Emotions That Make Us Violent

Emotions always precede behavior. They bring about psychological triggers and mental structures that help connect memories. But more importantly, emotions act as motivators for human behavior.

Emotions make us behave in many different ways. They can even lead to violent behavior. To be a little more specific, combinations of different emotions can make us use violence, even if the emotions themselves don’t make us violent.

Usually, we understand emotions to be a psychophysiological reaction that people experience individually. But thanks to empathy, our feelings can also be contagious. We can make others feel the same way we feel.

This also happens at the group level. A group of people may feel the same feeling. They may feel guilty or hateful for another group. This is the starting point for understanding the feelings that make people violent.

ANCODI hypothesis

The ANCODI hypothesis is named after three emotions: anger ( an ger), contempt ( co ntempt), and aversion ( di sgust).  According to that hypothesis, these three feelings can cause people to use violence. Hostility and violence are the result of anger and rage.

People use different stories to spread emotions. Stories can be a way to turn them into group lessons. One example is hate speech against minority groups, or groups that are considered enemies.

The ANCODI hypothesis suggests that past events or historical narratives cause anger, which in turn causes a sense of anger. The group re-evaluates these events from the perspective of moral superiority, which refers to the moral inferiority of the other group.

This in turn leads to contempt and contempt. They see the other group as separate and they think the other group deserves avoidance and rejection. In extreme cases, this leads to the idea of ​​destroying the whole group. The emotions that lead to violence follow a three-step process, which we describe next.

Anger based on anger

The first stage is the stage of anger. Anger is a feeling we express through resentment and irritability. We can see the external signs of anger in facial expressions, body language, and physiological reactions. In certain situations, people express anger with public aggression. Uncontrolled anger can negatively affect the quality of our lives.

First, certain events lead to a perception of injustice. Those events make people look for culprits, be they individuals or groups. In these cases, people believe that the guilty group threatens the well-being of “our” group or our “our” way of life. These interpretations become angry-charged until they are directed at the guilty group.

Moral supremacy based on contempt

In the next step, we add contempt to the mix. Contempt is a strong feeling of lack of respect and recognition, or aversion. Contempt refers to the denial and humiliation of another group or person. It also involves doubting the abilities or moral honesty of the “other”.

Feeling contempt for another person or group means  feeling moral  superiority over them. A person who feels contempt for the other sees this as inferior. He considers this (man or subject) worthless.

The groups reinterpret the situations and events identified in the first phase. They make an assessment of past events instead of moral superiority. This means that they think the “guilty” group is morally inferior. This in turn leads to a feeling of contempt for the questionable group.

Disgust-based elimination

In the last stage, a feeling of disgust comes along . Fear of contamination and disease causes this profound and rudimentary feeling. It is universal not only because of its recognizable characters, but also because of its causes. Similar things cause disgust all over the world, such as decay. Disgust is a moral feeling we often use to justify beliefs and moral behavior.

At this point, people can evaluate events again and come to conclusions. The end result is really simple: we need to distance ourselves from the guilty group. Another possibility, including a more violent option, is that the group in question must be destroyed. However, this is an extreme course of action. In these cases, people spread thoughts around using a sense of disgust to help.

As we can see, this combination of three emotions can have catastrophic consequences. The emotions that make us violent are based on distorted perceptions and lead to poor outcomes and, in extreme cases, hostile behavior. Because of this, it would be really important to practice emotional intelligence.