You probably feel it too. We are bombarded with depressing news and commentary about political activism, war, climate change, and more. The first few times you are exposed to something that seems unfair, you feel motivated and ready to fight it. However, if we repeatedly face this moral attack, we begin to feel tired and even withdrawn. Resistance feels futile.
This phenomenon is informally called “anger fatigue.” Although this has not been well studied, researchers have studied the act itself: what purpose it serves and how it spreads. William Brady, assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and his colleagues recently published research on how anger contributes to the spread of misinformation online. As a result, posts from false sources are more likely to arouse moral outrage (anger and disgust) than posts from trusted news outlets, and people are more likely to reshare them without reading them. I found it to be expensive. But Brady said widespread exposure to anger-provoking content can lead to fatigue that can cause people to stop participating in political activities.
Fortunately, there are ways to combat such fatigue, such as getting involved in local politics and movements. scientific american We spoke to Brady about why we experience rage fatigue and how to deal with it.
About supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. Currently subscribing. By subscribing, you help ensure future generations of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape the world today.
(An edited transcript of the interview follows:)
What is anger fatigue?
When people experience anger, it theoretically means that they feel that a violation has occurred of their perceived sense of right and wrong, or what we might call moral norms. Anger is in some ways very functional and good for groups. Because it helps draw attention to things that our social groups and our culture consider to be violations. And that’s usually a good thing. Because it helps the group understand, “Okay, something bad is going on here, we need to adjust.” Solving this problem requires collective action. ”The reason anger tends to serve as a tool for that is because it’s so arousing. It grabs our attention, excites us, and sometimes it can spur us into action.
But of course, there is a flip side to anger. That’s when it happens in line with group identity. For example, when they become enraged that a political outside group is doing something that violates their norms or goes against their political and moral views. group-
It can create hostility and even lead to conflict. Obviously, we’ve seen increasing polarization, not only in the United States, but also in Europe and other countries around the world. In theory, this kind of give-and-take exists with anger. it might help. It can be functional. However, being in that state all the time can lead to escalation of conflicts and political conflicts. Psychologically, being in that state all the time can be very tiring.
How does anger play out differently at the group and individual levels?
If you’re constantly raging at the group level and committing all these violations, this kind of group-level fatigue can occur. Moral outrage loses some of its potency because it’s difficult to know what to be angry about. It’s a limited resource. It starts to get a little tedious because it requires a lot of attention and resources. so what? I don’t know what to do. ”
To my knowledge, this has not been studied much empirically. But we’ve been looking a little bit at people leaving conversations in the context of online conversations. Basically what happens is one person is a super outrageous producer and then the other person doesn’t talk much because they can feel isolated. Maybe things are getting too intense. Others may not know what to focus on. And I’ve seen this, especially on social media, that when there’s so much anger swirling around you, you become kind of afraid to voice your opinion because you feel like you’re going to be targeted. Some people feel that way. If I say something wrong.
I would like to talk about this individually, but I am not aware of any empirical research that has specifically investigated recent political events. This is starting to enter the realm of speculation, but generally when people are feeling a lot of negative emotions (I’d obviously put anger in that bucket), they tend to control their emotions. There are some studies that show that we tend to feel like we need to. Because it can be emotionally taxing.
Individuals often act as part of a larger group, whether it’s a political party, race, or something else, and whenever something happens that appears negative to that larger group, , can we say that we feel a threat to our group?
Yes, 100 percent, this is very well researched in social psychology. I think the important thing to understand is that we are flexible in identifying ourselves depending on the situation. During political elections, when our group loses, social identity theory predicts that this is the case when you have a strong tendency to identify by categorizing yourself. For example: “Oh, I’m a Democrat. I feel my Democratic identity so prominently that I feel threatened now. We just lost the election. Trump… I’m saying I’m going to do all the things that my group won’t do.” Then you’re very likely to feel anger or other emotions on behalf of your group, and that’s where the threat comes in.
But what I’m saying about it being flexible is that it’s interesting to think about how we can get into different contexts. And now our classification is a little different. Or maybe we just feel a certain identity that we don’t need to be. Do politics. And now we realize that: “Oh, I’m in a state of chronic group identification with my political identity, and I really resent it, and it’s taking a toll on me personally.”
How does the media environment, especially social media, influence the way we experience anger?
Often, we can become exhausted by all the outrageous behavior we see in contexts like social media. And the problem is that it’s not actually necessarily representative of the feelings of people within our political groups. What my research shows is that when combined with the use of engagement-based algorithms such as X, Meta, etc., angry content is disproportionately amplified. What this means in practice is that even though there may be a small group of well-minded political users who post a lot of this stuff, the reality is that most people don’t. . The algorithm amplifies it so it looks as if a lot of people are doing it. To me, that’s alarming. If we do that, we may be cut off from political participation. I feel like we are already exhausted by popular media, anger, and politics. But in reality, it’s not really representative of our group.
Is there anything we can do to combat anger fatigue? How can people have some healthy withdrawal?
I think people really have to think about, “How can we recognize and experience anger while still being rooted in our local communities?” This is because I think community politics is a way to build a certain sense of security and understanding within a group. “Oh, actually, there are things we can do, or there are concrete things we can do. How do we organize and think?” Challenge the status quo with which we disagree. ”I think the problem is that we’re in an era where the main way young people in particular participate in politics is online, in honestly not-so-personal spaces. And I think there’s been a problem with building cross-cutting coalitions, like what used to happen when more organizing was happening in offline spaces.
So I think there’s more engagement at the local level where there are interpersonal connections. It doesn’t cost much to express your anger online. It is much more costly to try to engage with the community or to express more direct and focused anger. Directed anger is less likely to lead to fatigue because you have the satisfaction of knowing what it is aimed at, and there is a specific outcome you are seeking.
Does limiting media consumption help?
There are a few social media-specific deactivation studies (studies in which participants deactivate their accounts for a period of time), but to be honest, the results are mixed. One study showed that while polarization decreased, people lost some of their political knowledge. Another study showed no effect. There are large studies underway in multiple countries on this, but to be honest, these studies tend to focus on two weeks of inactivation. It’s hard to say, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” That’s a delicate point. But what I would say, based on what I know from my research, is that people have the ability to change the social media ecosystem. If you feel like you have too much anger and things are attacking you in ways that aren’t productive or are causing fatigue, you can change that environment by working on different content.
Is there evidence that the political party or group is weaponizing anger fatigue as a way to weaken people’s engagement and resistance?
In general, there’s one thing we know, at least from the US situation. That is, anger has been used as a political tool to divide groups. For example, the political right has particularly used incitement of anger to get specific groups harmed by economic policies, such as the working class, to vote for them on other unrelated issues. For example, issues like immigration, race, identity, and things that infuriate them. Abortion is another issue. Abortion can distract from other issues that harm people. Two of our studies specifically focused on the Internet Research Agency, a Russian disinformation organization that used it as a strategy in the 2016 and 2020 elections. So we see that anger as a tool to cause discord is definitely something to be used as a strategy.
