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Speaker 1: I'm on the house Stuff Works homepage. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Or Chuck, how you doing? This is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know? I should say, Uh, that's Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark as usual. I think by now you
Speaker 1: people know, right, I answer us. If not, they just
Speaker 1: stumbled upon us. They're like, you are these exactly? And
Speaker 1: we just lost him right there, so everybody else it's
Speaker 1: us Chuck. Do you remember watching The Incredible Hulk as well?
Speaker 1: I was going to say as a kid. It ran
Speaker 1: from eighty two, so you're what like twenty five maybe thirty? No, man,
Speaker 1: that was right in my wheelhouse. Yeah. I just came
Speaker 1: in on the tail end, but every I had a
Speaker 1: significant impact. I love that show. So yeah, that was
Speaker 1: what Bill Bixby slash Lou Ferrigno sharing the title role duties. Right. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: Bill Bixby played Bruce Banner and Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk, right,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of a big guy, but not
Speaker 1: hulk like. You know. I think they had to use
Speaker 1: certain camera angles and shots and make him a pear
Speaker 1: even bigger. And of course, since I'm nine years old,
Speaker 1: I I remember Bill Bixby from the Courtship of Eddie's Father,
Speaker 1: which was before that. Sorry, go ahead, okay, so well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you remember like oftentimes I don't think it was every episode,
Speaker 1: but um, Bruce Banner when somebody was pushing him around
Speaker 1: or something. I remember when I think at the in
Speaker 1: the intro, he he would be hitchhiking or something and
Speaker 1: he was picked up by somebody who mistreated him. Maybe
Speaker 1: I could be making I make up memories a lot, right,
Speaker 1: but yeah, in most episodes he would say something like,
Speaker 1: please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when
Speaker 1: I'm angry, and then inevitably this is some jerk made
Speaker 1: him angry and then you know, get ripped and turned
Speaker 1: green and just beat the tar out of him, right right.
Speaker 1: My favorite part actually he would always turn away as
Speaker 1: if he's trying to contain himself, and then with his
Speaker 1: head back around, he'd had those green eyes. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He never bit his knuckles though, I've always found that
Speaker 1: that helps to kind of keep things, you know, locked in.
Speaker 1: He should have tried that. It would have been a
Speaker 1: totally different show had he actually tried that. I think right, well,
Speaker 1: actually I bring up The Incredible Hulk, not because I
Speaker 1: just wanted to reminisce although that was pleasant Chuck Um.
Speaker 1: I wanted to use it as a segway. And what
Speaker 1: I was going to segue into is that it is
Speaker 1: entirely possible that the Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner was a
Speaker 1: self actualized human being except for like throwing cars and stuff.
Speaker 1: He was in touch with his anger and tried to
Speaker 1: keep it down, but eventually it came out and ultimately
Speaker 1: he would go back to normal. And the point of
Speaker 1: the point is of this a sin I in intro um,
Speaker 1: is that anger can be beneficial. We we tend to
Speaker 1: think that anger is a just a bad thing, that
Speaker 1: there's only negative repercussion, so that it's harmful. Um. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there was a think some
Speaker 1: survey that I read UM that I found twenty eight
Speaker 1: percent of people, when asked about their own anger, they
Speaker 1: said that they thought it was a bad thing because
Speaker 1: it was useless and harmful. That's not necessarily true, right,
Speaker 1: they said inappropriate to which I thought was inappropriate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I call anger inappropriate. I just I think it's completely
Speaker 1: appropriate many times. Well, I think I think part of
Speaker 1: the problem is, and this is just me positing here,
Speaker 1: we live in a society that's that's has lots of
Speaker 1: expectations on gentility. We're supposed to get along, go along
Speaker 1: and all that, and so anger doesn't really have much
Speaker 1: of a place that in a in a society like that.
