Harnessing The Power of Words As An Anger Control Tool

It is usually said that Communication comes to most people as naturally as Breathing. So when someone challenges our beliefs and perceptions the first reaction is in the form of “Anger”. This paper is carried out to explore the impact of effective communication in management of one of the most common human reaction called “ANGER”. Anger management styles of today’s business students are often assessed so that they are equipped enough to face the global competition. Communication is one of the primary means by which people affect one another hence it is important to know the impact of communication therapy sessions on the control of emotions, Hence the sample of the study are 60 MBA students (prospective managers) of an autonomous private University in Raipur city. The anger quotient of Individuals was measured through a set of 20 questions adopted from Emotional Fitness Gym. The Likert scale was used to analyze and measure the score of the respondents. The samples were exposed to an effective communication session in 4 stages. The scores of the respondent’s pre -communication and post –communication exposure was recorded and measured. The scores obtained were then analyzed using paired t-test. OBJECTIVES: It is said that effective communication empowers us to understand one and others and hence equips us to keep our basic emotions under control. Hence the basic objective of the paper is: To analyze the impact of effective communication therapy in controlling and managing one of the most natural emotion called Anger. • To study the techniques of anger management. • To learn the effective ways of communication. INTRODUCTION: Communication is one of the primary means by which people affect one another and hence the study of effective communication on the control of the most common reaction called Anger is of utmost importance in today’s competitive and fast life. A common proverb says Honest communication = good relationship=Good and positive emotions= Good work-life balance. Anger is the most common human reaction. It is an emotional or behavioral reaction of displeasure to an unexpected situation. Anger includes many feelings like disappointment, rage, frustration and irritation. According to Dahlen and Deffenbacher (2001), some people really are more “hotheaded” than others are. They get angry more easily and intensely than the average person does. Programs that aim at anger management can be highly cost effective. Counseling and treating individuals with anger problems has been an increasing concern to health organizations and 60% of the patients were amongst the young adults( 2030 years of age) who were unsatisfied either from their job, salary, relationship, ambitions etc.. Social psychology traditionally has been defined as the study of the ways in which people affect and are affected by others. Healthy communication is one of the best ways to resolve conflicting matters. Communication is a multidisciplinary concept and very complex to understand. Emotional experience and expression is a part of a fabric of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that combine together for interaction. MBA students or young adults have to compete with people from worldwide. History is witness to the fact that effective communication acts as an aid to control anger and resolve many conflicting situations/issues. According to Goldstein and Glick (1987), people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic and not skilled at emotional communications. Counseling is also an excellent way of effective communication. Emotional communication or self talk is also an effective way to communicate. Anger is either caused by internal or external events. The natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively but reaction to our problems often returns to us in a multiplied form. Many times we communicate verbally and non verbally without conscious thought. Thousands of things are spoken in the form of opinion, judgments and beliefs. But one should understand that an important key to success is to understand and perceive the unwanted situation, react rationally and resolve the issue through proper communication of feelings. A thought or grievance spoken has tremendous power as it cannot be taken back. Programs that aim at anger management can be highly cost effective. Buck (1991) argued,” Social emotions are basic to all social behavior and are activated in every social encounter” (p-159). Ekman (1993) noted that emotions are typically elicited by “real, remembered, anticipated or imagined” (p-385). Babad and Wallbott’s ,(1986) supports this contention by showing that anger more likely occurs when “something interferes with the person’s execution of plans or attainment of goals (by reducing the persons power, violating expectations, frustrating or interrupting goal-directed activities) (p-1077). According to Paul Ekman (2001) emotions can be classified into six basic categories i.e. Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Experts or trained professionals believe that anger is the outburst of natural defensive emotions. It is an ultimate reason amongst the young adults having elevated health concerns and strained relationship. The effective communication therapy was divided into 4 steps. Professional help from experts and valuable counseling sessions from experienced and eminent personalities was taken. Each session was conducted in a gap of 7 days. The four steps were: • Discussion of the problem with the family, friends about the probable solutions to the problem. Discussion brings down the irrational attitude of the mind and reduces the stress level. • Interaction session with some persons who have undergone hardships of similar scenarios and emerged successful with a lifelong lesson.


OBJECTIVES:
It is said that effective communication empowers us to understand one and others and hence equips us to keep our basic emotions under control. Hence the basic objective of the paper is: To analyze the impact of effective communication therapy in controlling and managing one of the most natural emotion called Anger.
• To study the techniques of anger management. • To learn the effective ways of communication.

