Introduction

I. Statement of the problem

Anger is most likely seen as a negative emotion that results in harm and destruction not only to the
person where anger is being directed at but as well as the person himself. Controlling one’s anger is not a
simple process but rather, one must learn how to properly manage his/her emotions. Anger management aims
to alleviate the emotional feelings and physiological stimulation induced by anger. Taking that into account, it is
therefore important for a person to understand his/her emotions, attitude, and behavior. This is made possible
by the development of self-awareness. As such, this study is created for the purpose of determining the
relationship between anger management and the development of self-awareness of a person.

II. Objective

This study aims to fully understand the relationship between anger management and self-awareness as
well as to prove if anger management gives way for a person to develop self-awareness with the use of
secondary data analysis.

This study is also intended to determine methods on how an individual can better handle his/her anger
and to what extent his/her anger can affect his/her studies, work, and social interactions.

III. Review of Related Literature

Anger begins with the idea that others' thoughts, emotions, or activities are "terrible." The idea that
anger is terrible appears to be sufficient because individuals feel qualified to see others' behavior as interfering
with their qualities and interests, and along these, they are considered "appalling." (Kassinove, 1998)

According to H. G. Kennedy (1992), anger was ignored as a logical and clinical examination subject,
even though there have been numerous investigations of rough conduct. “Anger can be defined as an affective
state experienced as the motivation to act in ways that warn, intimidate, or attack those who are perceived as
challenging or threatening.” (Kennedy, 1992) Although anger is common in psychological illnesses, it is highly
ignored, due to the social disgrace connected to its demeanor.

The definition of anger for Aristotle is, “a desire, accompanied by pain, for a perceived revenge, on
account of a perceived slight on the part of people who are not fit slight one or one’s own” (Rh. 2.2.1378a31-3).
The pain that goes with anger appears to be sensible to assume that it results from a direct impression of
something destructive or undesirable instead of memory or expectation. Thus, the pain of anger would contrast
from the delight connected with this feeling. (Braund & Most, 2003)

Daniel Goleman (2020) perceived the idea that self-awareness is about "having a deep understanding
of one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives." Self-awareness is knowing one's emotion,
personality, and purpose. People with high self-awareness are honest with themselves and the people around
them. They understand how their feelings would affect themselves and others. A self-aware person knows the
right path to take and the importance of the way he chooses.
 Furthermore, in 2019, Tchiki Davis stated that self-awareness requires self-examination to know how
aware of a person about themselves. Having a high self-awareness is a tough predictor of success because if
a person is self-aware, they know their strengths and weaknesses and know if the opportunity will benefit or
will be good for them. Davis stated that self-awareness has two types, internal self-awareness – which
represents how a person sees their values, passion, aspiration, fit with the environment, reactions, and impact
on others and external self-awareness – which represents the understanding of how others view a person.

Gary Van Warmerdam (2005) defined self-awareness as "having a clear perception of your personality,
including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions." Self-awareness helps an
individual in understanding and knowing himself and everyone surrounding him. Developing self-awareness
enables you to make changes in the way you think and interpret things. Self-awareness helps you to
understand your own emotions, attitude, and behavior. Being aware of yourself allows you to control and
decide the path you will take for your future. Self-awareness is developed through consistent learning of your
behavior and personality. Paying attention to your emotions, personality, and attitude leads to being self-
aware.

The feeling of anger is normal; it is a natural emotion to feel. Like any other emotion, it carries a
message and tells that a circumstance is upsetting, fearful, or vile. On the off chance that your automatic
response to outrage is to explode, nonetheless, that message never gets an opportunity to be passed on.
Thus, while it's entirely ordinary to feel furious when you've been abused or violated, anger turns into an issue
when you express it such that hurts yourself or others (Smith & Segal, 2020)

There are several roots of what makes a person angry. It can be common triggers or unique triggers.
For example, becoming annoyed, getting no acknowledgment, and injustice. Memories of a traumatic
experience and stressing over personal issues can also cause anger. If a person does not know how to
appropriately anger, it might develop and explode into an outburst. Another cause of anger can be an
underlying medical condition, inherited tendencies, and brain chemistry. (Anger management: Your questions
answered, 2020)

Gerry Vassar (2011) stated some common triggers to anger, are injustice, disrespect, violation of your
personal space, abusive language, labeling, shaming, blaming, physical threats, insults, misinformation, lying,
relationship disputes, constant disappointment, lack of control, and some individuals. Each individual has a
unique trigger of anger. It is usually based on each person’s personal experiences.