Speaker 1: Um so, I think we've kind of a lot of us,
Speaker 1: including myself, have have lost our ability to express ourselves
Speaker 1: through anger. Right. You know what Aristotle said? I love
Speaker 1: this quote. Let's hear Aristotle said this. The famous philosopher,
Speaker 1: of course, not Aristotle Jones, who as how do you
Speaker 1: know Aristotle Jones? We'll talk about that later. The famous
Speaker 1: Aristotle said this, The man who was angry at the
Speaker 1: right things and with the right people, and further as
Speaker 1: he ought when he ought, and as long as he
Speaker 1: ought is praised. So basically, he's saying that you can
Speaker 1: be angry, but if if you're angry at the right
Speaker 1: time and you handle it in the right way, then
Speaker 1: you are to be patted on the back essentially right,
Speaker 1: and he was right on the money if you asked me.
Speaker 1: So I did a little research, um and found uh,
Speaker 1: we have a great article on the site called how
Speaker 1: anger Works. And um, I'm starting to notice a pattern here,
Speaker 1: like all the great articles on the site. The byoline
Speaker 1: says Molly Edmonds. Have you noticed that? I thought you're
Speaker 1: gonna say yourself, No, I wouldn't do that even if
Speaker 1: I thought it. Yes, Molly, who is a great writer
Speaker 1: and a dear friend and has her own podcast, Yeah stuff, mom,
Speaker 1: never told you with Christen Conger another great writer here. Um,
Speaker 1: and we should probably stop all the plug in right
Speaker 1: and get to the anger. Right. You're angry at Molly
Speaker 1: because she's a better writer than you. That is not true, Chuck,
Speaker 1: stop this please? Um okay, so what what? There's basically
Speaker 1: three reason why people get angry, right, Uh, and one
Speaker 1: of them is to correct someone else's bad behavior. When
Speaker 1: you get angry, you're all of a sudden kind of
Speaker 1: bursting forth with with energy. You're kind of pushing energy
Speaker 1: from yourself onto somebody else, or at the very least
Speaker 1: creating a startle response in them. Uh. And that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good way of teaching somebody that they don't need
Speaker 1: to do that to you. Again, sure, I find that
Speaker 1: kind of distasteful behavior. Using untoward yes my favorite word
Speaker 1: right now? Um uh that that that's one reason people
Speaker 1: get angry, or one reason or one way people use anger.
Speaker 1: Another UM is to demonstrate power, which is really again
Speaker 1: off putting. Not big fans of two of these three reasons,
Speaker 1: you know, like getting whoever can shout the loudest, or
Speaker 1: you know, get the most irked and and and irritated winds.
Speaker 1: And actually that's the case sometimes, especially again in our
Speaker 1: genteel society. The third reason anger exists, I think um
Speaker 1: is to address interpersonal conflict, right, Like, you're upset at
Speaker 1: something you've done, No, you're upset with something someone else did,
Speaker 1: and rather than just let it pass by, which will
Speaker 1: give you the opportunity to stew on it indefinitely and
Speaker 1: arguably and the relationship you are getting, you're using anger,
Speaker 1: And this is not You shouldn't confuse this, this aspect
Speaker 1: of anger with you know, coming into somebody's office, slamming
Speaker 1: the door and like telling letting them have it. I
Speaker 1: guess it's kind of a form of it. An unproductive form.
Speaker 1: This would more be like recognizing your angry and saying,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something about this or else I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be friends with this person. So actually that
Speaker 1: use of anger is UM, it's actually a kind gesture
Speaker 1: because you're saying, I'm willing to confront you even though
Speaker 1: it's gonna be uncomfortable for me including you, UM, because
Speaker 1: I value our relationship. So those are reasons why you
Speaker 1: might demonstrate anger. Yes, Well I found an interesting study.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little dated it from but it's a
Speaker 1: Clinton area, but it's still valid. Uh. Someone did a
Speaker 1: women's anger study and interestingly they found that, um, five
Speaker 1: out of the five women they surveyed, the three most
Speaker 1: common roots to a woman's anger, which ties in nicely
Speaker 1: with yours, is powerlessness, injustice and the irresponsibility of others.
