The Upside of Anger | Psychology Today

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Pride and Prejudice

by Simon M. Laham, Ph.D.

The Upside of Anger

Anger opens the mind. Really.

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Published on June 12, 2012 by Simon M. Laham, Ph.D. in The Science of Sin

One might not be tempted to call anger the most open-minded of the deadly sins; it strikes one more as
the most pig-headed and self-righteous of the seven. However, recent work by Maia Young of UCLA
and her colleagues, casts anger in a much more flattering light.

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Simon M. Laham, Ph.D., is lecturer

in Psychological Sciences at the
University of Melbourne and author
of The Science of Sin.
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In one study, Young explored what psychologists call the confirmation bias the pervasive tendency
we all have to search for information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. Much research shows that
when given a choice between reading arguments that firm-up their most cherished beliefs versus those
that undermine them, people often opt for the former; this is why Democrats watch The Daily Show and
Republicans watch Fox News.

Young was interested in what anger would do to the confirmation bias. Intuition might lead you to
speculate that anger would amplify the confirmation bias guiding the self-righteous, anger-fuelled
individual to selectively process belief-consistent information. Young thought that anger might actually
have the opposite effect opening rather than closing the mind.
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To test this hypothesis, Young first had participants recall an event that
had made them angry; then she had them make a choice between beliefconfirming and belief-undermining information. What she found was that
anger reversed the conformation bias, making people more likely to seek
out disconfirming information. Whats more, she found that angry people
were consequently more open-minded being subsequently more likely to
be change their beliefs than controls.

This reversal is likely a product of the confrontational mindset so central to

the anger experience. When in the throes of this emotion, one is in an
antagonistic, nit-picking frame of mind. Its this penchant for challenging
others that may lead the angry to seek out their opponents arguments.
And although such an information seeking strategy may be motivated by a
taste for confrontation, it may also have the happy side effect of making
one more open to persuasion, and, as a result, moderation.

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