The Myth of Catharsis: Why Ranting and Venting are Terrible Ways to Handle Anger

The belief that “venting” anger has a beneficial cathartic effect has become widely accepted in the modern world. Belief in the value of venting has manifested in the online world in the form of “rant” sites (e.g. Rant Rampage) where people not only get to freely express their vitriol, they can also read and comment on rants left by other venters. However, decades of research have shown that venting, far from releasing anger, actually makes it worse. Not surprisingly, a recent study has shown that online ranting seems to increase anger and is associated with anger-related problems. Ranting may be problematic because it strengthens the belief that anger needs to be expressed aggressively. On the other hand, expressing anger in a constructive and non-aggressive way can actually be beneficial.

Image credit: "Rage" by pypher courtesy of DeviantArt

Who uses rant sites and how they handle anger

A recent paper (Martin, Coyier, VanSistine, & Schroeder, 2013) sheds some light on the people who use rant sites and the effects of ranting and writing rants. A survey of users of a number of popular rant sites found that users scored unusually high on trait anger (how anger-prone one is in general) and experienced many negative consequences related to anger, such as verbal and physical fights, damaged relationships, property damage, and dangerous driving. Nearly half reported that someone had told them they had an anger problem, and over a third admitted that this was true.

It may well be that people who are predisposed to be very angry are attracted to these kinds of sites. Martin et al. performed an experiment to test the emotional impact of using rant sites. They found that reading another person’s rants online for five minutes had a negative effect on mood. Additionally, they asked participants to spend five minutes writing a rant of their own. As expected, after ranting, participants felt decreased happiness and increased anger.

People who like to rant get into more fights than most people. Image credit: SEMC courtesy of DeviantArt

The ineffectiveness of catharsis

These findings about ranting accord with previous research showing that supposedly “venting” anger through such actions as hitting pillows or whatever actually increase anger levels, and, more troubling, increase subsequent aggressive behavior as well (Bushman, 2002). For example, one study (Bushman, 2002) found that doing nothing at all for two minutes was actually effective in reducing anger, whereas punching a sand bag for as long as one wanted while thinking of an offending person increased anger towards that person. Furthermore, when given an opportunity to punish another person in a game by blasting them with noise[1], people who had previously “vented” their fury on a punching bag were more aggressive (gave louder and longer blasts) than those who had done nothing to vent their anger. (A more detailed description of this study can be found here.) What this shows is that venting is actually a terrible anger management strategy.

In spite of the fact that venting is likely to backfire in the long run, belief in its value is widespread and even encouraged. Popular self-help books promote venting, and there was even once a billboard in Missouri that said: “Hit a Pillow, Hit a Wall, But Don’t Hit Your Kids!” Hitting a pillow is obviously preferable to hitting one’s kids, but ironically such advice may actually increase the likelihood of real violence rather than preventing it.

So why do people believe in it and why does it not work? Venting reflects a “pressure cooker” model of anger. That is, people think of anger as something that builds up in side of one until one is ready to explode. Venting is supposed to be like blowing off steam to reduce the pressure inside until it is more manageable. This metaphor seems intuitively appealing to many people and even was endorsed by Sigmund Freud who promoted the idea that cathartic expressions of emotion were beneficial to mental health because they released pent up “psychic energy” that if not discharged would manifest in neurotic symptoms.

However, the fact that venting actually increases rather than reduces anger indicates that Freud’s cathartic model is misguided. A more modern theory of anger, the cognitive neoassociation model, proposes that people associate violent, aggressive actions with angry thoughts (Bushman, 2002). Thus, aggressively styled behaviour, such as hitting things, or ranting (basically saying nasty things about someone and wishing them ill) maintain a person’s attention on angry thoughts, rather than dissipating the anger. Venting and ranting effectively keep angry feelings in memory and increase rumination about the offending event. 

Badly managed anger can have dark consequences indeed. Image credit: DominiqueWesson courtesy of DeviantArt

Anger need not be destructive

Venting may increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behaviour perhaps because the idea of venting is based on the idea that anger is essentially destructive. That is, people link anger with wanting to hurt others, and therefore think that these hurtful impulses can best be dissipated through symbolic acts of aggression. Venting and ranting may therefore strengthen the association between anger and aggression. However, although it is true that when people are angry they may want to hurt others, anger does not have to be expressed through aggression. (Indeed, aggression can occur in the absence of any anger.) Many people learn how to express their anger in constructive ways. Doing so can sometimes help resolve the problem that provoked the anger in the first place (which is unlikely to occur through venting). Additionally, expressing anger constructively has been found to have a number of benefits for mental and physical health, such as reduced blood pressure (Graham, Lobel, Glass, & Lokshina, 2008). 