Speaker 1: So that kind of makes sense from what you just said. Well,
Speaker 1: I also read that women tend to become angered. There's
Speaker 1: actually something called anger triggers, right, and they're actually age,
Speaker 1: gender and culture specific. Often times there they're stimuli that
Speaker 1: that trigger our anger. Uh. And women this is not
Speaker 1: you know, the case across the board, but women tend
Speaker 1: to UM have find anger triggers in affronts by people
Speaker 1: that they're close to, family, friends, that kind of thing. Basically,
Speaker 1: you can't you can't make a woman angry on average, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're a stranger. The exact opposites the case with men.
Speaker 1: Men have a lot more patients with maybe um the
Speaker 1: family and friends. But like a stranger will just send
Speaker 1: him off the rail traffic. Oh yeah, I hate strangers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who who likes them? That's not true nobody, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I find that that's actually the case with me. I
Speaker 1: would get extremely angry at someone I don't know, because
Speaker 1: I'm a big injustice Scott injustices really make me angry
Speaker 1: people that don't think the rules apply to them. Like
Speaker 1: let's say I'm sitting in traffic and we have the
Speaker 1: the commuter lanes here in Atlanta, the carpool lane, and
Speaker 1: I'll see people single writers whizzing by me in the
Speaker 1: carpool lane, and it just it furies knock them off
Speaker 1: the road. Now because I'd have to get in the
Speaker 1: carpool lane. Oh and you wouldn't do that, well, no,
Speaker 1: because I'd get caught. Plus also, you would have no
Speaker 1: right to be angry at somebody else. You know what
Speaker 1: that is. That's reason. Uh So basically, when when we
Speaker 1: are when our anger is triggered by by whatever it is, UM,
Speaker 1: we have two things going on. Two it just in
Speaker 1: our brains. Start wrestling in like thirty like Greco Roman wrestling.
Speaker 1: Right winner take off pretty much possibly with Shanks. I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't determined that yet. UM. But the frontal lobe,
Speaker 1: which is responsible for reason, starts getting into it with
Speaker 1: the amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and all. This
Speaker 1: wrestling match usually lasts about two seconds, it is um,
Speaker 1: and most of the time the frontal lobe wins. Did
Speaker 1: you know that? I didn't, but it kind of I
Speaker 1: get that, yeah, because think about it, like we'd all
Speaker 1: be walking around like half cock powdered kegs if the
Speaker 1: amygdala one. You know, have you ever known anyone that
Speaker 1: was like that, that was really angry and would fight
Speaker 1: people and just made you nervous being around them. I
Speaker 1: wish I I would say his name because I still
Speaker 1: did this sixth grade. I still to this day hate
Speaker 1: this kid's guts UM, and I would love to say
Speaker 1: his name so that it's somebody could hear it and
Speaker 1: go punch him in the stomach. Um, but I know
Speaker 1: Jerry will bleep it out and beep beep exactly what
Speaker 1: is yeah? So um? But yeah, this kid he was.
Speaker 1: He was short and he was really mad that he
Speaker 1: was short. He bore a striking resemblance to um jever
Speaker 1: see uh was that Captain Caveman and Son cartoon. He
Speaker 1: bore a resemblance to the Sun really just kind of
Speaker 1: very you know, cavemanesque, right. And he was just such
Speaker 1: a little manipulative bully he was. He was mockiavellian actually,
Speaker 1: and he used to have us get into um fights
Speaker 1: and he would turn the whole class against he was.
Speaker 1: He was an angry little kid and you know what,
Speaker 1: he was all amigdala really apparently. Yeah, I knew a
Speaker 1: guy like that when I lived in Arizona. That was
Speaker 1: just I was uncomfortable being around him because he would
Speaker 1: go to a bar or someplace and just invite trouble.
Speaker 1: It was written all over his face. It was his energy,
Speaker 1: and he scared me. I didn't like being around the guy.
Speaker 1: You want to stay away from people. No, I'm a
Speaker 1: pacifist man, I'm a lover. I don't need that. I
Speaker 1: know you are Chuck not very angry. Well, I have
Speaker 1: some issues here and there with anger, but like Aristotle says,
Speaker 1: I want to channel in the right direction, exactly and
Speaker 1: at the right times, right right. So there was actually
Speaker 1: a guy who is a perfect case study in UM
Speaker 1: you know how the brain processes anger. And his name
Speaker 1: was Phineas Gage, and he was this affable railroad man.
