling hurt (or sometimes we don’t want to admit to feeling hurt so as not to feel vulnerable).

Unfairness
Most of us react very strongly when we feel that we have been treated unfairly. This feeling appears to be universal, and even shared by animals. This clip shows an experiment showing how capuchin monkeys respond angrily to unfairness.

Morality
Our cultural and/or religious rules determine right from wrong, and we often feel angry with others or ourselves for breaking them.

Here are a few more examples of rules that, when broken, may trigger feelings of hurt, and anger towards other people:

• People must treat me as an equal.
• People must remember my birthday.
• People must queue fairly.
• If I’m nice to other people, they must be nice to me.
• People mustn’t judge me.

The important thing to understand is that those statements may all feel true, but just because we want people to be this way, doesn’t mean that they will be, and the more rigid we are about these demands, the more upset and angry we will feel when they are not met.

Sometimes we also feel angry with ourselves, for breaking our own (or other people’s) rules, for example:

• I mustn’t be late.
• I mustn’t make mistakes.
• I mustn’t say or do anything that makes me look foolish.
• I mustn’t put on weight.
• I mustn’t lose control when I feel angry.

And for as long as we hold on to these rigid rules, we continue to feel angry when we break them.

So, one of the keys to gaining control of (at least some of) your anger is to

START TO PAY ATTENTION AND NOTICE YOUR RULES.

Next time you feel angry notice:

• What are you demanding from yourself or other people?
• Is it rational and logical for you to demand this, simply because it’s what you want?
• How does it help you to rigidly keep making this demand? (Has it worked for you in the past?)
• Is there a way in which you could be more flexible about what you want?

On this last point, a few suggestions for alternative beliefs could be:

• Recognising that you would prefer to get what you want, but if you don’t, it won’t be the end of the world.
• Accepting that other people want things to go their way as much as you want things to go yours.

With professional help you can learn to understand more about your own patterns and learn to change them and gain control of your anger.