The analysis continuously refers to a ratio used, known as a welfare tradeoff ratio (WTR), that defines how much weight should be placed on the welfare on one’s self (i) compared to an individual (j). An anger system is formulated using “two different families of internal variables to regulate behavior: formidability indexes, designed to track the ability of self and others to inflict costs; and conferral indexes, designed to track the ability of self and others to confer benefits.”
It is acknowledged throughout the article that there are countless factors which contribute to a person’s ability to inflict costs or grant benefits. For ease and basis of proof to the hypothesis tests were done to analyze two governing factors, strength and attractiveness, in both males and females.
The overall results were quite interesting and further divided into subcategories including; Proneness to anger, history of fighting, utility of personal aggression, utility of political aggression, entitlement, success in conflict, and rumination. As predicted from the original theory, the results showed the strength in men and the attractiveness increased the individuals WTR and proneness to anger.
The results for these factors can be traced back to the beginning of time and may be explained as follows: If a man knows he is physically stronger than his counterpart than he believes that he is entitled to a higher WTR ratio. The stronger man knows he can inflict physical cost on another. For this reason the stronger man uses anger "to bully another into recalculating a WTR in [his] favor," knowing that many times his visible strength can help him get what he wants in one way or another. This same idea applies to the attractiveness in women. In our somewhat sex driven society, the more attractive women assume they have more to offer, ability to confer benefits and use this to their power. The
analysis claims that the more attractive women think they are entitled to better treatment and a higher WTR ratio for the benefits they provide. If they believe something is not fair, as defined by the individuals WTR ratio, then they will use anger to show this until the conflict is resolved in the woman’s favor. (This could explain why all movies and T.V. shows always depict the ‘attractive cheerleaders’ to be big b****es and always using some form of anger to get what they want.)At first glance, the bases of the recalibrational theory of anger appears to make sense. As mentioned earlier, this could provide some insight to the stereotypes of attractive girls being mean and nasty when they don’t get their way or why the strong ‘meatheads’ around campus are the ones who always seem to get in fights and result to anger using physical threats when they don’t get what they want. This does not assume that the stronger men and more attractive women are angry more consistently than others though. The theory assumes that they expect better treatment then the average person and if they do not receive that then they will become angry to get what they want. For example, many times I have witnessed an attractive girl get better treatment than someone else so she remains calm and satisfied. But the idea states that that same girl will get angry a lot easier if something does not go her way. The less attractive girl would not expect that beneficial treatment so will not become angry if it does not happen.
The nice thing about the two factors chosen, strength and attractiveness, can be traced back throughout all of history with positive evidence. The idea is that the individuals with a higher WTR sustained relationships with each other which helped develop and evolve the WTR ratios in future generations and can help describe the vast characteristics and personalities throughout our society. The problem though is as society has progressed, more and more factors of inflicting costs and inferring benefits have developed. As mentioned in the article, “resources, skills, social influence, wealth, status – should also modulate anger.” With this said, it is difficult determine what factors are weighted more in determining an equation for an individual’s WTR ratio and expected proneness to anger.
One of the most interesting results and conclusions from this article was how the factors positively correlated with the Utility of Political Aggression. The positive correlation from the results infers that the stronger or more attractive individuals were more willing to use “military force in international affairs and against internal transgressors." This does not quite hold true to the theory considering the strength of an individual will have zero effect on the success of a milityary stride. But the correlation could provide insigh on how some aspects of anger has evolved throughout our generations. "The recolibrational theory of anger’s analysis of ancestral payoffs predicts this finding, but not rational choice models operating on modern payoffs.” Many years ago, before all the technological advancements, the strength of a single human did play a major role in war. The stronger leaders of ‘tribes’ could take and do what they wanted. So does this mean all countries should elect weak, unattractive leaders in order to obtain world peace?!?
I agree with the overall idea of this theory that the origin of anger is when someone believes something to be unfair or less than what they expect. This is a very interesting theory and should be considered when analyzing another person’s psychological characteristics and motives, but it is not fair or appropriate to predetermine someone’s expectations or actions from a mathematical equation or calibration. I believe that is the great thing about humans and the difference between us and robots. The way people are raised and their experiences throughout life have as much impact as anything on why people act the way they do. I, like many, have some very big and strong friends who are some of the nicest people I know and do not anger nearly as easy as others. The same goes for many attractive women. Also, there could be an argument for the inverse of these factors described. For example, some may say that a much less attractive woman or very weak man is always angry because they are treated poorly. With the above method they should not get angry as easily because they should have an expected lower WTR ratio, but instead they are constantly angry since they think they are not treated as equally as others.
The above writing demonstrates the complexity of predicting and analyzing human behavior. This is why evolutionary psychology is a constant struggle to study and analyze. So many results prove different theories and can be analyzed in numerous amounts of ways.
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/angerselltoobycosmides09.pdf
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