How being angry can make you happier – study

mary kulundu

August 21, 2017 4:01 PM

There is a clear difference between feeling the right emotions and feeling emotions out of obligation

A new study suggests that being angry can actually make you happier in the long run.

According to the study people will feel happier because they are able to express exactly what they are feeling instead of trying to hide it; which is basically meaningful and valuable feelings.

Over 2000 university students in eight countries were recruited for the study.

The researchers then asked the participants of the study what feelings they desired and they found that obviously more people wanted to feel more positive feelings as compared to negative feelings.

What was surprising however was that 11 percent of the participants wanted to feel less positive emotions such as love and empathy and 10 percent of the participants wanted to feel more negative emotions like anger and hatred.

The study explains that the participants whose emotions matched their actual emotions reported greater life satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms regardless of whether the emotions were positive or negative.

Lead researcher Maya Tamir, explained that the emotions that someone experiences can be vary from negative to positive depending on the context in which they are experienced.

“What my research shows is that happier people are those who experience the emotion they want to experience,” she said.

She further added that the research helped remind people to embrace whatever emotions they are experiencing at that time to enable one to differentiate between desire and reality which eventually leads to overall happiness.

The research was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.