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Why bad-tempered people earn more and live longer
- llovan 10y agoMaybe, but they have lower karma on Hacker News.
- rch 10y agoInteresting observation, do you have a source for that?
- llovan 10y agoWell, just anecdotally, blunt or angry contrarian responses seem to be downvoted in most online communities.
- et-al 10y agoThe key there is "contrarian". If I posted an angry, but seemingly well-supported rant aligned with the sentiment of a particular group, people will probably upvote/reblog it (see: Trump).
- throwaway13337 10y agoWell I don't know about hacker news, but there is a study that says anger is the most viral feeling in social media, e.g. twitter. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.2402v1.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.2402v1.pdf
- brlewis 10y agoText of article ties pessimism, not bad temper, to higher earnings and longevity. Ideally you have a full emotional toolbox. If you're always optimistic you'll blind yourself to risks. If you're always pessimistic you'll blind yourself to opportunities.
- boznz 10y agoFully agree and makes a nice MOTD to boot
- rjdevereux 10y agoYes, this is skipping over overlapping theories in the field like explanatory style and learned helplessness.
- ignasl 10y agoThis is great common sense thinking. We have all the different emotions for a reason. You can even think of them as the tools. Right tool for the right job as programmers love to say. If someone follows article's "scientific" advice and stays angry all the time it will just become really stressful for him. I think if you are really dissatisfied with something it's best to burst out in anger and forget about it after few minutes. At least that's how I use this anger tool :)
- tumbas 10y agowhy gingers eat more mayonase than some?
- tumbas 10y agopress the issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8pbnjvypQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8pbnjvypQ0
- Procrastes 10y ago"They don't really live longer... it just feels like it." -- Apologies to Sir Clement Raphael Freud.
- inputcoffee 10y agoI got really annoyed at the poor science behind this study and wanted to compose a really good, original comment in response. But I couldn't come up with one, proving the study wrong. I just think that they have the causality reversed. Care a lot -> Focus + Hard work + strong emotion So the anger is a side effect of caring. But that is a guess. I'd have to look at the study and I would flip directly to the page where they reveal the effect size and the significance first. That's what they should report.
- astazangasta 10y agoYou don't have to prove the study wrong, you just have to be cognizant of this: THESE ARE ALL JUST NARRATIVES. Sure, they found some studies on the subject of anger and creativity. Does this mean that "bad-tempered people earn more and live longer"? Fuck, no. First of all, this was never what was being studied. Second of all, what the hell is "bad-tempered"? It's all "just a guess". The act of going from observation (the behavior of a bunch of students in a study) to the abstraction (anger helps you live longer) is necessarily an act of intuition. You can accept it or not, as you like. If you decide the evidence is compelling, go for it - live your life by swearing at people. But you're just as free to say, "This evidence is bullshit, and it's a great stretch to say that it has general implications about the impacts of anger-management on health and success." There is no one to tell you otherwise. The unfortunate problem with this, and other articles in this vein, is the pretense that we have arrived at some idea of the "truth" based on "evidence", as if either of these things existed, and we should all start living on the basis of this paradigm. There is only ever observation (itself a fraught enterprise) and subjective interpretation.
- byebyetech 10y agoThese days I feel like all the astrologers went out of job and decided to get into social sciences.
- Karunamon 10y ago"Sciences" in this case deserves an extra-large pair of scare quotes. If science is the process of arriving at objective fact by testing hypotheses in a reproducible way, just about any field with the root word "social" can be excluded. That doesn't mean they provide nothing of use, merely that they aren't science and lack rigor. Careful not to confuse the two stances.
- rogerbinns 10y agoI watch out for people complaining about things, but don't treat it as a negative. It shows that at least they care enough to complain. The situation is far worse if they give up complaining, because they no longer care. Complaining also implies there are improvements that could be made, so again a benefit. This attitude surprised someone the other day complaining about their code. I was delighted, since it meant they cared!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fapjacks 10y agoIn the Army, NCOs are taught unofficially that soldiers will complain in their normal state and that, as a leader, you need to worry when the soldiers stop complaining.
