anger

Meaning: Anger is a negative, high-arousal emotion that usually follows an appraisal that one has been threatened, wronged or blocked from a goal. Like any emotion it has three components: physiological (sympathetic activation, faster heart rate, activity in the amygdala and hypothalamus), cognitive (the appraisal of the situation) and behavioral (a scowl, a raised voice, sometimes aggression). The prefrontal cortex helps regulate amygdala-driven responses, so reduced prefrontal control is linked to impulsive, poorly restrained anger.

On the MCAT: Anger appears on Ekman's list of basic emotions, usually given as happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. Passages often describe cross-cultural studies in which people in many societies identify the angry face, and then contrast this with display rules, the culture-specific norms about when and how to show emotion. Anger is also the usual example when the three theories of emotion are compared. James-Lange: the bodily arousal comes first and the emotion follows from it. Cannon-Bard: arousal and the feeling occur at the same time. Schachter-Singer: arousal plus a cognitive label produces the emotion.

Common confusion: Anger is not the same as aggression. Anger is an internal emotional state, while aggression is behavior intended to harm. Either can occur without the other. Also, fear and anger both involve sympathetic arousal, so arousal alone does not identify the emotion. That point is central to Schachter-Singer.