| by Karen S. Peterson, USA TODAY
Our lives are all crumpled up with stress, multi-tasking, high
expectations, lack of manners. Now we're amid a new epidemic of
anger — sometimes deadly anger. Two shoppers in a Westport, Conn.,
supermarket get in a fistfight over who should be first in a newly
opened checkout lane.
A Continental Airlines flight returns to Anchorage after a
passenger allegedly throws a can of beer at a flight attendant and
bites a pilot. A Reading, Mass., father beats another father to
death in an argument over rough play at their sons' hockey practice.
And a high school baseball coach in Hollywood, Fla., turns himself
in to face charges that he broke an umpire's jaw after a disputed
call.
Bad tempers are on display everywhere. The media report incidents
of road rage, airplane rage, biker rage, surfer rage, grocery store
rage, and rage at youth sports activities. Leading social scientists
say the nation is in the middle of an anger epidemic that, in its
mildest forms, is unsettling and, at its worst, turns deadly.
The epidemic rattles both those who study social trends and
parents who fear the country is at a cultural precipice. "We have
lost some of the glue holding our society," says parent Frank Smist
Jr., 48, of Kansas City, Mo. "We have lost our respect for others.
The example we are setting for our kids is terrible."
Experts searching for causes blame an increasing sense of
self-importance, the widespread feeling that things should happen my
way. Other factors, they say, include too little time, overcrowding,
intrusive technology and too many demands for change in a society
hurtling into the 21st century.
"Rage is the rage today," says C. Leslie Charles, author of “Why
Is Everyone So Cranky?” "I'm describing a fuming, unrelenting sense
of anger, hostility and alienation that simmers for months, even
years, without relief. Eventually, all it takes is a triggering
incident, usually minor, for the hostile person to go ballistic. We
even have a phrase for it: going postal," coined after scattered
incidents of violence were committed by postal workers who succumbed
to office rage.
Hard data are tough to come by, but the phenomenon is building.
A new CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds more than three-fourths (78%)
of Americans think rude and selfish behavior has increased at
highways and airports. And 79% believe the number of people who get
angry at the bad behavior of others has grown.
There are other signs of angry times. Airline employees handed
out leaflets in 100 cities worldwide July 6 declaring "a day of
action" to protest increasing abuse by violent passengers.
The International Transport Workers Federation says American
aircrews report a large increase in difficult passengers: 534
incidents cited in 1999, up from 66 in 1997.Unruly passengers
actually can affect airline safety. A NASA study found that in 40%
of 152 cases studied, pilots either left the cockpit to deal with a
disturbance or were interrupted by flight attendants who needed
help. In one-quarter of those cases, the pilots subsequently
reported committing errors such as flying too fast or going to the
wrong altitude.
"It's only a matter of time before a serious accident is caused
by one of these instances," says transport union spokesman Sarah
Finke. The union favors prosecution, "especially in the more serious
cases. We think it would be a deterrent."
Parental attacks at sporting events for children have been rising
for a decade, says Richard Lapchick, director of Northeastern
University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society. "There is no
question that the number of violent incidents has increased. I think
it is a direct reflection of the fact that violence in our society
has grown." The rising number of incidents has prompted the National
Association of Sports Officials to offer assault insurance to its
19,000 members. "The tenor at the events has changed from even five
or six years ago," says spokesman Bob Still. "There is absolutely
more violence. Sports have become life with the volume turned up."
Competition at children's athletic events grows more intense as
adults see possible college athletic scholarships ahead. In general,
"there has been a tremendous increase in parents' emotional
investment in their children's extracurricular activities," says
William Doherty, a professor of family social science at the
University of Minnesota. "Some individuals who don't have very much
emotional impulse control go over the edge." And as the number of
kids in sports increases, "you've got thousands of hotheaded parents
along for the ride."
Stress and technology
Stress is a hallmark of the anger epidemic, and the major
contributing factors are time and technology, experts say. There is
not enough of the first, and there is a strong fallout from the
second.
Cell phones, pagers and high-tech devices allow us to be
interrupted anywhere, at any time," Charles says. "This constant
accessibility and compulsive use of technology fragments what little
time we do have, adding to our sense of urgency, emergency and
overload."
