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THE SOCIAL ANIMAL

Myths about Interpersonal Behavior

Myth 27 Opposites Attract: We Are Most Romantically Attracted to People Who Differ from Us

It’s the Hollywood movie plot we’ve all come to know and love, and we can practically recite it by heart. Get out your popcorn, coke, and Raisinets, because the curtain is just about to rise.

Scene 1: The camera pans to a small, dingy, and messy bedroom. There, lying on the bed reading a biography of Ronald Reagan, we see a moderately overweight, balding, and rather unkempt man named Joe Cantgetadate. Joe is 37 years old, shy, nerdy, and completely lacking in self-confidence. Until recently he worked as a librarian but he’s now out of a job. Joe hasn’t dated anyone in over 3 years and he’s feeling hopeless and lonely.

Scene 2: On his way out of his apartment an hour later, Joe bumps into (literally) a stunningly gorgeous 25-year-old woman named Candice Blondebombshell. In the process, Joe knocks all of the shopping bags out of Candice’s hands, scattering them across the sidewalk, and he bends down to help her pick them up. Candice, it so happens, is not only beautiful, but outgoing, interpersonally skilled, and wildly popular. She works part-time as a waitress in an upscale restaurant and spends much of the rest of her time modeling for a top fashion agency. In contrast to Joe, who’s a conservative Republican, Candice is a flaming liberal. Sheepishly, Joe asks Candice out for a date, but ends up making an embarrassing Freudian slip, asking her if she wants a “mate” rather than a “date.” Candice laughs and tells Joe politely that she’s romantically involved with a famous celebrity (Brad Crowe-Cruise) and can’t see anyone else.

Scene 50: Forty-eight scenes, two and a half hours, and three buckets of popcorn later, Joe (who ended up bumping into Candice again 6 months later at the restaurant, this time knocking over all of the plates and drinks she was carrying) has somehow managed to win over Candice, who’s just broken off her relationship with Brad Crowe-Cruise. Candice, initially put off by Joe’s decided absence of stunning good lucks and awkward ways, now finds him adorable in a teddy-bear sort of way and utterly irresistible. Joe gets down on his knees, proposes to Candice, and she accepts. The credits scroll down the screen, the curtain closes, and you wipe the tears off your eyes with a Kleenex.

If this plot line seems awfully familiar, it’s because the notion that “opposites attract” is a standard part of our contemporary cultural landscape. Films, novels, and TV sitcoms overflow with stories of diametrical opposites falling passionately in love. There’s even an entire website devoted to “opposites attract” movies, such as You’ve Got Mail (1998), starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, and Maid in Manhattan (2001), starring Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes (http://marriage.about.com/ od/movies/a/oppositesmov.htm). The 2007 smash hit comedy, Knocked Up, starring Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, is perhaps Hollywood’s latest installment in its seemingly never-ending parade of mismatched romantic pairings (for you diehard movie buffs out there, according to the site the top “opposites attract” movie of all time is the 1934 comedy flick It Happened One Night).

Many of us are convinced that people who are opposite from each other in their personalities, beliefs, and looks, like Joe and Candice, are especially likely to be attracted to each other (the technical term for the attraction of opposites is “complementarity”). Psychologist Lynn McCutcheon (1991) found that 77% of undergraduates agreed that opposites attract in relationships. In his popular book, Opposites Attract, writer Tim Lahaye informed readers that “Two people of the same temperament almost never get married. Why? Because like temperaments repel, they don’t attract” (p. 43). This belief is also widespread in pockets of the ever-popular Internet dating community. On one Internet site called “Soulmatch,” Harville Hendrix, Ph.D. states that “It’s been my experience that only opposites attract because that’s the nature of reality” (the italics are Hendrix’s, not ours, by the way). “The great myth in our culture,” he later says, “is that compatibility is the grounds for a relationship—actually, compatibility is grounds for boredom.” Another Internet site, called “Dating Tipster,” informs visitors that “The saying ‘opposites attract’ is definitely true in some instances. Perhaps it’s the diversity of difference that creates the initial attraction … some people find the difference exciting.”

Yet, for most proverbs, in folk psychology there’s an equal and opposite proverb. So although you’ve almost certainly heard that “opposites attract,” you’ve probably also heard that “birds of a feather flock together.” Which saying is best supported by research evidence?