- agumonkey 10y agoDepends, some are just reflex rantings. Colleagues complaining about how absurd a task is, offer them a script to do away with it, refusal. Family member complaining about not having enough time, offered to do task; refusal. The rant is not about the actual object.
- ahlatimer 10y agoRands covers this pretty well in "The Update, The Vent, and The Disaster" [1], I think. Specifically, the difference between a "vent" and a "rant": "The Vent that wants no help is a Rant. The Ranter somehow believes that the endless restatement of their opinion is the solution. Perhaps they have no clue what a solution might be or how to find it or perhaps they’ve been stewing on the topic so long, they’ve lost all sight of logic." [1]: http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-the-disaster/ http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-th...
- agumonkey 10y agoYes I believe it's a social escapism to get emotional support when facing something intractable for them.
- emptybits 10y agoFrom the 2009 study in the article: "Half the students were asked to recall something which had irritated them and write a short essay about it. The other half of the group were made to feel sad." So the "better" performing group was angry and did something about it. While the control group was made to feel sad. Not neutral. Not happy. Not optimistic. Hm.
- akkartik 10y agoOff on a tangent, I find myself wondering if I'd have a higher opinion of Hugh Grant's acting if he did roles closer to his real mood. He needs to consider following in the footsteps of another Hugh: Lawrie as Dr. House.
- peterwwillis 10y agoOptimism means you assume a good outcome. Pessimism means you generally perceive risk as more likely. Anger is a reaction to a potential threat; you already see risk and think you can change it. Happiness is a state of contentment. So.... Yeah, if you're happy, you generally perceive low risk and don't see a need to be defensive or change anything. But we don't live in the jungle. We don't have to be constantly on guard, because we are on top of the food chain, and generally speaking we don't need to compete to survive or even thrive. So the premise that being angry will make you live longer is at best misguided. If anything, being angry will more likely help you assume a defensive posture; not many people want to attack someone who looks like they will attack back. But again, this assumes your livelihood depends on fending off attacks, or beating other people. Not all people live those kind of lives. Finally, things like heart attack are probably more related to genetics and diet than how angry you are. But being angry also clouds your judgment, meaning you're less likely to take advice, like your doctor telling you to lay off the doughnuts and red meat.
- notum 10y agoPeople who read comments before they click on the link are less frustrated and thus live longer* *study sample size: 1, preliminary results
- sandworm101 10y agoOr, perhaps people become more bad-tempered as they age. The OP assumes that there are good-tempered and bad-tempered people and that we remain in our respective categories throughout out lives. That's plain wrong. Money changes people. Getting old changes people. With age and money can come paranoia. Having a pile of cash can make you look at those without as potential enemies. In much the same way, the reduced mental and physical abilities of age can make old people fearful of the young and better-abled. I'd say that long-term studies are needed that track angry people over decades, but that too is premised on the concept that angry people remain angry. Imho temper is a function of life circumstance, not vice versa.
- DanielleMolloy 10y agoJust some thoughts: High achievers are frequently perfectionists. Perfectionism is a good eye for details on the basis of very high standards. We know the downsides of perfectionism (e.g. black & white thinking, more difficulties to work towards 80/20 if necessary), but it is still an excellent basis for achieving great work. There seems to be less cognitive load in keeping up perfectionism / high standards simply all the time; in comparison to deciding whether perfectionism is useful in each individual situation. Therefore many high-achieving people will keep up their perfectionist attitude all day, for all things they encounter in life. Unfortunately, few things in the world are perfect, or well enough under their control to become perfect. Hypothesis: The bad temper of many good workers and high achievers comes from perceiving everything in life with the black & white pattern of perfectionism in a non-perfect world. This both drains their energy and can make them appear a little dissatisfied.