According to Nash (2018), anger management is already present for a thousand years. Roman
philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.-65 A.D.), Greek physician and philosopher Aelius Galenus (129-
216), and Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) played a major role in the history of anger management. “The purpose
of anger management is to help a person decrease anger. It reduces the emotional and physical arousal that
anger can cause. It is generally impossible to avoid all people and settings that incite anger. But a person may
learn to control reactions and respond in a socially appropriate manner. The support of a mental health
professional may be helpful in this process.”
 "Anger management is the process of learning to recognize signs that you're becoming angry and
taking action to calm down and deal with the situation in a productive way." (Anger management, 2017) Anger
management is about learning how to control and express a person's anger and not keep a person feeling
anger or force a person not to release it.

Anger management is a manner to lessen the outcomes that when a person feels angry. Anger is a
typical reaction and feeling; however, a person can discover a lot of ways to manage anger better. Anger is a
regular and healthy emotion that occurs when a person is frustrated, harmful, irritated, or upset. It can result
from something that happened to a person, something a person said or did, or something a person cannot
forget. Anger can help or hurt a person. When a person lets anger take-over, it could result in passive-
aggressive behavior like ''getting returned'' at humans without telling them why or being crucial and hostile.
Knowing how to understand and express those feelings appropriately allows a person to manage emergencies,
clear up troubles, and hold directly to significant relationships. (Pathak, 2020)

According to Foroux (2019), self-awareness can improve with the help of anger. Knowing what triggers
a person’s anger will help a person control and restraint this anger and when this anger is controlled a person
became aware of oneself. That is how a person can be better. Through anger management, self-awareness
can be more visible to a person.

IV. Conceptual Framework

LEARNING HOW TO
MANAGE INTENSE
disrespect controlling reactions knowing what triggers a
threats
EMOTIONS
responding in socially person's anger
injustice appropriate manner becoming aware of what
traumatic experience recognizing signs of outburst causes the outbursts
stress managing emergencies successfully controlling
abusive language clearing up troubles one's emotions in extreme
situations

IDENTIFYING THE DEVELOPING SELF-

ROOT OF EMOTIONS AWARENESS

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

Figure 1 elaborates on the cycle of achieving self-awareness through proper anger management. The
first step in the process includes identifying the root causes of one’s anger. It is followed by the next most
important step which is how to properly handle one’s own intense emotions or anger. This includes the
appropriate actions or behavior during outbursts and how could it be beneficial in managing situations. Lastly is
the development of self-awareness which is the concluding outcome of successfully managing one’s anger.
This includes the improvement of a person’s basic response during situations that trigger outbursts as well as
improving one’s personality toward the better. Overall, the figure shows the correlation between managing
one’s anger and developing self-awareness as the successful completion of one leads to the latter.

V. Two-level Sentence Outline

Title:

Anger Management: A Bridge to Self-Awareness

Thesis statement:

Anger is an emotion triggered by negative physiological arousal; however, anger management

develops the self-awareness of a person.

Two-level Sentence Outline:

I. Learning how to manage one’s anger during situations that trigger one’s
psychological makeup.

A. Identifying the root causes or triggers of one’s anger.

B. Recognizing the signs of outbursts.

C. Controlling reactions during emotionally triggering situations.

D. Responding in a socially appropriate manner.

II. Developing self-awareness through learning how to manage one’s anger.

A. Having sufficient knowledge about emotional triggers.

B. Becoming aware of what causes the outbursts.

C. Successfully controlling one’s emotions during extreme situations.

D. Ability to understand and distinguish one’s personality.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defined anger as "a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of
antagonism." Anger is one of the primary human feelings that everyone encounters from time to time. This
emotion is a natural response of a person to perceive threats and prepare a person to fight.

Anger is a powerful emotion felt by everyone when someone or something annoys or frustrates them. If
a person cannot control this anger properly, it can lead to a devastating result that can affect a person and
other people. Anger can be defined as the most negative emotion that a person can have, aside from
loneliness or sadness, which hit a different emotional spot. Most people speak devastating and below the belt
words whenever they are angry, resulting in a misunderstanding between two or more parties.