Unfortunately for Dr. Hendrix, research evidence suggests that he’s gotten his myths backward. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, opposites don’t attract. Instead, homophily (the fancy term for the tendency of similar people to attract each other) rather than complementarity is the rule. In this respect, Internet dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.com, which try to match prospective partners on the basis of similarity in their personality traits and attitudes, are mostly on the right track (although there’s not much research evidence on how successful these sites actually are in pairing people up).

Indeed, dozens of studies demonstrate that people with similar personality traits are more likely to be attracted to each other than people with dissimilar personality traits (Lewak, Wakefield, & Briggs, 1985). For example, people with a Type A personality style (that is, who are hard-driving, competitive, conscious of time, and hostile) prefer dating partners who also have a Type A personality, and the opposite goes for people with a Type B personality style (Morell, Twillman, & Sullaway, 1989). The same rule applies to friendships, by the way. We’re considerably more likely to hang out with people with similar than dissimilar personality traits (Nangle, Erdley, Zeff, Stanchfield, & Gold, 2004).

Similarity in personality traits isn’t merely a good predictor of initial attraction. It’s also a good predictor of marital stability and happiness (Caspi & Herbener, 1990; Lazarus, 2001). Apparently, similarity on the personality trait of conscientiousness is especially important for marital satisfaction (Nemechek & Olson, 1999). So if you’re a hopelessly messy and disorganized person, it’s probably best to find someone who isn’t a complete neat freak.

The “like attracts like” conclusion extends beyond personality to our attitudes and values. The classic work of Donn Byrne and his colleagues demonstrates that the more similar someone’s attitudes (for example, political views) are to ours, the more we tend to like that person (Byrne, 1971; Byrne, London, & Reeves, 1968). Interestingly, this association approximates what psychologists call a “linear” (or straight line) function, in which proportionally more similarity in attitudes leads to proportionally more liking. So we’re about twice as likely to be attracted to someone with whom we agree on 6 of 10 issues as someone with whom we agree on 3 of 10 issues. Nevertheless, at least some evidence suggests that dissimilarity in attitudes is even more important than similarity in predicting attraction (Rosenbaum, 1986). That is, although people with similar attitudes may be slightly more likely to be attracted to each other, people with dissimilar attitudes may be especially unlikely to be attracted to each other. In the case of attitudes, at least, it’s not merely the case that opposites don’t attract: They often repel.

Similarly, biologists Peter Buston and Stephen Emlen (2003) asked 978 participants to rank the importance of 10 characteristics they look for in a long-term mate, such as wealth, ambition, fidelity, parenting style, and physical attractiveness. They then asked these participants to rank themselves on the same 10 characteristics. The two sets of rankings were significantly associated, and were even more highly associated for women than for men, although the reason for this sex difference isn’t clear. We shouldn’t take the Buston and Emlen findings too far, as they’re based entirely on self-report. What people say they want in a partner may not always correspond to what they actually want, and people are sometimes biased in how they describe themselves. Moreover, what people say they value in a potential partner may not always predict their initial attraction to others (after all, many of us have had the experience of falling for someone whom we knew was bad for us). Still, Buston and Emlen’s results dovetail nicely with that of a great deal of other research demonstrating that when we seek out a soulmate, we seek out someone who matches our personalities and values.

How did the opposites attract myth originate? Nobody knows for sure, but we’ll serve up three possibilities for your consideration. First, one has to admit that the myth makes for a darned good Hollywood story. Tales of Joe and Candice ending up together are almost always more intriguing than tales of two similar people ending up together. In most cases, these tales are also more heartwarming. Because we’re more likely to encounter “opposites attract” than “similars attract” stories in films, books, and television programs, the former stories may strike us as commonplace. Second, we all yearn for someone who can make us “whole,” who can compensate for our weaknesses. Bob Dylan wrote in one of his love songs (The Wedding Song, released in 1973) of the desire to find that “missing piece” that completes us, much like a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Yet when push comes to shove, we may still be drawn to people who are most similar to us. Third and finally, it’s possible that there’s a tiny bit of truth to the “opposites attract” myth, because a few interesting differences between partners can spice up a relationship (Baron & Byrne, 1994). Being with someone who sees everything exactly the same way and agrees with us on every issue can be comforting, but boring. Still, no researchers have systematically tested this “similar people with a few differences here and there attract” hypothesis. Until they do, it’s probably safest for the real-life version of Joe to find himself another overweight librarian.

