Walk away when angry; treat the other person as weather, not an enemy
Looking at what just happened from another angle, or standing in the other person’s place for a moment, both bring the emotion down; the second works better. Simply not showing the emotion also has a little effect. Forcing the feeling down inside, or forcing yourself not to think about the thing, does nothing. People who punished the person who offended them kept turning it over longer afterward; people who did not retaliate moved on faster.
No cost at all. You must resist the urge to retort on the…
A meta-analysis pooling 306 experimental comparisons: reframing what happened (cognitive reappraisal) has an e…
No cost at all. You must resist the urge to retort on the spot, turn around and leave, then decide later whether to address the situation. This takes some practice.
A meta-analysis pooling 306 experimental comparisons: reframing what happened (cognitive reappraisal) has an effect size on emotion of d = 0.36. Taking the other person’s perspective: d = 0.45. Distraction: d = 0.27. Suppressing the outward expression of emotion (not showing it) works, d = 0.32. Forcibly holding down the feeling does not work (d = -0.04), and forcing yourself not to think about it does not work either (d = -0.12). These figures combine measures of inner feelings, outward expression and bodily responses; the abstract does not report them separately. Three further experiments show that people who punish an offender keep thinking about them longer afterward, while those who don’t punish “move on” faster. People overestimate in advance how satisfying revenge will be.
Webb TL, Miles E, Sheeran P (2012). Dealing with feeling: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027600；Carlsmith KM, Wilson TD, Gilbert DT (2008). The paradoxical consequences of revenge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012165
Open source linkThe title’s advice to “treat it like the weather” means the same thing: just as rain is not aimed at you, first avoid assuming the other person’s action is directed at you. The portion of this analysis dealing with emotional intensity — not energy or vigor — shows effects ranging from small to moderate. Because only one set of experiments addresses the issue of revenge, the overall grade is B. The “empty boat” parable originates from Zhuangzi’s “Mountain Trees”: one remains calm when an empty boat bumps into them, but becomes angry when a boat carrying people does the same; the impact is identical in both cases. This is purely an analogy, not empirical evidence. If actual harm has occurred, following the legal procedures outlined in Sections 8 and 9 is far less costly than reacting impulsively on the spot.