ANGER (Icel. angr, grief, straits; 0. H. G. august: Ger. Angst, anxiety; Lat. augur, a chok ing, strangling, anguish, from the root ang, seen in Lat. august us, narrow, close; Gk. anchti, near; Ger. cng, narrow, close; A. S. ange. onge, narrow. strait, troubled). An emotion (q.v.) characterized by a peculiar, aggressive attitude toward its object (usually a person) and by the large number of expressive bodily movements which accompany it. Bain finds the essential element in anger to be "an impulse knowingly to inflict suffering upon another sentient being, and to derive a positive gratification therefrom." This impulse is usually connected, at least in the experience of the human adult, with a vivid con sciousness of self and the sense of injury to person or property. There are several varieties of anger. differing in the motives which introduce them, the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the motive consciousness, and the avenues of activity through which the emotion works itself out. Language bears witness to the great number of shades of anger in the words rape, ire, fury, wrath, temper, gall, frenzy, and in a host of descriptive adjectives, such as bitter, defiant, frantic, demoniacal, hot, indignant, violent, vicious, furious, malignant, raring, resentful, mad, volcanic.
The anger known as "righteous indignation" is aroused by strong ethical motives. The angry individual is persuaded that a wrong has been done himself, or some object, or another person. This is a resentful anger. and includes a moral judgment of condemnation. The emotion is pleasant (except where it is introduced by too great a shock, or where the consciousness of moral obliquity counteracts the pleasantness) and develops by an expansion—both mental and physical—of the individual. As the agent of jus
tice, the angered person acquires an amount of self-esteem, which is reflected in a tendency to muscular activity, deepened respiration, and ag gressive postures. On the other hand, when auger is complicated by the emotions of fear, hatred, envy, or jealousy, or when it is baffled, it acquires a different character. It then be comes unpleasantly toned, is accompanied by choking and stuffiness, trembling and weakness, and a loss of muscular force. But even in anger which is intrinsically unpleasant, a successful termination of the attempt to injure the object of the emotion brings a moment of satisfaction and pleasure, as in the humiliation of a rival.
The most common bodily accompaniments of anger are vasomotor disturbances (most easily seen in flushing and pallor). glandular secretion (sueb as tears and saliva), modifications of res piration, and involuntary movements. Other more or less specific bodily signs are screaming, cry ing, threatening articulations, trembling, stamp ing, facial contortions. sera telling, striking. The coarser bodily expressions of anger are more moderate in the adult and the cultured than in the child and primitive man. The efforts of society to secure justice and well-being for the individual destroy many of the sanctions for anger and also control its manifestations. Doubtless the value of anger in the history of the race has heen great. It has prevented the encroachments upon the individual which tend toward extermination. Consult A. Bain, The Emotions and the Will (London, 1880).