The Strong, the Beautiful and the Angry

Why do we have to get angry? If this risky emotion had not been useful and did not provide any benefits to humans, this emotion should have been trashed in the bins of our evolutionary history. But evolutionary scientists have long figured out that anger is some kind of emotional currency that can help the angry up his or her bargaining position in a conflict. If you get angry, then you raise the perceived threat level and could help you get what you want. True, that anger has also gotten a lot of those who languished in the emotion, killed, but for the most part, anger worked to get what you want. As far as evolution goes, if it works, it stays.

But as in all traits, we did not all evolve equally angry. Some are angrier than most and you do not need a full-blown science demonstration to know that. All you have to do is be alive and aware at least some of the time and you will notice that anger will either be your weapon or you will be its target, in varying degrees. Researchers Aaron Sell, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara published their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitled Formidability and the logic of human anger last Sept. 1. And their study came up with results that may surprise a lot of us.

The researchers named the essential factors in negotiating conflicts and they named two: the ability to inflict costs and the ability to confer benefits. One of the more obvious characteristic that could inflict cost is physical strength, while the more obvious trait that could confer benefit is attractiveness.

They tested for strength both in men and women subjects in terms of muscularity and for their attractiveness based on their self-perception (how they think they look as well as their perceived ability to attract the opposite sex.) Then they were asked to each answer questionnaires that were designed to measure their “Proneness to Anger, History of Fighting, Tendency to Ruminate, Utility of Personal Aggression and Utility of Political Aggression.”

These are their very surprising findings. The stronger men and the more attractive women were the ones more prone to anger. The attractiveness of men which has a lot to do with muscularity sort of blended with the stronger men who were already the angrier lot. The strength of women was not significant in making them likelier to anger. The explanation the scientists offered is that for over 200,000 years as Homo Sapiens, males have always more often gained than lost by being angry in a conflict than not. For “beautiful” women, it turns out that the sense of entitlement they feel being such makes them more prone to getting angry if they get the least bit offended.

I love this study as it busts several myths about who we think are more easily angered. First is on women’s attractiveness. Between your stereotypical unattractive spinster librarian and your hot female neighbor, this study says that odds are, in a conflict with either, you better hide from the latter.

Second is on jokes about the aggression of muscular women. The study says a physically strong woman is not more prone to anger just because she has the muscular equipment to carry it out (but I suspect it has crossed her mind a thousand times).

Third myth busted is that small men, like Napoleon, have towering tempers to compensate for their height. The study says that smaller men are not more prone to anger. It is in fact the Johnny Bravos who get easily aggressive. Those films featuring puny and unattractive men who portrayed trigger-happy characters are apparently way off track as far as this study is concerned. Testosterone was not even as significant in its effect on aggression as was strength was on anger. This means that if you were a physically weak man with high testosterone, you will still be less prone to anger than the physically strong man.

Our intuition could have told us that injustice automatically makes us angry. Am sure it does but the sting of anger still differs among humans. When it comes to conflicts affecting us in a personal way, how physically strong we are or how beautiful we think we are makes us angrier relative to others subjected to the same conflict. I cannot help but think of all the beautiful, strong men and women featured in magazines as implied models of perfection. Against this study’s findings, you could line them all up but this time in a spectrum of rage — and they will more likely fall toward the higher end.

I think this study has implications on how we choose our mates. It is natural to select for strong males and attractive women but never before had I come across a study that links these traits with anger. So woo your warrior Achilles and your rapturous Aphrodite and odds are, their natural circuitry has hell’s fury as well.

* * *

For comments, e-mail [email protected]