Beneficial effects of expressive writing about anger

A constructive alternative to ranting may be focused expressive writing, which involves exploring one’s deepest thoughts and feelings about an issue in writing (Graham, et al., 2008). Superficially, writing a rant might seem similar to expressive writing but there are subtle and important differences. Ranting seems to mainly involve describing all the things you don’t like about someone, e.g. how they are a worthless, good-for-nothing who has done you wrong, and generally trying to compress as much malevolence as possible into one’s words. Ranting as such seems like an unreflective process without a clear goal. Expressive writing tasks on the other hand, encourage a person to try to understand the causes of their feelings and thereby gain some insight that may lead to a resolution of the problem.

One study found that expressing anger constructively through writing had a beneficial effect on mental health (Graham, et al., 2008). Participants in this study all suffered from chronic pain and were asked to write a letter on two occasions expressing their anger about their situation.[2] To ensure that participants did not simply write pointless rants, they were given clear instructions that directed them to describe their anger feelings clearly, specifying what they were angry about; explain their angry reaction instead of just venting; and to state what they wished to be done to help them feel less angry. These instructions were intended to help the writers get a clearer understanding of their feelings about their situation and what they wanted to do about it. Examination of the contents of the letters showed that most participants were able to express their anger without nastiness or bitterness. Compared to a control group, participants who had written these letters reported less depression and greater feelings of control over their pain at subsequent follow up assessments (four weeks and then nine weeks after writing).

What this study suggests to me is that expressing anger in a thoughtful constructive way without aggressive intentions can be helpful in creating a sense of greater control over one’s emotional life. I suspect that ranting on the other hand creates a sense of permission for one to lose control of one’s emotions that may leak over into other aspects of one’s life potentially causing all sorts of problems. That is, ranting may be an indulgence that weakens one’s ability to cope effectively with one’s emotions. In summary, doing nothing at all is a more effective way of dealing with anger, rather than hitting a pillow, or posting rants on the internet. Perhaps better yet though would be to learn to use one’s anger constructively rather than mindlessly trying to blow it off as if one was a human pressure cooker.

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Notes

[1] Participants in this study were actually playing against a computer, so their blasts were not heard by a real person, but they did not know this at the time.

[2] They were not expected to actually post these letters to anyone. 

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Another blog post about anger and how NOT to deal with it

Is Insulting Religion extremism?

References

Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724-731. doi: 10.1177/0146167202289002

Graham, J., Lobel, M., Glass, P., & Lokshina, I. (2008). Effects of written anger expression in chronic pain patients: making meaning from pain. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 31(3), 201-212. doi: 10.1007/s10865-008-9149-4

Martin, R. C., Coyier, K. R., VanSistine, L. M., & Schroeder, K. L. (2013). Anger on the Internet: The Perceived Value of Rant-Sites Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16 (2) DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2012.0130

The effectiveness of placebo treatment for pain is related to personality traits

Medical researchers have long known that placebo treatments can produce real effects, such as pain relief. Personality traits are also known to influence a person’s response to treatments for certain conditions. A recent study has found that personality traits appear to influence how strongly a person responds to a placebo treatment for pain. Personality traits associated with self-control and the regulation of anger in particular were associated with greater pain relief. This raises the possibility that improving a person’s self-control and ability to manage anger could also improve their ability to control pain.

Image courtesy of Michal Marcol at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In this study, volunteers received a series of four injections while receiving PET scans to monitor brain activity (Peciña et al., 2012). Two of the injections were designed to be painless and the other two were intended to be quite painful. Participants were not told in advance which injection they would receive so as not to bias their expectations. After receiving one of the painful injections they were administered a substance that they were told would relieve the pain but which was actually an inert saline solution with no analgesic properties. This placebo treatment produced a significant reduction in pain. Pain was rated both subjectively (by self-ratings of pain intensity) and objectively (changes in opioid receptor function observed through PET scans). Pain relief tended to be stronger in participants who rated themselves higher in the personality traits of ego resiliency and agreeableness and lower in neuroticism. Agreeableness and neuroticism each consist of a number of narrower facets that were also examined. The facets that predicted placebo response most strongly were high altruism and straightforwardness (facets of agreeableness) and low angry hostility (a neuroticism facet that is also related to low agreeableness).

