Test your knowledge about anger

Source from here.

1. What's the difference between women's anger and men's anger?
A. Women's anger is more likely to be unjustified, while men's anger usually has a good justification.

B. Women are more likely to become angry with those around them, while men are more likely to become angry at the world at large and inanimate objects.

C. Women can't control their anger, but men can.

Answer: B
Anger in women is more likely triggered by their close relationships, such as when they feel let down by family members and friends. Men are more likely to be angered by strangers, objects that aren't working correctly and larger societal issues.


2. What part of the brain controls reasoning and tempers the amygdala's response to an anger trigger?
A. Frontal lobe

B. Parietal lobe

C. Temporal lobe

Answer: A
The frontal lobe, or the part of the brain that's over the left eye, controls reasoning and keeps an angry person from throwing a vase across the room.


3. What does Phineas Gage have to teach us about anger?
A. He came up with the idea of counting to 10 when angry.

B. He suffered a brain injury that demonstrated the importance of the frontal lobe in controlling rage.

C. He wrote an influential book about anger shown by Jesus in the Bible.

Answer: B
Phineas Gage was a mild-mannered railroad worker until he suffered an accident in which a rod went through his skull, right above the left eye. From then on, Gage was angry, irritable and unstable. The rod had destroyed the frontal lobe's ability to control an anger response.


4. What does acetylcholine have to do with anger?
A. Acetylcholine works with adrenaline to work a person into an angry state.

B. Acetylcholine tempers the more severe effects of adrenaline, essentially turning off the anger.

C. Acetylcholine transmits messages between the amygdala and the frontal lobe about the anger trigger.

Answer: B
Acetylcholine is a hormone that tempers the more severe effects of adrenaline. A person who is angry all the time may not produce this hormone.


5. In a study of almost 13,000 subjects, individuals with the highest levels of anger had a higher risk of heart attack compared to those with the lowest levels of anger. How much greater was the risk?
A. Three times as much

B. Five times as much

C. 10 times as much

Answer: A
The study found that individuals with the highest level of anger had three times the risk of heart attack, as well as twice the risk of coronary heart disease, as individuals with the lowest levels of anger.


6. Anger expression typically takes one of three forms. Which method of anger expression has been described as depression?
A. Anger-in

B. Anger-out

C. Anger control

Answer: A
Anger-in, or turning anger inward, has been described as depression. This method of anger expression is overwhelmingly observed in women, who may feel that society frowns on angry women.


7. How do you diagnose someone with anger?
A. Interviews with family members and evaluation by a psychiatrist

B. The Anger Management Exam (AME), a 100-question test that is effective about 80 percent of the time.

C. Anger is not a diagnosis because it's not defined by the DSM-IV.

Answer: C
Anger is not defined by the DSM-IV, the diagnostic bible for mental health professionals. As such, there's not a specific way to diagnose or treat someone with chronic anger.


8. What is the goal of anger management?
A. To be completely cured of anger so that you're never angry again

B. To learn how to hold your anger in so that it doesn't affect anyone else

C. To learn how to defuse triggers and express anger in a healthy way

Answer: C
Those in anger management classes learn how to defuse anger triggers and express anger in a healthy way.


9. Do animals get angry?
A. Of course -- haven't you ever stepped on a cat's tail?

B. No, animals are more likely expressing fear.

C. Further testing is needed on the brains of animals to make a judgment.

Answer: B
Anger requires a mental component that many scientists think that animals aren't capable of. Animals are likely expressing fear, a primary emotion, rather than anger, a secondary emotion which requires attributing blame.


10. What is public anger?
A. Displays of anger that happen in public as opposed to behind closed doors

B. Anger that is felt by the people toward the institutions in power

C. God's anger with the general public and society

Answer: B
Public anger is anger that is collectively directed toward the institutions in power.