Myth #28 There’s Safety in Numbers: The More People Present at an Emergency, the Greater the Chance that Someone Will Intervene

Imagine the following two scenarios. Scenario A: Walking all alone late one night in a large city, you make a wrong turn into a long, dark alley. You turn the corner and see two men, one who is running toward you and the second, an unrelated passerby, who’s about 15 feet behind the first man. Suddenly, the first man jumps on you, knocks you to the ground, and attempts to wrestle away your wallet. Scenario B: You find yourself all alone one sunny afternoon in the middle of a large city park. You see about 40 people in the midst of their daily activities; some are sitting on benches, others are taking a leisurely stroll, and still others are playing Frisbee. Suddenly, a man jumps on you, knocks you to the ground, and attempts to wrestle away your wallet.

Now close you eyes for a moment and ask yourself: In which scenario would you feel more frightened?

If you’re like many laypersons and anywhere from one fifth to two fifths of psychology undergraduates (Furnham, 1992; Lenz, Ek, & Mills, 2009), you’d say Scenario A. After all, “there’s safety in numbers,” right? So in Scenario B, you could reasonably assume there’s a much greater chance—probably 40 times greater—that you’d receive help. Yet as we’ve already discovered in this book, common sense is often a poor guide to psychological reality. In fact, most of the research evidence shows that you’d probably be safer in Scenario A; that is, there’s actually danger rather than safety in numbers. How can this be?

To answer this question, let’s first consider two horrifying incidents. On the morning of August 19, 1995, 33-year-old Deletha Word was driving across a bridge in Detroit, Michigan, when she accidentally hit the fender of a car driven by Martell Welsh. Welsh and the two boys with him jumped out of their car, stripped Deletha down to her underwear, and beat her repeatedly with a tire jack. At one point, Welsh even held Deletha up in the air and asked bystanders whether anyone wanted a piece of “the bitch.” About 40 people drove by in their cars, but none intervened or called the police. In a desperate attempt to escape her attackers, Deletha jumped off the bridge into the river below, but drowned.

On May 30, 2008 in Hartford, Connecticut, a 78-year-old man on his way home from buying milk in a grocery store, Angel Arce Torres, was hit by a car in the middle of a busy street during rush hour. As Torres lay motionless, numerous bystanders merely watched and did nothing as nine cars swerved around him, not even bothering to stop. Oddly enough, one driver pulled over next to Torres but then continued on after doing nothing. Another man on a scooter circled around Torres briefly before departing. Not a single person paused to assist Torres before a police officer arrived on the scene. Today, Torres remains on a respirator, paralyzed from the waist down.

These two startling cases of bystander nonintervention seem difficult or impossible to explain. Following these deeply disturbing events, much of the news media routinely attempt to account for the non-responsive behavior of bystanders by invoking the callousness or apathy of people in large cities. People in cities, they maintain, are so accustomed to seeing terrible things that they cease to notice or care when they witness crimes in progress.

Yet in the late 1960s, psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane happened upon a very different explanation over a lunch meeting. They were discussing a similar widely publicized incident involving a young woman named Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death on March 13, 1964 in New York City, supposedly in full view of 38 eyewitnesses who did nothing (interestingly, later analyses of the police records from that day called into question several commonly accepted claims regarding the Genovese story, including the assertions that there were 38 eyewitnesses, that all eyewitnesses knew a murder was taking place, and that no eyewitnesses called the police; Manning, Levine, & Collins, 2007). Rather than blaming the causes of the Genovese murder and similar events on apathetic city-goers, Darley and Latane suspected that the causes of bystander nonintervention lay far more in commonplace psychological processes than in the interpersonal nature of the large urban environment. According to them, two key factors are at play in explaining bystander nonintervention.

First, Darley and Latane argued, a bystander needs to recognize that an emergency really is an emergency. Have you ever come across a person lying on the sidewalk and wondered whether that person needed help? Perhaps he or she was just drunk, or perhaps it was all part of a prank that you hadn’t been let in on. If you looked around and noticed that no one else looked at all concerned, you probably assumed that the situation wasn’t an emergency after all. Darley and Latane called this phenomenon pluralistic ignorance: the mistake of assuming that no one in the group shares your views (“No one is doing anything, so I guess I’m the only one who thinks this could be an emergency; well, I must be wrong”). One familiar example of pluralistic ignorance is the silent classroom scenario, which often occurs immediately after a lecture that’s left all of the students bewildered. As soon as the lecture is over, the professor asks “Does anyone have any questions?” and not a single soul responds. Everyone in the classroom looks around nervously, sees all of the other students sitting quietly, and assumes mistakenly that everyone else except them understood the lecture.

