Self-Witnessing Report on the Age of Rage by Rebecca Chung

Contents

Until recently, I have considered myself an easygoing, open, understanding person. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong about myself. The very first thing we have to do for Dr. James' class is to get involved in a forum discussion where we post two raging self-witnessing experiences every week. During the very first week of the assignment, I found myself raging on many little things that I didn’t consider so upsetting. Only then I realized that I got easily upset whenever I was in the public. I got upset by other drivers, pedestrians, classmates, etc..

I don’t express my rage towards others, but I certainly feel it in my head and my heart. I am not much of a confronting person and maybe this was the reason why I didn’t think of myself as a raging person. I was really surprised by this new discovery about myself. It was also interesting to read my classmates posts in the forum discussion because I could totally relate myself to some of the raging stories and I found some of them really silly. We are a group of students raging on almost every issue that surround us.

However, I am glad to report here that I found myself less raging toward the others since I’ve been carefully examining myself for the last two months. I know it will take much longer for me to change my behavior, but at least I have become aware of the raging situations and I try to keep myself calm throughout the raging event. You too will be surprise how easily you experience rage in your everyday life if you pay a little attention to your emotion and observe your thoughts.

Good news about it is that you can take control of your rage if you have enough motivation to become a better person. What I mean by a better person is that you will be able to have better control of your emotions. In order to do this, you would have to be more sympathetic to others. And I think this is very important. We are living in a society where we are becoming more and more distant and less caring to each other. Imagine how much better and happy of a society we would be able to create if we had a little more patience and bigger heart to let go of our nuisance emotions that do more harm than good to us.

My Report 1 is an annotated bibliography which contains four types of rage: air-rage, pet-rage, cellphone-rage, and gun-rage. These are the big topics that are informed through the media. I picked these four types of rage because of the awareness I got for the media and I was also interested in learning about them to prevent my future rage. As I surfed the web looking for the sites to use for my annotated bibliography, I found much useful information on the topics I listed here. I believe that the knowledge is the key to the success in avoiding and preventing rage and these sites did an excellent job in doing their work as an informant and guidance. I wish you will find the sites I provided on my Report 1 as useful and helpful as I did.

Report 2 is on three episodes of self-witnessed rage I experienced. This report deals with less violent rage compare to the first report, but it is as much important, because these are the rage I experience in my everyday life. As I said before, we don't even recognize many of the rage that we experience in our lives because we have become accustomed to them. We consider it as a normal reaction and include rage as a part of many frustrating situations. This is why our rage habits are very hard to be changed. In Dr.James' class, we try to intervene the rage episodes through sensorimotor, cognitive and affective behavior. I tried these techniques in the events I described in this report.

I was waiting at a stop sign for traffic to clear on Wilder Ave., so I could continue the trip to home. However on this particular day, the traffic in the Wilder Ave. was pretty heavy. Cars started to line up behind my car. Since there was no stop sign on the Wilder Ave., cars coming out from the H-1 freeway didn’t slow down and there was no way I could cross the street unless the traffic cleared. I was waiting patiently for the traffic to clear, but it just didn’t happen. Cars on the opposite side of my street also couldn’t make their move as well. I noticed that I was getting a little annoyed by the traffic in the Wilder Ave. I was calmly listening to the music with a happy face, but my face expression started to change. I took a deep breath and put a tired look on my face. Then I started to tap my index finger on steering handle. A wait that took little over than a minute seemed like forever in my mind. Finally the traffic in the Wilder Ave. started to fill up by the red traffic light and at last we the drivers on the Dole street had a chance to continue our trip. As soon as I was about to put my right foot on the gas, a car came out from the H-1 freeway and then blocked the intersection. My mouth just dropped and suddenly rage took over me. My body got tensed and my head felt a little numb from the rage. I was really pissed off at this driver. I fixed my gazed on this man and didn’t event blink once. Then I started badmouthing him. I wanted to hit his car and just continue with my frustrated trip. I would have honked at him if I could go on, but we were all stuck and I didn’t want to be there after I honked at him, so I had to hold it. Another minute or so then cars started to move. A car behind that annoying car gave me a signal to go ahead even though he had the right to go first. So I gave him a thank you sign and then continued my long frustrated trip again. When I got to the middle of the intersection, I opened my window, fixed my gazed at that stupid man and honked at him. I wanted to show him that I was really mad at him, but he didn’t look back. He had his eyes fixed to the vehicle in front of him. I was furious that he didn’t even look at me to apologize. I kept telling myself about what a bad and stupid guy he was throughout the rest of my trip home, which took nearly 10 minutes from the raging event. I drove 5mph faster than usual and didn’t let other vehicles cut in front of me. My head was just full of the raging thoughts. I believed that I had every right to be mad at him and that he shouldn’t have block the intersection. However as soon as I entered the parking lot, my raging emotion disappeared and I was able to concentrate on things I had to do at home.

