The Upside of Anger
This post has been viewed 3,383 times.
In most disputes, when people get angry- it is a bad sign! It usually means that the dispute will NOT get resolved, and that one or the other party will leave in a huff. Indeed, neuroscience teaches us that when the emotional side of our brain (right brain) is operating in full force, there is absolutely no way that we can think deliberately or rationally (?). Our left brain is being overpowered by right brain.
So, does this mean that anger and resolving disputes simply do not mix? Not necessarily! An article in the New York Times Sunday Review section (September 20, 2015) entitled “The Rationality of Rage” by Matthew Hutson dispels this notion. Mr. Hutson writes that based on recent studies, anger may be quite useful in negotiations.
In a soon to be published study in the November issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers tested the effect of anger in three types of negotiations; those that are cooperative in nature,( such as two business partners planning a new business venture), those that are competitive in nature (such as the two business partners dissolving the business) and finally, those that are balanced in nature (such as one business partner selling his share of the business to the other.)
Read original articleTags:
