RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A new study by a researcher with Virginia Commonwealth University found that self-control doesn’t always prevent rage — in fact, that control can lead to even more powerful aggression.
“Aggression As Successful Self-Control” by VCU Associate Professor of Social Psychology David Chester explores the idea that aggression can be the result of someone with great self-control. This goes against what many people have always understood about anger.
“This paper pushes back against a decades-long dominant narrative in aggression research, which is that violence starts when self-control stops,” Chester said.
Chester’s study discovered that those who take courses to help them control their anger — such as anger management, or other classes focused on regulating impulses — typically don’t see a drop in their aggression.
“Typically, people explain violence as the product of poor self-control,” Chester said. “In the heat of the moment, we often fail to inhibit our worst, most aggressive impulses. But that is only one side of the story.”
The pre-frontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for managing impulses — is actually traditionally more active in violent people.
“Vengeful people tend to exhibit greater premeditation of their behavior and self-control, enabling them to delay the gratification of sweet revenge and bide their time to inflict maximum retribution upon those who they believe have wronged them,” Chester said.
This, he said, is proof that a “more balanced, nuanced view” of rage is needed. If aggression is not only a result of giving into impulses, as Chester’s study suggests, then future interventions may need to change to account for this.
“Our research going forward is now guided by this new paradigm shift in thinking: that aggression is often the product of sophisticated and complex mental processes and not just uninhibited impulses,” Chester said.