Better health channel (2014) stated that increased anxiety, high blood pressure, and headache are the
long-term physical effects of uncontrolled anger. They also mention some of the short and long-term health
problems that unmanaged anger can cause. These are headaches, digestion problems, such as abdominal
pain, insomnia, increased anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and skin problems, such as eczema, heart
attack, and stroke. These health problems may link to people being unaware of themselves, which can lead to
a negative outcome on a person's feelings. "Negative attitudes and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
can create chronic stress, which upsets the body's hormone balance, depletes the brain chemicals required for
happiness, and damages the immune system" (Lawson, 2016). Overall, it affects not only the person's physical
appearance but also the psychological aspect of a person.

Some people have very little control over their anger and tend to explode in rages. Raging anger may
result in physical abuse or violence. A person who cannot control their temper should isolate themselves from
family and friends. Some people who fly into rages have low self-esteem and use their anger to control and
manipulate others so they can feel powerful. While some people consider that anger is an 'inappropriate' or
'bad' emotion and choose to suppress it. However, restrained anger can lead to depression and anxiety. Some
people release their restrained anger at innocent parties, such as children or pets.

Different reactions to situations and experiences may cause a person to feel angry. Each individual has
different triggers of anger. People view things differently; they have their perceptions and capacity to think
independently. An individual can get mad at a particular situation or specific reason while the other individual
cannot get angry at that situation at all. Despite these different views, it does not mean that people see things
wrong whenever they get mad. If people can learn to recognize and label their feelings, this awareness will
give the person time to determine how best to respond to feeling angry. Anger is a normal human emotion, as
anger is a person's signal of perceived danger. Everyone gets angry from time to time. Anger can become a
problem when it is too intense, occurs too frequently, lasts too long, results in aggression or violence, impacts
health, causes problems at work or school, or destroys a person's relationship with other people.

Robero Frieston (2015) said that anger is the most misunderstood of human emotions. Some people
think that being angry is wrong; thus, feeling angry makes people a bad person. It shows misconceptions about
the normal feeling that a person normally exerts. Dalai Lama stated, "If a human being never shows anger,
then I think something's wrong. He's not right in the brain". In line with that quote, it is vital to perceive that
anger is a healthy emotion that a human normally feels. Anger needs to be released appropriately and be
controlled all the time. Properly expressing anger is a learned behavior, as they say.

On the other side, self-awareness helps an individual to understand oneself and everyone that
surrounds him deeply. Self-awareness is an essential ability that a person can cultivate. It requires a person to
ask oneself the right question and answer them honestly. Knowing oneself is one of the most significant things
a person can do for himself and the people around him. The definition of self-awareness can be "the ability to
recognize and understand your own emotions" (Cherry, 2018).

`Being self-aware will give more enlightenment to a person concerned. It helps a person to choose
what to believe in improving oneself. Self-awareness is the capacity to see one's emotions, physical
sensations, responses, propensities, practices, and thoughts. Once a person attains self-awareness, that
person can better control one's emotions and not let these emotions take over. Self-awareness is about being
genuine and honest with oneself. A study shows that self-awareness is directly associated with both emotional
intelligence and success. It helps people make attainable goals because they consider their strengths,
weaknesses, and what drives them when setting goals.

Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund (1972) stated that "at a given moment, people can focus attention
on the self or the external environment." An individual should focus more on oneself rather than other people.
Being aware of oneself will help the individual analyze and evaluate oneself with the rightness levels regarding
how an individual thinks, feels, and behaves, rather than pleasing the others. The degree of sensitivity of an
individual may vary depending on how that person handles himself. The environment a person is in may
influence one's self-awareness, but that does not mean that pleasing people by controlling their anger is the
key to developing better interpersonal skills. It makes it easier for an individual to identify the situation and
people who hit their triggers and anticipate their reactions. It allows people to make positive behavioral
changes that can lead to more tremendous personal and interpersonal success.

To fully understand what self-awareness can contribute to the people, Jennifer (2020) stated that there
are ten benefits of self-awareness, which as follows: more empathy toward others which can lead to a better
interpersonal relationship, better listening skills for the people to be more aware in their environment, can
improve critical thinking skills that can make a person think deeper and outside the box, can improve decision-
making skills for well-adjusted resolutions, better leadership abilities, more self-control, can increase creativity,
can increase the ability to change habits, higher self-esteem, and better over-all perspective that can help
people to be more compassionate than they are.