At 5:00p.m. same day, I had to come out of home to pick up my husband at his work. As soon as I walked to the parking lot, I started to feel the same raging emotion again. My emotions became so strong that I was experiencing the same rage that I felt in the frustrated event earlier. With this emotion, I drove to my husband’s work place. Again, I drove about 5mph faster than usual and didn’t yield or let others come in front of me. In reunion with my husband, I started to complain about the experience I had earlier and how I was still upset about it. I went on with how stupid that guy must have been to block the intersection in such a situation. My husband listened the whole story without interrupting me. But when I finished telling him the story, we didn’t discuss about it. I just threw a line or two to show how upset I was. For the next few days, I was still upset about that event whenever I was on the road.

I knew right away that I was mad at the driver as soon as he blocked the intersection

My facial expression changed: my eyebrow raised, my mouth dropped then tightened

Tapping my index finger on steering handle then holding it tight with both of my hands

Sadly, I experienced this rage in the beginning of the semester, so I didn’t have chance to modify my behavior. However when I look back at this experience, I can see how easily I became emotional with the rage. I viewed the whole event only from my point of view. I could have been more open to the other possibilities that could have made him block the intersection. First, he may have not been familiar with the area and made a mistake of blocking the intersection. Second, he might have expected the cars in front of him to move a little more. There are many other possibilities just than assuming him as a ruthless person, but I chose to believe that he was blocking on purpose. Second, I should have better controlled my emotions after the incident. I expressed my rage in my driving and became a ruthless driver myself. I should have taken a deep breath and let go of the rage. I am pretty good at letting go of unpleasant thoughts, so it wouldn’t have been hard thing to do. I was caught up by the moment and couldn’t or refused to seek any other alternative choices I had. I think I will handle my emotions better if I get into situations like this again.

My sister loves talking on the phone. Her cellphone rings 24/7. She got tons of friends calling her from other states and outside U.S. Since I don't like talking on the phone or having someone on the phone for long time, I always complain about it whenever she comes over to my home or I visit her place. I just can't understand why she has to be on the phone all the time.

My family always have dinner together around at 6:00p.m. I don't live with my parents but I always visit them to have dinner with them. One day, about 5 minutes after we started having dinner, my sister's cellphone rang. As soon as I heard the phone, I got upset. I didn't even look at my sister. As usual, she answered the phone instead of turning it off and went into her room to talk to whomever that called her. I shouted at her, "Can't you ask them to call you back after the dinner?!" My sister didn't reply. My family just ignored her and continued with the dinner. It's been so long since my sister behaved that way, my parents don't care any more. But I was obviously bothered by it. I started thinking about how stubborn and stupid of her not being able to tell the person that she was having a dinner. I always get this same emotion and thoughts whenever her phone rings. When she came back to the table, I asked her , "Why don't you turn off the phone while we are having a dinner?!" in an annoying tone. She said it was her life and that I didn't need to butt in. I was totally astounded. So I just gave up and continued with my dinner. Although my sister's bad table manner continuously bothered me throughout the dinner time, I focused on other subjects. I did not talk to my sister to avoid further argument. By the end of the dinner, I had forgotten about it and was able to be nice to my sister again.

I raised my voice and told my sister "Can't you ask them to call you back after the dinner?!"

Being upset by my sister's behavior (upset enough to talk out loud in front of my parents).

I told myself that my sister's behavior won't change by my criticism. She's been like that for years and she will probably continue to behave that way no matter what I tell her.

I focused my thoughts to other subjects even though my sister's bad table manner bothered me.

