Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) / quote 72 of 91
Blowing off steam increases aggression
It’s a myth that releasing emotions makes everything better (that blowing your top will defuse your anger, for example). “Better out than in,” the saying goes. Almost half a century’s worth of research shows that “blowing off steam” usually increases aggression. The only time expressing anger in that style helps is when it is accompanied immediately by constructive problem solving. As C. S. Lewis observed in The Silver Chair, one book in the Chronicles of Narnia series: “Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”