According to Darley and Latane, there’s a second process involved in bystander nonintervention. Even once it’s crystal clear that the situation is an emergency, the presence of others still tends to inhibit helping. Why? Because the more people who are present at an emergency, the less each person feels individually responsible for the negative consequences of not helping. If you don’t assist someone who’s having a heart attack and that person later dies, you can always say to yourself, “Well, that’s a terrible tragedy, but it wasn’t really my fault. After all, there were lots of other people around who could have helped too.” Darley and Latane called this phenomenon diffusion of responsibility, because the presence of other people makes each person feel less responsible for—and less guilty about—the outcome.

In an ingenious series of investigations, Darley, Latane, and their colleagues tested the notion that the presence of others inhibits helping in emergencies. In one study (Latane & Darley, 1968), participants entered a room to complete a series of questionnaires; in one condition, the participants were seated alone, in another, they were accompanied by two other participants. After a few minutes, smoke began pouring out of the vents into the room. When subjects were alone, they ran out of the room to report the smoke 75% of the time; when they were in groups, they did so only about half (38%) as often. When in groups, some subjects stayed in the smoke-filled room as long as 6 minutes—to the point at which they couldn’t even see their questionnaires!

In another study (Latane & Rodin, 1969), a female experimenter greeted participants, escorted them to a room to complete some surveys, and went to work in a nearby office containing books and a ladder. In some cases participants were alone; in others they were accompanied by another participant. A few minutes later, participants heard the experimenter falling from a ladder, followed by the sound of her screaming voice: “Oh, my God, my foot… I… I… can’t move it!” When participants were alone, they offered help 70% of the time; when they had a partner, one or both of them did so only 40% of the time. Researchers have replicated these kinds of findings many times using slightly different designs. In an analysis of almost 50 studies of bystander intervention involving almost 6,000 participants, Latane and Steve Nida (1981) found that participants were more likely help when alone than in groups about 90% of the time.

Yet even though there’s usually danger rather than safety in numbers, many people do help even in the presence of others. In the Deletha Word tragedy, two men actually jumped into the water in an unsuccessful attempt to save Deletha from drowning. In the Angel Arce Torres tragedy, four good Samaritans did call the police. Although psychologists don’t know for sure what makes some people more likely to help in emergencies than others, they’ve generally found that participants who are less concerned about social approval and less traditional are more likely to go against the grain and intervene in emergencies even when others are around (Latane & Darley, 1970).

There’s another silver lining to this gray cloud: Research suggests that being exposed to research on bystander effects actually increases the chances of intervening in emergencies. This is an example of what Kenneth Gergen (1973) called an “enlightenment effect”: Learning about psychological research can influence real-world behavior. One group of investigators (Beaman, Barnes, Klentz, & McQuirk, 1978) presented the research literature on bystander intervention effects to one psychology class (containing much of the same information you’ve just learned) but didn’t present this literature to a very similar psychology class. Two weeks later, the students—accompanied by a confederate of the experimenters —came upon a person slumped over on a park bench (as you might guess, the experimenters had rigged this scenario). Compared with only 25% of students who hadn’t received the lecture on bystander intervention, 43% of students who had received the lecture intervened to help the person. This study worked, probably because it imparted new knowledge and perhaps also because it made people more keenly aware of the importance of helping. So the few minutes you’ve spent reading this myth may have increased your chances of becoming a responsive bystander in emergencies. Although there may not be safety in numbers, there’s often safety in knowledge.

Myth #29 Men and Women Communicate in Completely Different Ways

Few topics have generated more spilt ink among poets, authors, and song-writers than the age-old question of why men and women seem not to understand each other. Even just confining ourselves to rock-and-roll, the number of songs that describe male–female miscommunication is probably too numerous to count. Take the lyrics of the Genesis song, “Misunderstanding”:

There must be some misunderstanding

There must be some kind of mistake

I waited in the rain for hours

You were late

Now it’s not like me to say the right thing

But you could’ve called to let me know.

Of course, it’s not just rock bands. Even famous personality theorists have expressed exasperation at their failed efforts to comprehend the opposite sex. No less an expert in human behavior than Sigmund Freud told Marie Bonaparte (a psychoanalyst and the great grand-niece of Napoleon Bonaparte) that:

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?” (Freud, quoted in Jones, 1955)

Of course, one harbors a sneaking suspicion that many women personality theorists hold similar views of men.