There are numerous advantages that people can gain from being self-aware. It causes a person to
have more compassion for other people and empowers oneself to be an ideal speaker and audience at the
same time. Also, being self-aware assists an individual with working up with a relationship with others. When a
person develops self-awareness, others' criticisms are welcome to acknowledge one's strengths and
weaknesses fully.

George Anderson (2014) stated that the first step in improving emotional intelligence competence could
be developed through emotional self-awareness. It is generally agreed that all other emotional intelligence
skills were developed by recognizing and using self-awareness to select the best response to daily situations.
In a broader sense, anger management improves a person's capacity to be more self-aware in all aspects, and
self-awareness can improve a person's emotional control.
 Anger management is the process of lessening the effects of the anger of a person. The way a person
typically expresses anger may take some time to modify his emotions. Well-managed anger can be a useful
emotion that motivates a person to make positive changes for his own and other's welfare. It also helps a
person to control the anger that a person is feeling.

According to a psychologist with a specialization in anger management, some people are more 'hot-
headed' rather than others. It is easier for these people to be angry than the average person does.
Psychologists say that a person that gets angry quickly has a 'low tolerance of frustration.' These people
specifically get mad when they experience a situation that they feel unfair. But, a person's capacity to control
his or her anger has a broader range and can be developed if that person becomes self-aware.

Anger is a horrible feeling. However, it is a natural emotional response of a human – so it naturally

comes out, and they can feel furious. Expanding one's self-awareness can help a person to deeply understand
his emotions preventing acting upon them. When a person increments one's self-awareness and believes to
not act upon one's feelings, it is more likely to feel more sympathy towards oneself and with others associated
with the circumstance. Being aware of oneself also helps identify what the person's stressors are, so a person
can utilize the information to build effective coping mechanisms and control the anger that his emotional self is
exerting.

According to Darius Foroux (2018), losing control over emotion is never good. Even when at war and
must be aggressive, self-control and restraint are the most important characteristics a leader can have.
Uncontrolled anger can lead to an adverse effect in all aspects and different fields. A leader must have the
most extended patience and must be self-aware to properly control the anger that the person feels.

Anger is a normal emotion that every individual can feel. Whenever a person is angry, unexpected
things might happen if it is not controlled. With anger management, a person will be enabled to control the
anger that a person is feeling and be able to express it appropriately without harming oneself and other people.
Anger management helps a person to understand the causes that trigger the anger. With that being said,
anger management helps a person to become aware of oneself. Self-awareness makes a person understand
themselves fully and the people around them. People will have the capacity to experience a broad range of
emotions. The key is to allow oneself to have all the emotions but must limit the actions in response to those
emotions. The process of putting feelings into words will enable a person to integrate their feelings and reduce
the urge to act on them.

Being self-aware helps build a strong therapeutic relationship and helps a person make more well-
defined decisions and contributes to one's overall well-being. It is important to remember that self-awareness is
an individual's ability to appreciate one's character's strengths and weaknesses. It can also mold the person's
ability to control his emotions, specifically anger, to build a harmonious relationship with people. Realizing this
will enable an individual to take action and make choices and decisions consistent with their abilities. It is vital
to put the time in – self-awareness is not learned in a book but achieved through self-reflection by using what
people have learned about themselves to inform decisions, behaviors, and interactions with other people. Self-
awareness is not a one-time fix. It is an ongoing journey that a person has with herself. Anger can be a
positive and useful emotion if expressed appropriately. Nothing is wrong with expressing and showing the
anger that a person usually feels. Long-term anger management strategies can be offered to lessen a person's
negative physiological arousal and speed up the ability to become more aware of oneself, which includes
regular exercise, learning relaxation techniques, and counseling.

With anger management, a person becomes fully aware of one's emotions, not only anger. Thus, anger
management is one of the ways to improve and develop a person's self-awareness. Anger management allows
the person to learn more about understanding oneself and becoming aware of the self. It will also enable a
person to better understand one's emotions and deal with them. With anger management, people can be fully
aware of all the feelings that they may exert, not only anger. It takes a lot of self-awareness to appreciate
everything that may be contributing to a person's anger; thus, it dramatically impacts the emotional awareness
for the people to become more engaged in oneself. People can learn a lot about themselves through their
anger. Anger informs. Its usefulness or destructiveness depends upon how people cope with it. Hence, don't
treat anger like a virus to be avoided, but a way on how to develop self-awareness.
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