Neuroticism is a trait associated with negative emotionality People high in neuroticism tend to report more physical symptoms and complaints, such as headaches and muscle tension and so on, than less neurotic individuals (Ode & Robinson, 2007). People high in neuroticism cope with pain more poorly than other people probably because they tend to over-react emotionally. There is evidence linking physical pain and negative emotions as neuroimaging studies have found that endogenous opioid activity in a number of brain regions modulate both the experience of physical pain and of negative emotions. Angry hostility was the neuroticism facet that most strongly predicted (poor) placebo response in this study. The authors stated that there is research evidence linking anger to lower opioid receptor system functioning so this result was not surprising (Peciña, et al., 2012).

Agreeableness is an interpersonal trait associated with cooperativeness and concern for others. The authors of the study noted that patients who are highly agreeable tend to have a better relationship with their doctors as they take a frank and collaborative approach. Agreeable patients may therefore respond more readily to treatment, even if the treatment is a placebo. Additionally, agreeableness has been linked to placebo responses to acupuncture. They also noted that PET scans showed that the placebo response (that is, opioid receptor function) occurred in brain regions that respond to observing pain in others, and therefore play a role in empathy. Agreeable people tend to be empathetic to the suffering of others, so this overlap between the brain regions associated with the placebo response and with empathy might help explain the connection with agreeableness, particularly the altruism facet.

Altruism is associated with selflessness and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Perhaps people who are self-sacrificing are better able to control pain? Perhaps, being able to suppress pain when needed facilitates self-sacrifice because the pain and inconvenience of foregoing one’s own interests for the benefit of another person becomes easier to bear. Straightforwardness, the other agreeableness facet that predicted the placebo response, is associated with honesty and openness in one’s communication with others. One possible explanation for its connection with the placebo effect is that people who are naturally honest may have been more likely to believe the researcher when they were told they were being given a treatment that would provide pain relief.

Agreeableness is also related to effortful self-control, in particular the ability to control the expression of anger (Ode & Robinson, 2007). As noted previously, anger has been linked to the opioid system, so this may another reason that agreeableness is linked to the placebo effect. Another personality trait linked to both self-control and the placebo effect is ego-resiliency.

Ego-resiliency might be described as flexibility in self-control. That is, a person can inhibit their impulses when required by the situation, and yet also allow him or herself to be spontaneous and uninhibited when this is permitted. That is, the person can adapt their level of self-expression to the demands of the situation. This in contrast to people who are either chronically over-controlled – that is, unable to loosen up when they need to – or under-controlled, unable to restrain their impulses when expected to do so. Ego-resiliency assists a person in adapting to stress and adversity as over-controlled individuals tend to respond in a stiff, repetitive manner, whereas under-controlled people respond in a chaotic and unfocused manner (Letzring, Block, & Funder, 2005). The researchers argue that ego-resiliency is associated with positive emotions and adaptive changes in areas of the brain related to reward and emotional processing. Specifically, there is evidence that this trait may be associated with lower levels of activation of the dopamine system during expectation of reward, and lower levels of dopamine in turn has been associated with greater activation of endogenous opioid receptors during a painful stressor (Peciña, et al., 2012). 

The findings that the placebo effect is linked to personality traits associated with self-control, i.e. agreeableness and ego-resiliency, suggests that the placebo effect is influenced by a person’s capacity to regulate how they respond to adverse experiences. Even though the placebo effect would seem to be outside of conscious awareness, it appears that people who have developed the ability to regulate their emotions may also have a greater ability to regulate pain. This might be because the brain regions that modulate responses to pain (the opioid receptor systems) also are involved in regulating negative emotions. Additionally, it could be the case that people with greater self-control may take an attitude of active engagement to treatment, even placebo treatment, as opposed to passively waiting to see what happens. As a consequence they might respond more effectively. Emotional regulation is a trainable skill. That is, psychologists can teach people strategies to regulate how they experience and express their emotions to cope more effectively with stress. Psychologists already teach anxiety management strategies to people with chronic pain. It seems possible that training in emotional regulation, such as anger management, could actually effect changes in the opioid receptor system, resulting in a stronger placebo effect. This might have implications for how people manage pain. Future research, such as PET studies could determine whether training could have such an effect on the brain and whether this assists in coping with pain.

 Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

   

References

Letzring, T. D., Block, J., & Funder, D. C. (2005). Ego-control and ego-resiliency: Generalization of self-report scales based on personality descriptions from acquaintances, clinicians, and the self. Journal of Research in Personality, 39(4), 395-422. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.06.003

Ode, S., & Robinson, M. D. (2007). Agreeableness and the self-regulation of negative affect: Findings involving the neuroticism/somatic distress relationship. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(8), 2137-2148. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.06.035

Peciña M, Azhar H, Love TM, Lu T, Fredrickson BL, Stohler CS, & Zubieta JK (2013). Personality trait predictors of placebo analgesia and neurobiological correlates. Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 38 (4), 639-46 PMID: 23187726