Buzz
It seems toddlers might be onto something: Destruction can indeed help alleviate anger in a significant way, according to a recent study in Scientific Reports. But before rushing to book a session at your local rage room, it's important to pause for some reflection.
Humans have long sought healthy ways to channel their anger. To explore the calming effects of writing down and discarding one’s emotions, researchers in Japan conducted a study with two distinct exercises. Initially, they asked college students to write a brief essay on how to solve a common societal issue, such as public smoking. They were told their essays would be graded and returned, but instead of personalized feedback, each participant received a universally poor evaluation across categories like intelligence, interest, friendliness, logic, respectability, and rationality.
To make the experience more humiliating, the researchers added the following remark on each paper: 'I can’t believe an educated person would think like this. I hope this person learns something while at the university.'
Each participant was asked to sit in silence for two minutes, reflecting on their grade. They were then instructed to write down their thoughts, focusing on their emotional response, with the reassurance that no one would read their reflections.
Here’s the interesting part: Some participants were told to shred their reflections, others to toss them in the trash, and some were asked to keep them. Researchers noted that those who shredded or discarded the paper found it much easier to release their anger. In contrast, those who held onto their notes kept holding onto their anger; the journaling helped them, but not nearly as much. There was no significant difference between shredding and throwing the paper away. The mental benefit seemed to stem from physically removing the object that symbolized their emotions.
This effect seems to challenge the 'magical contagion' or 'celebrity contagion' concept—the psychological belief that 'objects carry some essence of their former owners.' In this case, after transferring their emotions onto the paper, destroying the paper symbolically helps rid them of those emotions as well.
This approach has been used throughout history. The study researchers mention the Japanese festival of hakidashisara at the Hiyoshi shrine in Kiyosu, where people smash small plates to symbolize the things that make them angry. Additionally, the act of writing a letter just to burn it is a well-known spiritual and therapeutic practice for releasing complex emotions.
The potential applications of these findings are clear. This is a simple technique that anyone can try, and its benefits go beyond the individual. Helping people process their anger constructively could reduce instances of violence [PDF] and enhance mental and physical health—not to mention improving relationships—for those dealing with anger management challenges.
This study also has relevance for other emotions. It’s reasonable to believe that difficult feelings like sadness, envy, loneliness, or anxiety could be eased through a similar technique. At the very least, we know that journaling [PDF] by itself is often an effective starting point. If you prefer to vent digitally, it’s still unclear whether using the virtual recycling bin would offer the same advantages.