INTRODUCTION:
Communication is one of the primary means by which people affect one another and hence the study of effective communication on the control of the most common reaction called Anger is of utmost importance in today's competitive and fast life.
A common proverb says Honest communication = good relationship=Good and positive emotions= Good work-life balance. Anger is the most common human reaction. It is an emotional or behavioral reaction of displeasure to an unexpected situation. Anger includes many feelings like disappointment, rage, frustration and irritation. According to Dahlen and Deffenbacher (2001), some people really are more "hotheaded" than others are. They get angry more easily and intensely than the average person does. Programs that aim at anger management can be highly cost effective. Counseling and treating individuals with anger problems has been an increasing concern to health organizations and 60% of the patients were amongst the young adults( 20-30 years of age) who were unsatisfied either from their job, salary, relationship, ambitions etc.. Social psychology traditionally has been defined as the study of the ways in which people affect and are affected by others. Healthy communication is one of the best ways to resolve conflicting matters. Communication is a multidisciplinary concept and very complex to understand. Emotional experience and expression is a part of a fabric of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that combine together for interaction. MBA students or young adults have to compete with people from worldwide. History is witness to the fact that effective communication acts as an aid to control anger and resolve many conflicting situations/issues. According to Goldstein and Glick (1987), people who are easily angered come from families that are disruptive, chaotic and not skilled at emotional communications. Counseling is also an excellent way of effective communication. Emotional communication or self talk is also an effective way to communicate. Anger is either caused by internal or external events. The natural way to express anger is to respond aggressively but reaction to our problems often returns to us in a multiplied form. Many times we communicate verbally and non verbally without conscious thought. Thousands of things are spoken in the form of opinion, judgments and beliefs. But one should understand that an important key to success is to understand and perceive the unwanted situation, react rationally and resolve the issue through proper communication of feelings. A thought or grievance spoken has tremendous power as it cannot be taken back. Programs that aim at anger management can be highly cost effective. Buck (1991) argued," Social emotions are basic to all social behavior and are activated in every social encounter" (p-159). Ekman (1993) noted that emotions are typically elicited by "real, remembered, anticipated or imagined" (p-385). Babad and Wallbott's ,(1986) supports this contention by showing that anger more likely occurs when "something interferes with the person's execution of plans or attainment of goals (by reducing the persons power, violating expectations, frustrating or interrupting goal-directed activities) (p-1077). According to Paul Ekman (2001) emotions can be classified into six basic categories i.e. Anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. Experts or trained professionals believe that anger is the outburst of natural defensive emotions. It is an ultimate reason amongst the young adults having elevated health concerns and strained relationship. The effective communication therapy was divided into 4 steps. Professional help from experts and valuable counseling sessions from experienced and eminent personalities was taken. Each session was conducted in a gap of 7 days. The four steps were: • Discussion of the problem with the family, friends about the probable solutions to the problem. Discussion brings down the irrational attitude of the mind and reduces the stress level. • Interaction session with some persons who have undergone hardships of similar scenarios and emerged successful with a lifelong lesson.
• The respondents were exposed to some relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga and emotional communication with oneself to analyze oneself in a better and honest direction about the consequences of losing temper. • Taking professional help of experts and communicating openly or encountering with the cause of anger. Here the communication style should be stressed.
It is said "Control your emotions before it controls you".
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: Sampling: The study focuses on one of the leading private autonomous university of Raipur city (C.G). The sampling technique employed in this study is non random convenience sampling. The respondents of this study were only those who were willing to fill out the questionnaire related to anger management and then undergo the effective communication session and again refill the questionnaire honestly.

Data Collection Method:
The instrument used to collect data was questionnaire. The questions were adapted from Emotional Fitness Gym. There was a set of 20 questions to measure and manage the Anger Instinct. The respondents were 60 MBA students who were actually learning to cope up with the setback of their expectations in real life and come up with more energy and vigor. Questionnaires were distributed to 70 MBA students but only 60 complete responses could be generated.

Data Analysis Method:
Firstly the respondents were presented with a set of 20 questionnaires. Likert scale was used to tabulate the data as per their scores i.e. The total score of the individual respondents were added before they were exposed to the 4 stage communication therapy session.

SA (Strongly
After a period of 30 days of session the respondents were asked to respond to the questions related to their Anger Quotient. The scores were summated again through Likert Scale and the data exposed to paired t-test to study the impact of communication on the management of anger.

FINDINGS:
Ho: There is no impact of effective communication therapy sessions on the control and management of anger in young adults.

