Ｑ47.What is anger?

Ａ.Anger is an urge to defend against intruders.<br>
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　　The fourth basic emotion is anger. Anger is an emotion that branches out from interest depending on the situation. Anger is an emotion for defending one's domain against enemies that intrude.<br>
　　Anger has a special facial expression. The skin on your forehead is pulled towards your nose making wrinkles, eyebrows furrow, teeth are clenched, and lips are pressed tight together. This facial expression is a signal to intimidate and expel enemies, which means, "Keep away!"<br>
　　Actions of anger are threats and attacks, such as glaring at someone as if to declare war, or actually striking someone to start a fight. In preparation for the impending fight the body tenses and the mind is excited.<br>
　　Anger occurs in several situations. For example, being insulted, being treated with contempt, being swindled by someone, being disturbed when doing something, being spoken to when calculating difficult and important problems, and so on.<br>
　　Anger is ordinarily directed towards fellow humans. However, we sometimes get angry when we trip on a stone, or end up hitting the corner of a piece of furniture. This is thought to be more because of the simplicity of the brain's structure than personification.<br>
　　Anger is thought to work in the following way. When a sudden occurrence stops what we were doing at the time and prevents us from resuming the activity, we start new activities to remove the obstacle.<br>
　　The brain functions in following way. When humans want to move their body, a response will appear in the supplementary motor cortex before they are aware of it. This response is a prototype program of action. The signal travels to the motor association cortex, then motor cortex, then it becomes a motor program, and finally the action is physically carried out.<br>
　　However, an incident which causes anger interrupts the motor program, so the signal cannot travel to the motor cortex. When we recognize that our actions are continually interrupted a signal will relay from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala, where the cells respond to it and then we feel anger.<br>
　　This is not only when actions are interrupted, but also when thoughts are interrupted.<br>
　　If an interruption of actions or thoughts is momentary, it causes surprise, but if an interruption of actions or thoughts continues, it causes anger.<br>
　　For example, when we trip on a stone, this stops the walking program, and this information flows into the amygdala, causing us to get angry at that stone. After this, if the signal travels from the amygdala to the motor cortex, we will kick that stone far away.<br>
　　Emotions like anger are very unpleasant, so we avoid those situations.<br>
　　When we feel angry, we will forget a certain amount of fear and pain, therefore we can fight smoothly. We don't notice scratches when we are fighting.<br>
　　What is the value of anger? Let's examine how anger works in other animals.<br>
　　In animals, the fights and threats that occur are limited to members of the same species. The purpose is either to defend their territories, to fight for their rank in the group, or for a mate. If our actions are interrupted upon meeting a member of the same species, continual interruption of actions or thoughts occurs, we feel anger.<br>
　　 Territory means the range of our activities and can be expressed as an area of ground. A member's rank in the hierarchy determines how freely it may act, so the rank in the hierarchy and the amount of territory mean the same thing. For modern human beings this means the area of activities rather than land, so anger is the instinct to defend the area which we need to live.