After the last class, I went to the bookstore to buy some school supplies with my friend. As we entered the Campus Center, where the bookstore is located, a gentleman approached us asking to sign a petition. He didn't bother to explain what it was for and so we assumed that it was for the UH faculty strike. As I got closer to the table to signed the petition, I noticed that it was blank. No one else had signed it. I suddenly got suspicious and asked him what it was for. Only then he told us that it was to legalize the gambling in Hawaii. As soon as he answered my question, I put down the pen and told him that I was against legalizing gambling in Hawaii and therefore I can't sign it. We walked away from the table as fast as we could. I was mad at him and myself. First, I was stupid enough to almost sign that petition without knowing what it was for. Second, he boldly asked us to sign a controversial petition without explaining it was first. We talked about how he looked like one of the professors. We almost got fooled by his appearance. I learned later that this is the strategy they use to lure people into signing their petition. Sometimes they even tell people that it's a petition for the UH strike. I can't believe how far they are going to get their petition signed. Imagine what they will do once the gambling gets legalize in Hawaii. With the governor who cares only about making money, it will be a disaster!

I got mad at him when I found out that the petition was to legalize gambling in Hawaii.

When I found out later that they do this to get people sign the petition, I was extremely upset about it.

I felt that these people (who are trying to legalize gambling) were no better than rats.

I hated his gut for coming to the campus to have students sign it without explaining what it is first.

I attitude towards legalizing gambling in Hawaii got worse after talking to this man.

I really felt that we shouldn't legalize gambling in Hawaii after hearing all the stories from others.

I told myself that it was his job to get the petition signed by people and that he was just doing what he was told to do.

Instead of raging on about what happened, I alerted my family and friends to be aware of the situation. So they won't be fool by them.

I thought how lucky I was for not signing the petition which I strongly oppose by a mistake.

I realized later that I could have asked him why he didn't bother to explain the purpose of the petition instead of criticizing him without knowing why he didn't explain it.

Rages I have listed above happened at home, school, and while driving a car. I was surprised at myself when I first found out how often I experience rage in my everyday life. I didn't even know that I was experiencing rage. I just included these emotions as part of the situation that I was involved in. I learned in Dr.Jame's class that these emotions that I've been experiencing was rage. Now that I know they are unnecessary rage that can be controlled, I can become self-aware of myself whenever I'm involved in a situation where I can get upset.

According to Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R.(2000) there are two types of aggression.

a. Hostile aggression: Aggression stemming from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain.

b. Instrumental aggression: Aggression as a means to some goal other than causing pain.

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes viewed human beings' natural state as brute and we curb the instinct of aggression only by enforcing law and order of society. Opposite to Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau viewed human beings as benign and good nature. He believed that it is a restrictive society that forces aggression on us.

Evolution theory and social learning theory also explain aggression in their own terms applying their views and concepts. But no matter how well the aggression is studied or explained, it will not be helpful if it can't be prevented or controlled in our everyday life. Aggression can cause physical and psychological pain and discomfort. Environmental factors such as heat, humidity, or air pollution could add discomfort to us which is also related to aggression.

As much as we are becoming desensitized to the violence in the media, I think that we are also becoming desensitized to rage/aggression as well. With our hectic schedules and fast moving society, it is rather hard to stay calm and happy. We struggle to meet the deadlines and compete with others to prove that "I" am better than the "others". With all these going on in our life, we are prone to get upset by little mistakes made by others or by ourselves. Even the smallest mistake can make us rage which may result in hurting ourselves and/or others.

The three episodes of rage that I have described here are also minor incidents of my everyday life. I may have experienced even more intense cases of rage and not even remember them. These episodes were memorized in my head as they happened to me only because I was doing my homework. I study my emotions as I experience rage so that I could put them into words and post them in the discussion or write it on a report. And this is how I found out that I was raging unnecessarily in most of the events.

My sister kindly reminds me with the phrase "There you go again. You are raging!" when I don't realize that I'm raging. It's really funny when someone tells you that you are raging, because you don't think you are but someone else finds you raging. But if you look at yourself, you will find out that you are actually raging. I tell my sister "Thank you" for reminding me and try to keep myself calm.

RAGE, AGGRESSION, ANGER, ABUSE, VIOLENCE, BULLY... These are the words I've never used, even thought of describing myself before I took Dr.James' class. I hope you don't find these words to describe yourself. Take some time to discover yourself! Monitor your thoughts, emotions, behaviors!

WAYS TO AVOID AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R.(2000)

Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R. (2000) Social Psychology (3rd edition). Addison-Wesley. New York.

Shaffer, David R. (2000) Social and Personality Development (4th edition). Wadsworth. Belmont, California.