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Psychologists Discover that Venting Aggression on Inanimate Objects Doesn’t Help

Autor Ryan

Since the turbulent Sixties, self-help writers and psychobabble gurus have advocated letting it all hang out. Let your aggression out and you will feel better. Does it work? No.

There were the BoBo inflatable dolls that rocked when hit and then stood themselves up. Folks could buy foam bats to hit their spouses. The general population was led to believe that acting out physical aggression on an object would reduce feelings of aggression. The perfect person who had a hard day at the office would stop at the gym and pound out his feelings on the punching bag.

Does it work? No. There never has been any evidence that this acting out reduced aggression, and now there is research data that shows it may actually increase your aggressive feelings so you take them out on other people in frustration.

It sounds logical that physically hitting a punching bag or other inanimate object would work. So the masses of people today still believe it. The gurus and self-help advocates still preach it. In fact, these expectations instilled by the media raise the frustration level when aggressive feelings aren’t relieved.

Psychologists at the University of Iowa ran several experiments to finally find out the truth. Here’s something to think about. Of two groups of participants who were in an “anger” situation, those who hit a punching bag were more aggressive afterwards than those who did not hit the punching bag. In other words, he or she who goes to the gym to work off aggression turns out more aggressive than the person who just goes home after a bad day and has a glass of wine.

Then the second experiment showed the devastating effects of the self-help guru wisdom. Participants were given either a procatharsis message as in a self-help book, a neutral catharsis message, or an anticatharsis message. Those who read the procatharsis message or had the expectation that punching a bag would reduce aggression were so frustrated by the lack of reduction that they became more aggressive afterward than either of the other groups. The bottom line is that those who espouse the catharsis message are contributing to more aggressive feelings, not less. Interesting note, all the groups enjoyed hitting the punching bad. Women enjoyed it as much as men. The difference was in the feelings and behaviors afterwards.

Finally, the increased aggression was demonstrated not only towards the punching bag, but across the board towards others who provoked them, or innocent third parties.

So the next time you have one of those days from hell, don’t think hitting, stomping, or bashing will help. It is better that you take a long walk, go home and have a glass of wine, or use humor to dissipate your anger. Check out some humorous videos or go to a movie. Any of these methods is more effective than so-called catharsis.

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