Office workers arrive to find dozens of e-mails that must be
processed before they can start their business day. People feel the
need to constantly "multi-task," says Frank Farley of Temple
University, former president of the American Psychological
Association. "I'm on my cell phone now talking to you while I'm
driving. I'm at a stoplight and I see three other people on cell
phones. We are carrying the pressures of the workplace out onto the
road."
Too many people, rage may seem a reasonable response, says Pamela
Boyd, 52, an elementary school teacher in Olympia, Wash. "If you
have been sitting in traffic on freeways that have been clogged year
after year, rage might seem rational to some.
"There are what, more than 260 million of us now? Our roads were
not built to accommodate that. The grocery store parking lots are
filled. It is hard to get into the bank. The airport tells you to
come 90 minutes before your flight. Parking is at a premium.
Overcrowding has become part of society at large" and that
contributes to a sense "that anything goes," Boyd says. Most people
feel impatient while waiting in lines, Charles says. "Who among has
not stood in the express lane in the grocery store and counted the
number of items in the cart somebody has ahead of us? Does he have
12 items or less?"
The growing list of types of rage, from airplane to road rage,
are all part of the same phenomenon, says Barton Sparagon, medical
director of the Freidman Institute in San Francisco, which studies
the relationship between stress and heart disease.
Sparagon refers to "the hurry sickness," the disease of an
impatient society moving ever faster. "When somebody is in a rush,
and another person slows him down, the person in a state of hurry
sickness can get extremely angry."
Reactions vary across a wide range, "from people who rarely
exhibit their hostility to those on the other extreme, who have
serious impulse control problems," he says.
Experts have long known some of the roots of adult rage,
including personality factors, difficult childhood environments,
poor mental health and inadequate social support. New research is
pinpointing possible genetic links, as well as a role played by
brain chemicals such as serotonin Sparagon says.
James Garbarino, human development professor at Cornell
University, says such factors are interacting with a societal shift.
"There is a general breakdown of social conventions, of manners, of
social controls. This gives a validation, a permission, to be
aggressive." Kids used to be "guided by a social convention that
said 'keep the lid on.' Today they are guided more in the direction
of taking it off. "Garbarino points to a growing "culture of
vulgarity" as seen by the exploding use of the f-word on cable TV
and the glorification of violence in pop music. Psychologist Frank
Farley cites a loosening of inhibitions promoted on TV talk shows
such as Jerry Springer's. "It is OK to say whatever is on your
mind."
‘Life should be easy’. Many other social factors are at work
creating pressures in the new age of anger. Experts point to many
causes of increased stress: Accelerating change. Farley calls an
ability to deal with change "one of the survival skills of the 21st
century." "We are going through one of the greatest periods of
change in the history of this country," he says. "There is a
creative ferment in technology. But at the same time, people have
been downsized to accommodate that. Even good change is stressful.
People don't know how to deal with it all."
Loss of privacy: Computer records make it possible for bosses to
"monitor and record everything you do at work," Farley says. E-mails
can be retrieved, Web sites visited can be tracked, and the volume
of work can be documented.
Lack of responsibility: "I think people have no sense of personal
responsibility about anything anymore," says Dale Hartley, who runs
the consumerama.org Web site, which tracks consumer complaints and
various forms of rage. He includes "funeral rage," funeral-goers who
report "other drivers so impatient to get on with their lives that
they can't show a moment's respect for the dead." He notes reports
of "bird-flipping, weaving in and out, and cutting off the
processions at intersections." Hartley thinks the media tend to
over-dramatize the incidents of rage, but he notes, "People do seem
to have shorter fuses today." An increasing sense of entitlement.
Charles, author of ‘Why Is Everyone So Cranky?’ says that
materialism, consumerism and advertising have joined to create a
nation of people with very high expectations for living the good
life. Although those expectations can't be met for many, there is
still a sense that they are entitled to fulfillment. That leads to
"a belief that life should be easy. People should get out of my way.
My child should win this game," she says.
Lack of connection: "Families are just not doing things together
they way they used to," Farley says. "Instead, parents are getting
kids involved with activities that have rules and structures. The
family is no longer the private place where people spend time
relating." Put all the ingredients together and you have a recipe
for rage. "The American scene is changing," Farley says. "We have a
nation of overstressed people." |
