Sounds rather forced to me. How about a simpler hypothesis that anger is frustration, the expression of the bad feelings coming from expectations not being fulfilled?
So would you get angry if a sabre-toothed tiger charged at you when you weren’t expecting it? Do you get angry when a clear day gives way to rain? Do you get angry when a short story has a twist ending?
Expectations not being fulfilled doesn’t necessarily cause anger. It may lead to sadness, or laughter, or fear, or disappointment, or any number of emotions. But it normally only leads to anger when the frustrated expectation is about social rules.
FWIW, Salemicus::anger (“how dare you!”) and annoyance feel slightly but not very different to my System 1, much more similar to each other than, say, the various feelings that English labels as “love”, and I don’t normally feel the need of using different words for the two unless I want to be pedantic.
I realize that anger is supposed to be what “They offered me a lousy offer in this Ultimatum game so I’d better turn it down even if I CDT::will be worse off otherwise people TDT::would continue to make me similarly lousy offers” feels from the inside, but my System 1 has only a vague understanding of that, let alone of the fact that unanimate objects aren’t actually playing Ultimatum with me (and I can’t be alone on this last point otherwise no-one would have ever hypothesised that lightning came from Zeus), but YMMV.
BTW, are you two native English speakers? (FTR I’m not.) This might be a case of languages labeling feeling-space differently, rather than or as well as people’s feeling-spaces being different.
I am not, but I got convinced by Salemicus’s argument. I realized that what I translate as “anger at the weather” is better translated as “being mad at the weather” or “being pissed at the weather” and anger here is not something like a short fuck-you feeling but more like the urge to launch a long rant or dressing-down.
I find it interesting that our intuition clashes so. I immediately found RL’s account compelling on the basis, whereas others did not. This could be a case of different labelling, or even different emotional experience.
I find it interesting that our intuition clashes so. I immediately found RL’s account compelling on the basis, whereas others did not. This could be a case of different labelling, or even different emotional experience.
The weirdest thing is that I do have the intuition “corresponding” (FLOABW) to the fact that if deterring someone from doing something can work in principle it might be a good idea to try but if it cannot possibly work it makes no sense to try (the “Sympathy or Condemnation” section of the “Diseased thinking” post makes perfect sense to me); when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun, I knew exactly what he was talking about. But, Rob Lyman’s example is a very poor choice of a pointer to that intuition for me, exactly because it points me to stuff like stubbing a toe in the dark instead.
when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun,
That’s perfectly rational behavior. The two causes give different predictions about likely future warming.
He explicitly specified that the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to solar activity in his hypothetical would equal the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases in the real world.
Sure, there is still a difference between the two situations akin to that described in the Diseased Thinking post I linked upthread, in that shaming people into not emitting as much CO2 might in principle work whereas shaming the Sun into not shining as much cannot possibly work (though Moldbug still has a point as the cost-effectiveness of the former is probably orders of magnitude less than most people would guess). I know you can’t shame a saber-toothed tiger into not charging you either, but still Moldbug’s example worked for me and Lyman’s didn’t for whatever reason.
EDIT: Might be because I’d think of an increase in the solar constant in Far Mode but I’d think of a saber-toothed tiger in Near Mode.
So would you get angry if a sabre-toothed tiger charged at you when you weren’t expecting it? Do you get angry when a clear day gives way to rain? Do you get angry when a short story has a twist ending?
For me at least, the answers are no, yes, and no respectively. We can further refine the prior hypothesis by stipulating that the bad feelings arise from expectations not being fulfilled in an unpleasurable way, which would stop it from generating the third situation as an example. As for the first, perhaps one might experience anger if it were not being overridden by the more pressing reaction of fear. Or perhaps the hypothesis is off base, but it seems to generate some correct predictions of anger which the hypothesis that anger only arises from frustrated expectations about social rules fails to generate.
My intuitive answer would be yes, but now I am realizing that for me sadness or fear is probably much closer to anger than for you. In my mind they all are “feel bad, be unhappy and express it too”.
I suppose if we define anger in a very granular and precise way and not just as a general bad feeling, “being mad at” but more like, giving a long rant, it can only apply to humans because I will swear to the rain but only briefly, to let steam out, I will not give a long angry rant to it. I will be “mad at it”, but not angry in that social sense that is clear.
Halfway conceded: anger in the very granular sense only applies to humans.
But. Can you think of a counter-example where 1) humans violate our expectations 2) but it is no a social rule or cohesion violation, and do we get angry or not?
This is very tricky, because our expectations are, of course, based on social rules! Usually. Now I am searching for a case when not.