INTERPRETATION:
The calculated value of t (as shown in Table 2) at 59 degree of freedom (d.f.) at 5% level of significance is 16.446. The tabulated value of t at 59 (60 -1) d.f at 5% level of significance is 1.645.
Hence t-calculated lies in the rejection region and hence we reject null hypothesis and conclude that communication therapy has a positive impact on the control and management of anger. These sessions are effective in reducing the rage and outburst of anger. They redirect the energy of anger to a more rational direction where one is able to understand the root cause of the problem and take necessary actions to control or avoid the arousal of that situation.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
The findings showed a statistically significant difference in the pre -therapy and post-therapy scores of the respondents. This implied those effective communication sessions reduces the occurrence of anger and is effective in Anger management. Through proper use of words one can build appropriate interpersonal and technical skills. Communication acts as an antidote for anger. Effective communication is divided into six steps in a general way. The first one is identifying the problem followed by coming up with several possible solutions and the third step is evaluating the alternative solutions. The fourth step involves implementing the solution and then to continuously evaluates the solutions. Successful people take control of their words rather than letting their words control them. Effective communication helps in maintaining a healthy state of mind. Through proper channels of discussions an individual feels relaxed, peaceful and confident. The noise of the mind is subdued and clarity of mind is promoted. The various techniques of anger management is the WATCH principle. This means W = Walk away for some time when one finds oneself in an agitated and frustrated situation. A = Avoiding the situations that causes one to get angry. T = Time. This means revisiting the relationship with time reduces the anger outbursts. Being realistic can dramatically reduce anxiety and frustration. C = Counting from 1 to 10 to control the rage and giving it a second thought. H = Humor which means visualizing the funny side of things and how others perceive oneself when angry.
These steps are effective for anger management. This WATCH philosophy is taken from the website Emotional Fitness Gym. The words of a man can make the best out of worst or a worst out of the best so it is said "If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words". Words is the power of an individual's thoughts and beliefs that can create reality, so close attention must be paid to the words we use to communicate our thoughts and control our most common reaction of humans i.e. "Anger ".A direct connection between words and the subconscious mind which controls our emotions is mandatory and hence every individual must master His own Mind power and unleash the subconscious mind to control and manage the cause and reaction of an-ger.. Nothing can disturb an individual but his own words and emotions. The discussions and finding the cause of anger and then finding alternatives to encounter them lead the thought of an individual in a rational direction. The things that make one feel angry and stressed out do not really exist except as thoughts in one's mind. One needs to change the perception of his emotions to excel in life. The need of the hour is to become emotionally mature and understand other's perspective and permit others to differ from our ideas. Our thoughts are reproduced in the form of our words and one can always disagree without being disagreeable or angry. Speech highlights our silent thoughts and feelings. Communication and emotions are inseparable from each other. The expressions of emotions are basically communicative. Anger like other emotions reflects psychological experiences and reactions. So emotions need to be communicated in a very effective manner. The present youngsters are exposed to tremendous pressure from society, from parents and from one's own ambitions, so they should be counseled and made aware of the simple ways to control anger and frustration. The present generation needs to be counseled in a smart manner from their school days by their parents, their teachers and other people they come in contact with , so that they learn the tricks of the game and are much equipped to face the challenges of the future and take better and rational decisions with firmness and determination. It is said that when an individual is angry he loses the capacity to think clearly and creatively. Therefore one should develop the ability to use both verbal and non-verbal communication in a systematic way to face challenges and handle relationships in a better way. The young adults of today must make use of positive body language, learn to remain calm, composed and reduce the rate of occurrence of anger. Every individual must be emotionally aware of all the feelings both positive and negative and use appropriate channels and words to express feelings. It's the way we feel, more than the way we think, that motivates us to communicate and make decisions. The study highlights the fact that effective communication drastically controls the action and reaction of the emotions of an individual. `Effective communication is a skill learned by patience and practice and a strong healthy balance between intellect and emotions is maintained. Communication brings forward the expression of difficult emotions like Anger and helps to manage the uncomfortable feelings arising out of it. The scope of this research can further be extended to using effective communication to promote social development as Social skills maintain the emotional balance of an individual. Last but not the least the quality of words should upgrade one's life and give fragrance to others life to remove negativity like ANGER.

LIMITATIONS:
The basic limitation of the study was the duration of the research. The MBA students were required to devote a month for the response to be original. Secondly many students started with the questionnaire but did not have enough time to undergo the communication therapy. Thirdly the communicative session was taken in batches of 20 students at a time, so 60 students were allotted in three batches at different time slots and under the guidance of three different experts.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:
The scope of the study can further be extended to preparation of various types of Communication therapies suited to the problems of various groups so that individuals can take the help of experts and come out of the problem. Secondly Communication can act as a tool of controlling many other emotions of humans which are very common as fear, anxiety, stress and various types of Conflicts. Thirdly an effective communication strategy can increase the Entrepreneurial potentiality of the future managers which in turn can lead to the Economic Development of India.