Catharsis will be most effective in reducing anger toward another person if *

Dr. Brad Bushman is a social psychologist and aggression expert at The Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Missouri. You can learn more about Dr. Bushman at http://www.comm.ohio-state.edu/people/faculty/userprofile/67.html

1.  What is catharsis?

That was defined in the article [here], on page 3, but here is a lot more information.

Catharsis: The word catharsis comes from the Greek word katharsis, which means to cleanse or purge. The term dates back to Aristotle, who taught that viewing tragic plays gave people emotional release from negative emotions. In Greek drama, the heroes didn’t just grow old and retire—they often suffered a violent demise.

Sigmund Freud, who believed that repressed negative emotions could build up inside an individual and cause psychological symptoms, revived the ancient notion of catharsis. Freud’s ideas form the basis of the hydraulic model of anger, which suggests that frustrations lead to anger and that anger, in turn, builds up inside an individual like hydraulic pressure inside a closed environment until it is vented or released. If the anger is not vented, the build-up will presumably cause the individual to explode in an aggressive rage.

According to catharsis theory, acting aggressively or even viewing aggression purges angry feelings and aggressive impulses into harmless channels. Almost as soon as researchers started testing catharsis theory, it ran into trouble. In one early experiment (Hornberger, 1959), participants who had been insulted by a confederate either pounded nails with a hammer for 10 minutes or did nothing. After this, all participants had a chance to criticize the confederate who had insulted them. If catharsis theory is true, the act of pounding nails should reduce anger and subsequent aggression. Unfortunately for catharsis theory, the results showed the opposite effect. Participants who pounded nails were more hostile toward the confederate afterward than were the ones who didn’t get to hammer any nails.

In 1973, Albert Bandura issued a moratorium on catharsis theory and the use of venting in therapy, and research evidence supported Bandura’s views (e.g., Geen & Quanty, 1977). Venting doesn’t work even among people who believe in the value of venting, and even among people who report feeling better after venting (Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack, 1999). In fact, venting has the opposite effect—it increases aggression. The better people feel after venting, the more aggressive they are. Venting can even increase aggression against innocent bystanders.

One variation of venting is intense physical exercise, such as running. When angry, some people go running or try some other form of physical exercise. Although exercise is good for your heart, it is not good for reducing anger (Bushman, 2002). The reason exercise doesn’t work very well is that it increases rather than decreases arousal levels. Angry people are highly aroused, and should try to calm down. Also, if someone provokes you after exercising, excitation transfer might occur (Zillmann, 1979). That is, the arousal from the exercise might transfer to the provocation, producing an exaggerated and possibly more violent response.

2.  What are the most common misconceptions about catharsis?

That just because something feels good, it is healthy. People feel good after venting anger (see Bushman et al., 1999), but the good feeling only reinforces aggressive behavior. People also feel good after eating chocolate and taking street drugs, but that does not mean those behaviors are healthy.

3.  What are the consequences of using catharsis as your primary anger expression style?

It harms you (e.g, increases one’s risk of cardiovascular disease) and others (e.g., increases the likelihood that you will aggress against others, even innocent bystanders – see Bushman et al., 1999)

4. If there was one thing you would want people to understand about catharsis, what would it be?

That although the theory sounds elegant, there is no scientific evidence to support it. Venting anger is like using gasoline to put out a fire. It only feeds the flame by keeping aggressive thoughts active in memory and by keeping angry feelings alive.

Catharsis allows you to express anger as aggressively as you wish to maintain your psychological health. However, the scientific society believes it often justifies overreacting and hurts our psychological health. Read on to find out if catharsis really helps us.

Catharsis refers to the expression of your feelings, especially when you are suppressing anger or other negative feelings. The term was first used in psychology by Sigmund Freud but originally dates back at least to ancient Greece.

This is a transcript from the video series Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior. Watch it now, on Wondrium.

According to catharsis, if you feel angry enough to break a few things around you, you should do that. Pop psychologists say if you feel like breaking someone’s ribs to express your anger, break glasses and tables instead and shout into your pillow. Suppressing emotions can indeed be unhealthy, but what if you bust the windows of somebody’s car, just because they drove into the street faster than you? Is it the right reaction, or are you overreacting?

Learn more about Why Self-Control Is So Hard

Overreacting and Its Reasons

When a person’s reaction to an unimportant event is extreme and overpasses the event’s real value, they are overreacting. For example, when you shout horrible insults at a waitress merely because your hamburger had pickles and you wanted it without. More than a personality trait, overreacting is a result of evolution.

Evolutionary psychologists believe that overreacting has its roots in a higher chance of survival. Animals that immediately kill intruders in their territory, avoid all risks and threats before any harm is done. Thus, protecting oneself against a potential threat is one reason for overreacting.

Also, people sometimes overreact to trivial signs of disrespect and unfairness to show that they cannot be exploited. The third reason why people overreact is that they are focused on only one thing. No matter how unimportant that event is, when this happens, people lose their ability to control themselves and think about consequences. No social norm, logic, moral standard, or concern for other people can stop overreacting.

Lastly, overreacting can be more common in one society compared to another, due to social acceptance and even encouragement. To conclude, many acts of catharsis may be overreactions that can harm one’s social life.

Learn more about Why We Have Emotions

The Relationship between Catharsis and Overreacting

Catharsis can be a good excuse and even a green light for some people to overreact. Overreacting to many things per day can lead to, and at the same time result from, anger issues.

Those who suffer from chronic anger problems significantly magnify the importance of everything that happens to them. People who overreact do the same, even though they do not have chronic anger problems. They often engage in a catastrophizing thinking process, where they exaggerate the seriousness of a problem in their mind.

Learn more about Where People’s Personalities Come From

Catastrophizing and Its Effects

As explained, catastrophizing is the process of seeing events much more serious than they objectively are. Hence, it leads to overreaction. Condemnation and blame usually trigger overreaction, as they both are catastrophized. Research shows that condemnation fuels anger, hatred, and aggression. It makes us see the person who condemns us as a worthless awful person, whereas they might only be careless and inconsiderate.

So people overreact because of catastrophizing, and then they justify it by catharsis. Nevertheless, does catharsis really benefit our psychological health and social life, if its foundations are wrong thoughts and exaggerated anger?

The Effects of Catharsis on Psychological Health

Studies have examined the psychological health of people who react cathartically very often. Despite what Freud believed, catharsis triggers more thoughts and emotions of the same nature.

For example, if you are angry and you start shouting and throwing things, you activate more aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Every time we have a particular thought or emotion, networks of associations are activated in our brain. Thus, having angry thoughts or expressing anger activates cognitive associations that affect anger. This can lead to chronic anger problems, which is not at all healthy.

Unfortunately, the media and pop psychology encourage catharsis and ask people not to suppress their emotions, especially anger. But the scientific community has concluded that expressing anger strongly and irrationally does not help control anger at all. In fact, doing nothing is better for controlling anger and maintaining psychological health. There is nothing wrong with feeling angry and acting assertively when an issue needs to be solved. However, when anger is expressed, especially in an overreaction, more problems are created.

Overreacting was built into our nature to increase our chance of survival. Consequently, it feels natural to shout and express anger strongly, to make others behave as we want them. But in our complicated human societies, taking the norms into consideration is much more beneficial than breaking all of them and hurting others. Thus, we need to control our negative emotions instead of cathartically expressing them, to maintain both our psychological health and social life.

Does catharsis reduce anger?

What is the purpose of catharsis?

Is catharsis effective?

What is catharsis in aggression?