The belief that men and women communicate in completely different ways, resulting in perennial misunderstandings, is deeply entrenched in popular lore. Many television shows and cartoons, like The Honey-mooners, The Flintstones, and more recently The Simpsons and King of the Hill, capitalize heavily on the often unintentionally humorous communication differences between husbands and wives. The men in these shows talk about sports, eating, hunting, and gambling, the women in these shows about feelings, friendships, relationships, and home life. Moreover, these shows typically depict men as less emotionally perceptive or, putting it a bit less charitably, “denser” than women.

Surveys suggest that college students similarly perceive men and women as differing in their communication styles. In particular, undergraduates see women as considerably more talkative than men and more skilled at picking up on subtle nonverbal cues during conversations (Swim, 1994).

Furthermore, if one were to read much of the current popular psychology literature, one might almost be tempted to conclude that men and women aren’t merely different people, but different species. British linguist Deborah Tannen’s book You Just Don’t Understand (1991) reinforced this view by arguing—based largely on informal and anecdotal observations—that men’s and women’s styles of communication differ in kind rather than degree. In Tannen’s words, “Women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence” (p. 42).

American pop psychologist John Gray took this view one step further, metaphorically likening men and women to creatures from different planets. In his enormously successful “Mars and Venus” series of self-help books, beginning with Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1992), extending to a host of related books, including Mars and Venus in the Bedroom (1996), Mars and Venus on a Date (1999), Mars and Venus in the Workplace (2001), and Why Mars and Venus Collide (2008), Gray has advanced the radical position that men and women have entirely different styles of communicating their needs, so different that they’re continually misunderstanding each other. Wrote Gray (1992), “Not only do men and women communicate differently but they think, feel, perceive, react, respond, love, need, and appreciate differently. They almost seem to be from different planets, speaking different languages” (p. 5). Among other things, Gray claims that women’s language focuses on intimacy and connectedness, men’s on independence and competition (Barnett & Rivers, 2004; Dindia & Canary, 2006). In addition, says Gray, when they’re upset, women express their feelings, whereas men withdraw into a “cave.”

Gray’s Mars and Venus books have sold over 40 million copies in 43 languages. USA Today named Gray’s 1992 book one of the 25 most influential books of the 20th century, and according to one estimate, Gray’s books were second only to the Bible during the 1990s in overall sales (http://www.ritaabrams.com/pages/MarsVenus.php). Gray has opened over 25 Mars and Venus Counseling Centers across the country, all with the goal of improving communication between the alien worlds of men and women. On Gray’s website, one can find instructions for accessing a Mars and Venus dating service and phone helpline (Cameron, 2007). And in 1997, Gray even transformed his Mars and Venus books into a musical comedy that opened on Broadway.

Although Gray and other pop psychologists haven’t conducted any research to back up their claims, many other investigators have examined the evidence bearing on sex differences in communication. In particular, we can turn to the literature to address four major questions: (1) Do women talk more than men? (2) Do women disclose more about themselves than men? (3) Do men interrupt other people more than women? (4) Are women more perceptive of nonverbal cues than men (Barnett & Rivers, 2004; Cameron, 2007)?

In addition, we can pose a further question: To the extent that such differences exist, how large are they in size? To address this question, psychologists often rely on a metric called Cohen’s d, named after statistician Jacob Cohen (1988), who popularized it. Without going into the gory statistical details, Cohen’s d tells us how large the difference between groups is relative to the variability within these groups. As a rough benchmark, a Cohen’s d of .2 is considered small, .5 medium, and .8 or bigger large. To provide a few yardsticks for comparison, the Cohen’s d for the average difference between men and women in the personality trait of conscientiousness (with women being more conscientious) is about .18 (Feingold, 1994); for physical aggression (with men being more aggressive) it’s about .60 (Hyde, 2005); and for height (with men being taller) it’s about 1.7 (Lippa, 2005).

(1) Do women talk much more than men? Although the belief that women are more talkative than men has been popular for decades, psychiatrist Louann Brizendine lent it new credence in her bestsell-ing book, The Female Brain (2006). There, Brizendine cited a claim that women speak an average of 20,000 words per day compared with only 7,000 for men, and scores of media outlets soon broadcast this difference as firmly established. Yet closer inspection of this report reveals that it’s derived entirely from a self-help book and various second-hand sources, not from systematic research (Cameron, 2007; Liberman, 2006). Indeed, Brizendine dropped the claim from a later reprinting of her book. When psychologist Janet Hyde (2005) combined the results of 73 controlled studies into a meta-analysis (see p. 32), she found an overall Cohen’s d of .11, reflecting greater talkativeness among women than men. Yet this difference is smaller than small, and barely noticeable in everyday life. Psychologist Matthias Mehl and his colleagues put another nail in the coffin of the talkativeness claim in a study tracking the daily conversations of 400 college students who sported portable electronic recorders. They found that women and men both talked about 16,000 words per day (Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, & Pennebaker, 2007).