- update 10y agoI think this hits the nail the nail on the head. You said it eloquently. Less scientifically stated: I personally see it as more of a point & click gesture coupled with a lot of 'Alpha' tendencies. It's a simple as "this is wrong. shut up. Make it this way which is the right way, and, do it now." speaking as a bad-tempered, high earning person. relevant part of the article: > The truth is, pondering the worst has some clear advantages. Cranks may be superior negotiators, more discerning decision-makers and cut their risk of having a heart attack. Cynics can expect more stable marriages, higher earnings and longer lives – though, of course, they’ll anticipate the opposite. also shout out to Elizabeth Hurley who was mentioned in the article :) > To his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley's friends he was apparently known as ‘Grumpelstiltskin’. > Hugh Grant may be famed for being moody and a little challenging to work with. But could a grumpy attitude be the secret to his success?
- buserror 10y agoThere is a little secret here. If you 'Alpha' in /just/ the right way, you edge on the side of gentle bullying your environment, and end up having an effect of changing it more than by trying to always try to negotiate your way into having people 'see' the 'right' path. Basically. it saves time and effort. I know it's not a popular thing to say, but everytime people talk about 'leadership ability' it's mostly that: ultimately, driving people to do as you say. I know it works for me, sometime you just can't re-re-re-explain stuff around, and a bit of the Alpha button aka Follow-the-leader wand waving helps saving time and saliva. And yes, being grumpy (more often than not, faking it!) helps too. I think I've fine tuned the ability to an Olympic Sport. I'm known as 'the gruffalo' in the family ;-) Of course you need to balance all that weight throwing with the counterpart: You need to be the first, and loudest to say if/when you get it wrong.
- BatFastard 10y agoDoes this mean many more years of Donald Trump?
- lamarkia 10y agoThe article is a hodgepodge of anecdotes. Does not make an effort to attach some science to it.
- motivic 10y agoBut... are they happier?
- motivic 10y agoand hopefully the converse is not true.
- jerryhuang100 10y agothis basically contradicts to many other studies about the mind-body connections, such as hapiness-immunity connections. that 2010 study of patients of CAD and their follow-ups of 5-10 years of 'angry' levels is kind of flawed as what should actually be studied should be the "anger" levels as the causal effects of the CAD 5-10 years prior to the onset of CAD. it's more likely beyond certain points of the progression of CAD the change of mood does not mean anything to the prognosis.
- jhayward 10y agoThe article is kind of all over the place. I've long looked for a kind of "creative impatience" in people as an indicator of someone who will likely make a creative leap on a problem or simply bulldoze their way past a hurdle. They can come off like a malcontent but if I see them start working on something with that certain body language of "I've had enough of this" I'm always secretly pleased and look forward to the outcome, letting whatever sparks may be, fly. On the other hand if these same folks walk away from something it's likely they don't see any way of salvaging whatever the faults may be. Either way, their mindset or approach is a gift.
- mioelnir 10y agoHate driven development. Once your hate for the current solution's inadequacies pass a threshold, you start implementing the replacement.
- rjdevereux 10y agoSpite driven development: when you develop something just to prove someone else wrong.
- ak39 10y agoClassic. Both spite driven development and hate driven development belong here: https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ The horror is the comedy and the comedy is the horror.
- mseebach 10y agoIn the same vein, but applied to personal relationships, "bad tempered" people are probably less likely to put up with low-intensity abusive behaviour, and while that may result in more conflict short-term, it might make for a more peaceful life in the long run.
- kevindeasis 10y agoWouldn't bad tempered people have bad heart rates and stressful lives?
- Poorboyrise 10y agoAnecdote: "This is a recorded "interactive" message." "O.K. The others are gone übermorgen and, I told it before, that we have our own problems. We have fooled ourself the whole time - to... Alas! I think ye understand. But at least i want to give you one pointer: Mass as a description can be "trained" around information-points of a reality. (2nd "Art"-Law) ^^