Speaker 1: He was a railroad worker and in forty eight he
Speaker 1: took a rod through I think his right eye owl uh,
Speaker 1: and it went into his brain and he actually they
Speaker 1: I don't know if they ever got it out all
Speaker 1: the way, but they managed to um keep him alive
Speaker 1: and he survived and continue to live. But he had
Speaker 1: frontal lobe damage. The reason part his amigea was perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: So we went from this affable, friendly guy to a
Speaker 1: jerk for the rest of his life. Ye yeah, Phineas Gauge.
Speaker 1: I've got some more gender related anger thing if you
Speaker 1: want to talk about that. It's interesting women and women are.
Speaker 1: It's amazing we ever get together, how different we are.
Speaker 1: I'm often awed at that. Uh. They found when they
Speaker 1: studied women in anger UM and men that men scored
Speaker 1: higher on physical aggression go figure, passive aggression and experiences
Speaker 1: of impulsively dealing with their anger, and men usually had
Speaker 1: more or more often had a revenge motive and scored
Speaker 1: higher in coercing people. And women they found were found
Speaker 1: to be angried, longer, more resentful, and less likely to
Speaker 1: express their anger. But they also found interestingly that women
Speaker 1: um used indirect aggression. They were more likely to write
Speaker 1: someone off that they knew and like, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to speak to her again. Women do that, according to
Speaker 1: the study, and it kind of makes sense. I've known
Speaker 1: some women that have written off people in their life,
Speaker 1: but I don't know many men that have ever said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm never going to speak to him again.
Speaker 1: I have. I was about to say, I think I'm
Speaker 1: very feminine in that way, because it's not the only way, buddy.
Speaker 1: That's not well. I guess we should probably get to
Speaker 1: the last part of this clunker. What's that you see?
Speaker 1: Santa Barber study. Okay, so these two psychiatrists, psychologists shrinks
Speaker 1: um put a bunch of college students together in a room,
Speaker 1: and I think they gave him They said, you are
Speaker 1: to remain neutral and this this other group, or we're
Speaker 1: gonna make angry. So they had them Um. They had
Speaker 1: them right about I think extensively some past experience they
Speaker 1: had that made them angry. Um. And then they took
Speaker 1: both groups and had them analyze a series of essays
Speaker 1: about whether or not college students are any good at
Speaker 1: saving or what you know, we're good with finances? And
Speaker 1: some were good essays, some were terrible. Um. And they
Speaker 1: basically the distinction was the good essays, the the the
Speaker 1: the arguments that had basis were um, they cited old
Speaker 1: studies or you know, facts or they they backed up
Speaker 1: their argument, whereas the bad studies didn't. Right, but they
Speaker 1: were well written. And they found that the kids who
Speaker 1: were angry, um were had better analytical skills. They were
Speaker 1: they scored consistently higher in picking out the good arguments
Speaker 1: from the bad. Right. Was were they shifting through the
Speaker 1: muck and focusing on, you know, just the parts that
Speaker 1: they needed to? Was that what was going on there?