(2) Do women disclose much more about themselves than men? Con trary to the popular stereotype that women talk much more than men about matters of personal concern to them, Hyde (2005) found a Cohen’s d of .18 across 205 studies. This finding is small in magnitude, and indicates that women are only slightly more self- disclosing than men.

(3) Do men interrupt others much more often than women? Yes, although across 53 studies of gender differences in conversations, Hyde (2005) again found the difference to be at most small in size, a Cohen’s d of .15. Even this difference is hard to interpret, because research suggests that interruptions and turn-taking in conversation are partly a function of social status. In studies in which women are in charge, women tend to interrupt more often, take more turns, and talk longer than men (Aries, 1996; Barnett & Rivers, 2004).

(4) Are women much more perceptive of nonverbal cues than men? Here, the answer is somewhat clearer, and it’s a qualified “yes.” Meta-analyses (see p. 32) on adults by Judith Hall (1978, 1984) examining participants’ ability to detect or differentiate emotions (like sadness, happiness, anger, and fear) in people’s faces suggested a Cohen’s d of about .40, although a meta-analysis on children and adolescents by Erin McClure (2000) suggested a smaller difference of only .13.

So, men and women indeed communicate in slightly different ways, and a few of these differences are sizeable enough to be meaningful. Yet for practical purposes, men and women are far more alike than different in their communication styles, and it’s not clear how much the existing differences are due to intrinsic differences between the sexes as opposed to sex differences in power differentials (Barnett & Rivers, 2004; Cameron, 2007). Across studies, gender differences in communication seldom exceed the small range using Cohen’s d (Aries, 1996). So John Gray’s books, counseling centers, and Broadway musical notwithstanding, men aren’t from Mars, nor are women from Venus. Instead, in the words of communication researcher Kathryn Dindia (2006), it’s probably more accurate to say that “men are from North Dakota, women are from South Dakota” (p. 4).

Myth #30 It’s Better to Express Anger to Others than to Hold It in

Patrick Henry Sherrill has the dubious distinction of being the person who inspired the term “going postal” for committing one of the worst mass murders in American history. On August 20, 1986, Sherrill, enraged at the prospect that he’d be fired from his job as a postal worker, fired two guns that he hid in his mail pouch, killing 14 employees and wounding 6 others before taking his own life at the Edmond, Oklahoma Post Office. Many people now use the term “going postal” to describe a person’s becoming uncontrollably angry and violent. “Road rage,” a slang term referring to eruptions of anger on roadways, can likewise be deadly. On April 16, 2007, after flashing his headlights and tailgating Kevin Norman, Jason Reynolds cut in front of Norman and slammed on his brakes. When Norman swerved to avoid a collision, his vehicle rolled across the median, landed atop another vehicle, and killed Norman and the other driver (The Washington Times, 2007).

Could Sherrill and Reynolds have averted these lethal outbursts if they’d vented their pent-up emotions at home, say, by punching a pillow or using a plastic bat to swat away their anger? If you’re like most people, you believe that releasing anger is healthier than keeping it bottled up. In one survey, 66% of undergraduates agreed that expressing pent-up anger is an effective means of reducing one’s risk for aggression (Brown, 1983). This belief dates back to more than 2,000 years ago, when Greek philosopher Aristotle, in his classic Poetics, observed that viewing tragic plays provides the opportunity for catharsis (derived from the Greek word “katharsis”)—a purging of anger and other negative emotions that provides a satisfying psychological cleansing experience.

Sigmund Freud (1930/1961), an influential proponent of catharsis, believed that repressed fury could build up and fester, much like steam in a pressure cooker, to the point that it caused psychological conditions like hysteria or trip-wired aggression. The key to therapy and rosy mental health, said Freud and his followers, is to dampen the pressure of negative feelings by talking about them and releasing them in a controlled manner in and out of treatment. The Marvel comic book and movie character, “The Hulk,” is a metaphor for the consequences of the failure to control rage that always lurks at the fringes of consciousness. When mild-mannered Bruce Banner lets too much anger build up or is provoked, he morphs into his rampaging alter-ego, the Hulk.

