Okay, so far, you have been advised to count 10-1 backwards before you make a decision when you are angry. It is said that anger tends to alter perception of risk, increase prejudice, and trigger aggression and is also blamed for flawed thinking.
But, the latest argument is that you actually take the right decision when you are angry as it prompts a more careful and rational analysis of another person’s reasoning.
Wesley Moons, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his colleague Diane Mackie designed three experiments to determine how anger influences thinking — whether it makes people more analytical or careful about their decisions, or whether it leads people to make faster, rasher decisions.
The researchers induced anger in a group of volunteers by criticizing their hopes and dreams and another group of volunteers were normal with no induced anger. They were then given situations where they had to make a decision.
The researchers found that the angry volunteers were better at discriminating the arguments and reasoning and made participants more, rather than less, rational and analytical in their reactions. The researchers say that anger also makes typically non-analytical thinkers more analytical.
In conclusion, according to the theory, if you are someone whose tempers keep flaring all the time, you must be making the right decisions!
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