Speaker 1: Just jumped from a to see each other. We'll tell
Speaker 1: me about B Well, I was trying to tell you
Speaker 1: about the anyway. Yes, that that's exactly right. I think
Speaker 1: let's just strangle this horse. It's almost dead. Um. They
Speaker 1: found that well, they concluded, uh, it wasn't proven, but
Speaker 1: they concluded that when you're angry, um, you're you're very
Speaker 1: focused and so you're you're kind of you're you're cutting
Speaker 1: away the fat as it were. So and if you're neutral, um,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to be taken in by flowery language
Speaker 1: or something like that. You're angry, you're focused. The other
Speaker 1: theory that they had was when you're angry, you want
Speaker 1: to punish somebody, So you're probably going to punish, uh,
Speaker 1: somebody who's not doing is good a job, or some
Speaker 1: somebody who's not quite up to snuff. And in this case,
Speaker 1: it would have been a poorly argued essay. Right, So
Speaker 1: there you go. Well, I think the secret is to
Speaker 1: channel your anger into positivity. There's nothing wrong with being angry,
Speaker 1: but I know that there are studies that that show
Speaker 1: that if you suppress anger, you're more likely to die
Speaker 1: then if you don't hold onto those feelings. So suppressing
Speaker 1: your anger is not a good move. Anyone who's ever
Speaker 1: seen the Angry Dead episode of The Simpsons can tell
Speaker 1: you it is life threatening, true, but blowing up at
Speaker 1: someone and going off on someone and being physically aggressive
Speaker 1: is also not good. So it's all about doing it
Speaker 1: in the right way. Sure, good advice, Chuck. I hope
Speaker 1: it didn't reign on your parade there with no no,
Speaker 1: you totally didn't get did great, buddy? Thanks? Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I would want you to be angry. You wouldn't like
Speaker 1: me when I'm angry. You would rain blows upon me
Speaker 1: a little bit. Well, let's just get to listener mail time.
Speaker 1: But first, I know Chuck wants to tell everybody about
Speaker 1: something we like to call our web blog or blog.
Speaker 1: We like of people around the world now have a blog.
Speaker 1: We have joined the blog sphere and the blog is
Speaker 1: through the website now stuff works dot com and you
Speaker 1: can find it on via the homepage. It's called stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know and it's my buddy Josh and I
Speaker 1: just kind of hang out some interesting topics to talk
Speaker 1: about and trying to engage the stuff you Should Know community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's updated at least twice a day, Chuck post
Speaker 1: ones I post once. So go check it out. And
Speaker 1: like Chuck said, you can access that through the homepage
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And Chuck, please is
Speaker 1: it time for listener mail you today? John H. I
Speaker 1: have just a single listener mail. This is from this
Speaker 1: must be significant. Yeah, this is from Adam Asher. And
Speaker 1: I don't know where Idam's from, but he says cheers,
Speaker 1: So he may be from the UK. He may be
Speaker 1: one of those guys that says cheers. He's an anglophile. Yeah, perhaps,
Speaker 1: Uh he says this. This is about the c I
Speaker 1: a LSD episode quick recap. Uh. Yeah, the CIA used
Speaker 1: to um dose heroin addicts um John's and um you
Speaker 1: know black inmates at prisons with LSD to find out
Speaker 1: if they could use it as a truth serum or
Speaker 1: something like that. Perfect And the name of the program
Speaker 1: was MK Ultra. Yes it was. That was the Umbrella Project, right,
Speaker 1: So I found this very interesting, uh, he says. I
Speaker 1: just had a comment on that episode. A few years back,
Speaker 1: maybe ten or twelve years ago, there was a video
Speaker 1: game made called mk Ultra. Uh. In it, you were
Speaker 1: a weird costumed a man with a gun for an arm,
Speaker 1: and you went through and violently killed everything in your midst.
Speaker 1: The world you were in was very interesting, different called ors,
Speaker 1: the walls moved, weird sounds. There was a talking dog.
Speaker 1: It's your sidekick, and uh he said that when we
Speaker 1: talked about the MK Ultra program, he you know, made
Speaker 1: him think his video game. The thing is, he can't
Speaker 1: remember it and doesn't have any further details. So I'm
Speaker 1: really interested to know if there was if that was
Speaker 1: the name of the game, and if they were there
Speaker 1: was a video game that literally poked fun at the
Speaker 1: CIA for doing this kind of thing, or if that
Speaker 1: guy was on LSD. So if anyone out there knows
Speaker 1: of this game and has any more details, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear about it and uh get a copy of it.
Speaker 1: I want to play this game. Yeah, well that's to
Speaker 1: thank you, Adam Asher. Sure, if you want to share
Speaker 1: any of your acid flashbacks with us or just say hi,
Speaker 1: you can shoot us an email. If you can see
Speaker 1: the keys and they're not speaking to you at stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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