Anger, popular psychology teaches us, is a monster we must tame. A host of films stoke the idea that we can do so by “letting off steam,” “blowing our top,” “getting things off our chest,” and “getting it out of our system.” In Analyze This (1999), a psychiatrist (played by Billy Crystal) advises a New York Gangster (played by Robert De Niro) to hit a pillow whenever he’s angry. In Network (1976), an angry news anchor (played by Peter Finch) implores irate viewers, outraged by the high price of oil, the plummeting economy, and the country being on war footing, to release their frustrations by opening their windows and hollering, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” In response to his urgings, millions of Americans do just that. In Anger Management (2003), after the meek hero (played by Adam Sandler) is falsely accused of “air rage” on a flight, a judge orders him to attend an anger management group run by Dr. Buddy Rydell (played by Jack Nicholson). At Rydell’s suggestion, Sandler’s character fires dodgeball at schoolchildren and throws golf clubs to purge his anger.

Dr. Rydell’s advice is similar to the counsel of authors of many self-help books on anger management. John Lee (1993) suggested that rather than “holding in poisonous anger,” it’s better to “Punch a pillow or a punching bag. And while you do it, yell and curse, and moan and holler. Punch with all the frenzy you can. If you are angry with a particular person, imagine his or her face on the pillow or punching bag, and vent your rage physically and verbally” (p. 96). Drs. George Bach and Herb Goldberg (1974) recommended an exercise dubbed “The Vesuvius” (named after the Italian volcano that caused the destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79), in which “… individuals can vent their pent-up frustrations, resentments, hurts, hostilities, and rage in a full-throated, screaming outburst” (p. 180).

A variety of toys are available on the Internet to prevent anger melt-downs. One of our favorites is the “Choker Chicken.” When you turn on the “Choker,” you’ll be treated to a lively rendition of the “Chicken Dance.” When you choke the “Chicken,” the reaction is immediate— his legs flail about as his eyes pop out and his cheeks redden. When you release his neck, you’ll hear a speeded-up version of the “Chicken Dance,” perhaps prompting you to engage in further “anger management.” If you’re not exactly enchanted by the prospect of choking a chicken (even a plastic one), perhaps consider the “Choking Strangler Boss” toy. When you press his left hand, the “Boss” taunts you with nasty criticisms, such as telling you that you need to work overtime even when you’re feeling ill. But when you choke the “Boss,” his eyes pop out, his arms and legs flail about, and he tells you that you deserve a raise or you can take some time off. Mission accomplished.

Techniques to deal with anger have even found a home in some psy-chotherapies. Some popular therapies encourage clients to scream, hit pillows, or throw balls against walls when they become angry (Lewis & Bucher, 1992). Proponents of “primal therapy,” often informally called “primal scream therapy,” believe that psychologically troubled adults must release the emotional pain produced by infant and childhood trauma by discharging this pain, often by screaming at the top of their lungs (Janov, 1970). Some cities, including Atlanta, Georgia, still have primal therapy centers. A website that advertises “The Center for Grieving Children” suggests using a “mad box” to help children deal with their emotions (http://www.cgcmaine.org/childrensactivities.xhtml). The box is simple to construct, as follows: “(1). Fill the box with paper, you can cut pictures from a magazine or write down things that make you mad; (2). Tape the box shut; (3). Use a plastic bat, bataka, or jump on the box until it’s in shreds; (4). Burn or recycle the remnants.”

Some supposedly cathartic therapeutic approaches to cope with anger are arguably even more bizarre. People in the town of Castejon, Spain now practice “Destructotherapy” to relieve office stress: men and women destroy junked cars and household items with sledgehammers to the beat of a rock band playing in the background (Fox News, 2008; see Figure 7.1). This “therapy” may have been inspired by the film Office Space (1999), which includes a scene in which angry workers who hate their jobs and their boss take an office printer to a field and beat it mercilessly with a baseball bat.

These shenanigans aside, research suggests that the catharsis hypothesis is false. For more than 40 years, studies have revealed that encouraging the expression of anger directly toward another person or indirectly (such as toward an object) actually turns up the heat on aggression (Bushman, Baumeister, & Stack, 1999; Lewis & Bucher, 1992; Littrell, 1998; Tavris, 1988). In one of the earliest studies, people who pounded nails after someone insulted them were more, rather than less, critical of that person (Hornberger, 1959). Moreover, playing aggressive sports like football, which are presumed to promote catharsis, results in increases in aggression (Patterson, 1974), and playing violent videogames like Manhunt, in which bloody assassinations are rated on a 5-point scale, is associated with increased aggression in the laboratory and everyday life (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Anderson, Gentile, & Buckley, 2007).