Can you think of a counter-example where 1) humans violate our expectations 2) but it is no a social rule or cohesion violation, and do we get angry or not?
I already did give such an example—a short story with a “twist” ending. Such an ending violates our expectations (that’s what makes it a “twist”) but it doesn’t break any social rule, so people often find these amusing, clever, etc. On the other hand, a “twist” ending in a context where there is a social rule against such endings might well make people angry—for example, if the recent movie Exodus: Gods and Kings had ended with the Israelites being drowned in the Red Sea and the Pharoah triumphant, that would no doubt have upset many viewers.
Hmmm… most social rules generally want people to behave in a predictable ways, for various reasons, so they avoid surprises. It seems almost like surprises are only allowed in special cases…
I almost accept your point now, but one objection. A good and a weak soccer teams play a match. Surprisingly, the weaker one wins. It was fair play. Nobody violated a rule. Still the fans of the losing one are angry—at their own team, because how could they let a much weaker team win. Is that a social rule violation that if you are generally better you are never allowed to lose? Or just an expectation violation? Is it more of a bias on the side of fans: their team must have violated to rule to try hard and not be lazy, because they cannot imagine any other explanation?
If you generally agree, I accept your point with a modification: anger is about perceived social rule violation: but people are not perfect judges of social rule violations, there are mistakes made both ways, and tententious, bias-driven mistakes.
Thus, as in my soccer example, sometimes all you see at first is a violated expectation. You see no rule violation. Then you need to figure out why exactly may other people think it is a rule violation. This is not always easy and we don’t do it that often, and thus often we just see a violated expectation, and not see how others perceive it as a rule-violation.
I just want to say I am glad to have lost this debate, because it is working. For me. I mean, yesterday I was able to manage my anger better by asking myself questions like “what social rule I think is broken here? Is that a real one or just my wish? If real, a reasonable one?” even when the answer was yes/yes just being conscious of it worked.
I think I will shamelessly steal and apply this idea in discussions where it can be useful. Thanks a lot.
I think according two common usage of the terms they refer to different emotions.
Anger is a state of energy. Frustration is a rather passive state.
Anger doesn’t get triggered for every unfulfilled expectation. It get’s triggered if things aren’t as they “should” be. If you think you don’t deserve what you are expecting you get frustrated upon not getting it but not angry.
Anger doesn’t get triggered for every unfulfilled expectation. It get’s triggered if things aren’t as they “should” be.
And since the concept of “should” evolved as a primarily social mechanism, it makes sense that anger would be triggered by (perceived) social affronts.
Sounds rather forced to me. How about a simpler hypothesis that anger is frustration, the expression of the bad feelings coming from expectations not being fulfilled?
So would you get angry if a sabre-toothed tiger charged at you when you weren’t expecting it? Do you get angry when a clear day gives way to rain? Do you get angry when a short story has a twist ending?
Expectations not being fulfilled doesn’t necessarily cause anger. It may lead to sadness, or laughter, or fear, or disappointment, or any number of emotions. But it normally only leads to anger when the frustrated expectation is about social rules.
FWIW, Salemicus::anger (“how dare you!”) and annoyance feel slightly but not very different to my System 1, much more similar to each other than, say, the various feelings that English labels as “love”, and I don’t normally feel the need of using different words for the two unless I want to be pedantic.
I realize that anger is supposed to be what “They offered me a lousy offer in this Ultimatum game so I’d better turn it down even if I CDT::will be worse off otherwise people TDT::would continue to make me similarly lousy offers” feels from the inside, but my System 1 has only a vague understanding of that, let alone of the fact that unanimate objects aren’t actually playing Ultimatum with me (and I can’t be alone on this last point otherwise no-one would have ever hypothesised that lightning came from Zeus), but YMMV.
BTW, are you two native English speakers? (FTR I’m not.) This might be a case of languages labeling feeling-space differently, rather than or as well as people’s feeling-spaces being different.
I am not, but I got convinced by Salemicus’s argument. I realized that what I translate as “anger at the weather” is better translated as “being mad at the weather” or “being pissed at the weather” and anger here is not something like a short fuck-you feeling but more like the urge to launch a long rant or dressing-down.
I am a native speaker, yes.
I find it interesting that our intuition clashes so. I immediately found RL’s account compelling on the basis, whereas others did not. This could be a case of different labelling, or even different emotional experience.
