Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Politics aside, what Oprah and Obama have in common is a keen ability to find (and transmit) hope, amid whirlpools of emotional pollution.

To the great misfortune of human relationships, our emotions are negatively biased, which tends to make us reactaholics.

Operating almost entirely on an unconscious level, four mechanisms give force and power to emotional pollution. In fact, the four mechanisms - contagion, attunement, negative bias, and reactivity -- govern most human interactions.

All animals, including humans, use emotional displays to interact with one another. Aggression is the most dramatic example. Dogs growl, cats arch their backs, snakes hiss, horses stand up and wave their front legs menacingly, bulls kick sand, apes beat their chests, and humans puff up their muscles.

The hard-wired threat-detector embedded in our central nervous systems makes a lot of sense in terms of keeping us safe from physical threats. Unfortunately, it has been hijacked in modern times to include threats to the ego. When ego grows, emotional pollution flows.

We live in a "cult of feelings," where what you feel has become at least as important as what you do.

Unless we understand how emotions happen in a social context and how they give meaning to events and behavior, there is no hope of knowing the self, let alone understanding another person or other cultures.

The hidden effects of emotional pollution can be more harmful to your well being than breathing in someone else's cigarette smoke and more aesthetically disquieting than stepping over other people's trash.

A major problem in the Age of Entitlement is the separation of rights from responsibility. "Getting your needs met," has become the motto of the times.

Entitlement is the belief that you have the right to do or get something. In social interactions, it is considering your right to do or get something to be superior the rights of those who may want you to do or get something else. When you feel entitled, you are not merely disappointed when others disagree with you or fail to accommodate your presumed rights, you feel cheated and wronged, which produces anger and a stronger sense of entitlement as compensation.