Figure 7.1 Participants in a 2005 “destructotherapy” session in Castejon, Spain, whack away at a car in a group effort to release their pent-up rage. But is destructotherapy an effective treatment for anger or a recipe for road rage?

Source: REUTERS/Vincent West.

So getting angry doesn’t “let off steam”: It merely fans the flames of our anger. Research suggests that expressing anger is helpful only when it’s accompanied by constructive problem-solving designed to address the source of the anger (Littrell, 1998). So if we’re upset at our partner for repeatedly showing up late for dates, yelling at him or her is unlikely to make us feel better, let alone improve the situation. But calmly and assertively expressing one’s resentment (“I realize you probably aren’t doing this on purpose, but when you show up late it hurts my feelings”) can often go a long way toward resolving conflict.

The media may increase the likelihood that people will express anger: People may engage in aggressive acts because they believe they’ll feel better afterward (Bushman, Baumeister, & Phillips, 2001). Brad Bushman and his colleagues (Bushman et al., 1999) provided participants with bogus newspaper stories claiming that acting aggressively is a good way to reduce anger, and then gave them critical comments on an essay they wrote on abortion (“This is one of the worst essays I have ever read!”). Contrary to the catharsis hypothesis, people who read the pro-catharsis story— which claimed that catharsis is a good way to relax and reduce anger —and then hit a punching bag became more aggressive toward the person who insulted them than did people who read an anti-catharsis newspaper story and hit a punching bag.

Why is the myth of catharsis still popular despite compelling evidence that anger feeds aggression? Because people sometimes feel better for a short time after they blow off steam, it may reinforce aggression and the belief that catharsis works (Bushman, 2002; Bushman et al., 1999). Also, people often mistakenly attribute the fact that they feel better after they express anger to catharsis, rather than to the fact that anger usually subsides on its own after a while. As Jeffrey Lohr and his colleagues (Lohr, Olatunji, Baumeister, & Bushman, 2007) observed, this is an example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy, the error of assuming that because one thing comes before another, it must cause it (see Introduction, p. 14). We agree with Carol Tavris (1988) that “It is time to put a bullet, once and for all, through the heart of the catharsis hypothesis” (p. 197). But after we pull the trigger, will we feel better—or worse—than before we fired the shot?

Chapter 7: Other Myths to Explore

Fiction	Fact
Large groups make less extreme decisions than individuals.	Research on the “risky shift” and, later, “group polarization” suggests that groups tend to make more extreme decisions than individuals.
Crowding consistently leads to more aggression.	Crowding sometimes reduces aggression, because people in crowded areas often try to limit their interactions with others.
People’s attitudes are highly predictive of their behaviors.	In most cases, attitudes are only weak predictors of behaviors.
To reduce prejudice, we must first change people’s attitudes.	Changing people’s behaviors is often the best way to change their prejudiced attitudes.
“Brainstorming” new ideas in groups works better than asking people to generate ideas on their own.	Most studies show that the quality of ideas generated in brainstorming sessions is poorer than that of ideas generated by individuals.
High levels of anger in marriage are highly predictive of divorce.	Anger between partners tends not to be especially predictive of divorce, although levels of some other emotions, especially contempt, are.
Poverty and poor education are major causes of terrorism, especially suicide bombings.	Many or most suicide bombers are well educated and financially comfortable.
Most members of cults are mentally disturbed.	Studies show that most cult members don’t suffer from serious psychopathology.
The best way to change someone’s attitude is to give him or her a large reward to do so.	Research on “cognitive dissonance” theory demonstrates the best way to change someone’s attitude is to give him or her the smallest reward possible needed to do so.
Rewarding people for creative work always strengthens their motivation to produce more creative work.	In some cases, rewarding people for creative work may undermine their intrinsic motivation.
Basketball players shoot in “streaks.”	Research suggests that the “hot hand” in basketball is an illusion, because making many shots in a row doesn’t increase a player’s chances of making his or her next shot.
Playing “hard to get” is a good way of getting someone interested in you romantically.	Research suggests that are men are less interested in women who are “standoffish” than women who are receptive to their advances.
When Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City in 1964, no one came to her aid.	There’s good evidence that some eyewitnesses called the police shortly after Genovese was attacked.

Sources and Suggested Readings

To explore these and other myths about interpersonal behavior, see de Waal, Aureli, and Judge (2000); Gilovich (1991); Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985); Kohn (1990); Manning, Levine, and Collins (2007); Myers (2008).