The weirdest thing is that I do have the intuition “corresponding” (FLOABW) to the fact that if deterring someone from doing something can work in principle it might be a good idea to try but if it cannot possibly work it makes no sense to try (the “Sympathy or Condemnation” section of the “Diseased thinking” post makes perfect sense to me); when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun, I knew exactly what he was talking about. But, Rob Lyman’s example is a very poor choice of a pointer to that intuition for me, exactly because it points me to stuff like stubbing a toe in the dark instead.
That’s perfectly rational behavior. The two causes give different predictions about likely future warming.
He explicitly specified that the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to solar activity in his hypothetical would equal the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases in the real world.
Sure, there is still a difference between the two situations akin to that described in the Diseased Thinking post I linked upthread, in that shaming people into not emitting as much CO2 might in principle work whereas shaming the Sun into not shining as much cannot possibly work (though Moldbug still has a point as the cost-effectiveness of the former is probably orders of magnitude less than most people would guess). I know you can’t shame a saber-toothed tiger into not charging you either, but still Moldbug’s example worked for me and Lyman’s didn’t for whatever reason.
EDIT: Might be because I’d think of an increase in the solar constant in Far Mode but I’d think of a saber-toothed tiger in Near Mode.
For me at least, the answers are no, yes, and no respectively. We can further refine the prior hypothesis by stipulating that the bad feelings arise from expectations not being fulfilled in an unpleasurable way, which would stop it from generating the third situation as an example. As for the first, perhaps one might experience anger if it were not being overridden by the more pressing reaction of fear. Or perhaps the hypothesis is off base, but it seems to generate some correct predictions of anger which the hypothesis that anger only arises from frustrated expectations about social rules fails to generate.
My intuitive answer would be yes, but now I am realizing that for me sadness or fear is probably much closer to anger than for you. In my mind they all are “feel bad, be unhappy and express it too”.
I suppose if we define anger in a very granular and precise way and not just as a general bad feeling, “being mad at” but more like, giving a long rant, it can only apply to humans because I will swear to the rain but only briefly, to let steam out, I will not give a long angry rant to it. I will be “mad at it”, but not angry in that social sense that is clear.
Halfway conceded: anger in the very granular sense only applies to humans.
But. Can you think of a counter-example where 1) humans violate our expectations 2) but it is no a social rule or cohesion violation, and do we get angry or not?
This is very tricky, because our expectations are, of course, based on social rules! Usually. Now I am searching for a case when not.
I already did give such an example—a short story with a “twist” ending. Such an ending violates our expectations (that’s what makes it a “twist”) but it doesn’t break any social rule, so people often find these amusing, clever, etc. On the other hand, a “twist” ending in a context where there is a social rule against such endings might well make people angry—for example, if the recent movie Exodus: Gods and Kings had ended with the Israelites being drowned in the Red Sea and the Pharoah triumphant, that would no doubt have upset many viewers.
Hmmm… most social rules generally want people to behave in a predictable ways, for various reasons, so they avoid surprises. It seems almost like surprises are only allowed in special cases…
I almost accept your point now, but one objection. A good and a weak soccer teams play a match. Surprisingly, the weaker one wins. It was fair play. Nobody violated a rule. Still the fans of the losing one are angry—at their own team, because how could they let a much weaker team win. Is that a social rule violation that if you are generally better you are never allowed to lose? Or just an expectation violation? Is it more of a bias on the side of fans: their team must have violated to rule to try hard and not be lazy, because they cannot imagine any other explanation?
If you generally agree, I accept your point with a modification: anger is about perceived social rule violation: but people are not perfect judges of social rule violations, there are mistakes made both ways, and tententious, bias-driven mistakes.
Thus, as in my soccer example, sometimes all you see at first is a violated expectation. You see no rule violation. Then you need to figure out why exactly may other people think it is a rule violation. This is not always easy and we don’t do it that often, and thus often we just see a violated expectation, and not see how others perceive it as a rule-violation.
I just want to say I am glad to have lost this debate, because it is working. For me. I mean, yesterday I was able to manage my anger better by asking myself questions like “what social rule I think is broken here? Is that a real one or just my wish? If real, a reasonable one?” even when the answer was yes/yes just being conscious of it worked.
I think I will shamelessly steal and apply this idea in discussions where it can be useful. Thanks a lot.
I think according two common usage of the terms they refer to different emotions.
Anger is a state of energy. Frustration is a rather passive state.
Anger doesn’t get triggered for every unfulfilled expectation. It get’s triggered if things aren’t as they “should” be. If you think you don’t deserve what you are expecting you get frustrated upon not getting it but not angry.
And since the concept of “should” evolved as a primarily social mechanism, it makes sense that anger would be triggered by (perceived) social affronts.