Counting the Cost of Anger

A detailed list of questions for cost-benefit analysis

When people successfully overcome their own anger, even if in some cases it seems to be the result of a lengthy or complex process, they often sum up the change they’ve experienced by saying things like: “I just realized that it wasn’t worth getting angry anymore.” Anger begins to feel pointless and unnecessary to them.

Consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and frustration caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and frustrated. — Marcus Aurelius

There are behavioural techniques, which can help people to notice when they’re becoming angry and interrupt the emotion. In my experience, though, these often work best when the individual has taken the time to critically evaluate their anger, by questioning their assumptions about how helpful it is. Sometimes it’s necessary to repeat this exercise, e.g., by asking yourself these questions each week, or even every day, until you feel that you’re crystal clear about what you gain or lose by getting angry.

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider on Unsplash

Most people assume that they already know what the disadvantages are of getting angry. However, when they’re questioned in detail, they usually realize that they’ve been overlooking or minimizing certain aspects of the problem, and change their appraisal of their anger as a result. I have found that by questioning the value of your anger in this way, when you’re not feeling angry, you can just ask yourself, whenever it is next triggered, to rate how helpful it is likely to be (0-100%) in order to “snap out of the trance” and interrupt the escalation of your feelings.

Alternatively, after working through the cost-benefit analysis exercise, when you next begin to get angry, try asking yourself the following question: What does me more harm, my anger or the thing about which I’m angry? That technique is derived from Stoicism. I’ve tested it with over a hundred individuals, most of whom reported an immediate reduction in the intensity of their anger as a result.

Cost-Benefit Analysis Exercise

Preliminary Questions

How helpful did your anger feel to you, in the heat of the moment, the last time you experienced it (0-100%)?

Looking back on that situation, how helpful do you believe your anger actually was in reality (0-100%)?

Why didn’t you rate both answers the same? (If you didn’t.)

Why didn’t you rate both answers 100%? (If you didn’t.)

How’s your anger been working out for you so far?

How’s it likely to work out for you in the long-run?

Cost-Benefit Questions

What are the benefits of your anger?

What do you gain? What pros are there?

Re-evaluate

Are those benefits real or illusory?

Could you be exaggerating the value of any of those benefits?

Do those benefits always result from your anger or only sometimes?

How long do those benefits last?

Do other people see those as benefits or as costs?

Could you obtain similar benefits in other ways?

What are the costs of your anger?

What do you lose by getting angry? What cons are there?

Re-evaluate

Might you be underestimating the seriousness of any of these costs?

What is the wider impact of your anger?

• How might it affect your friends and family?

• How might it affect people with whom you work or have to interact?

• How might it affect your performance at work or your studies?

• How might it affect your mental health?

• How might it affect your physical health?

• How might it affect your overall quality of life?

How might the costs of your anger increase if it continues for years or even decades?

Are you potentially overlooking any other disadvantages of anger?

Diagram conceptualizing the vicious cycle of anger in cognitive-behavioural terms

Additional Questions

Carefully distinguish between anger (the emotion) and aggression (the behaviour).

• Questions about coping

  • Does anger sometimes cause you to speak or act aggressively when it's not appropriate or helpful?

  • Does anger sometimes make you feel that speaking or acting aggressively is the only way you can get what you want?

  • Could you potentially gain some of the perceived benefits of aggression without feeling anger?

  • Does anger cause you to overlook other potential ways of coping with problems?

  • Does anger cause you to do certain things excessively or too forcefully?

  • Does anger cause you to engage in revenge fantasies or picture yourself speaking or acting aggressively?

  • Are you getting angry in order to divert your attention from other painful emotions such as hurt, fear, or sadness?

  • Does anger prevent you from exercising patience or moderation in situations where it might have been helpful to do so?

• Questions about reasoning

  • Does anger cause you to make any mistakes in your reasoning about events?

  • Does anger interfere with your ability to solve problems?

  • Does anger cause you to impose unrealistic or overly-rigid demands on yourself, situations, or other people?

  • Does anger cause you to apply crude solutions to complex problems such as social or interpersonal ones?

  • Does anger cause you to exaggerate the seriousness of certain problems?

  • Does anger sometimes cause you to underestimate risks?

  • Does anger cause you to behave impulsively without thinking through the consequences of your actions properly?

  • Does anger sometimes cause you to do things that you later regret?

• Questions about empathy

  • Does anger sometimes cause you to attribute hostility to other people and jump to conclusions about what they’re thinking?

  • Does anger sometimes cause you to focus on negative things about a person and ignore positive things?

  • Does anger cause you to vilify or demonize other people?

  • Does anger prevent you from empathizing with other people or being able to understand their perspective? How does that affect the way you communicate with them?

• Questions about values

  • How consistent is anger with your core values? Is it the sort of person you want to be in life?

  • How would you feel if someone exhibited the same sort of anger toward you that you experience toward others?

  • Would you want to live in a world where everyone exhibited the same sort of anger as you?

  • What sort of example do you think you set to people you care about (friends, children, spouse) when you get angry?

  • What does you more harm, your anger or the thing about which you’re angry?

Review your answers to the questions above and rate, in general, how helpful you now believe your anger is (0-100%)?