From “Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human” by Guy Leschziner
Wrath – the emotion of anger and its consequences – clearly has benefits. Without anger we would be unmotivated to strive, to defend ourselves, to defend our group. Both anger and aggression clearly have a neurobiological basis, an underlying circuitry within the brain that influences our propensity for that emotion and our response to it. How our brains have developed is defined by evolution and the genetic factors that are selected for and against to aid our survival. But also by our environment, the world we are brought up in, the families we are part of, the fabric of the society around us. We cannot change our genes, but everything else is potentially within our control.
When I write ‘our’ control, I mean society rather than us as individuals. For society at large, mechanisms that regulate our behavior, that lessen emotional or physical violence within the environment that we grow up in, will influence our individual propensity to wrath. Legislation, ethical or religious codes for example: even the use of seatbelts in cars to reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury. These sorts of measures are crucial to our world, to prevent those normal and useful emotions spilling over, unleashing pain, misery, conflict and war, on our families, our societies and our world.