A short temper can be described as someone quickly reacting with anger to any situation, says New York psychologist Ernesto Lira de la Rosa, media advisor for the Hope for Depression Research Foundation. “This can entail an increase in aggressive thoughts, emotions, and physiological responses that leads someone to behave in an aggressive or angry manner,” Lira de la Rosa says. “The reaction is usually quick and can lead to people not recognizing their behavior and actions until after the anger subsides.” “Short temper” isn’t an official psychological diagnosis, but it is similar to “Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED),” Lira de la Rosa says. “IED is more severe and consists of repeated patterns of aggressive behavior that are out of proportion to the situation at hand,” he continues. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing anger, Lira de la Rosa clarifies. Feeling angry is normal, but it’s the behavior accompanying the emotion that can be problematic: “There are both healthy and unhealthy ways of expressing anger,” he says.
Why Short-Tempered Men Are The Way They Are
It’s possible that short tempers run in families and can be part of our genes, Lira de la Rosa says. Other mental health concerns, such as depression, anxiety, stress and trauma, can contribute as well, especially if people haven’t been able to express or process them. Anger tends to directly relate, however, to specific thought patterns triggered when someone perceives a situation as unfair, unjust, or simply “wrong,” says clinical psychologist Steven M. Sultanoff, Ph.D., a professor at Pepperdine University. Someone who sees behavior as unfair and who also perceives that unfairness as a personal attack might get angry in a particular situation whereas someone who doesn’t share that tendency would not, he says. For example, when a kid isn’t behaving in a way he or she “should,” someone with a short temper might, deep down, see it as a reflection on him, Sultanoff says. A man who thinks it’s unfair that his child is misbehaving will think, “If things aren’t fair, then I’m not good enough to be treated fairly.” “It’s a core, or absolute, belief about oneself,” Sultanoff says. “Does your child wailing mean you’re inadequate, or not okay? No, but it can feel that way. When the child doesn’t behave, the negative core belief kicks in, and he thinks, I’m not good enough, not loved enough, so I have to be angry and control the outside world.” Anger in such a situation can be empowering, he continues: “If someone’s belief system centers around the world being fair, it energizes them to correct the wrong, or whatever it is they perceive as unjust or unfair.” Other things also can contribute to men being short-tempered or irritable, says licensed marriage and family therapist Nick Bognar: “Most of them boil down to not having the emotional literacy to know what’s going on within themselves, and a lack of knowledge about how to care for themselves.” A classic example of a counterproductive anger response is a dad who can’t stand to see his child suffer, Bognar says. If the child is in pain, scared or crying, the dad finds himself angry, and some dads might even yell at their kids or punish them for this. “Once we step back and examine that, the truth was the dad just didn’t know how to tolerate seeing his child suffer, and handled it in a way that may have felt appropriate at the time,” Bognar says. “He might think to himself, They need to learn to toughen up, like I had to, but the truth is that the toughening-up process was the thing that left the dad without the resources to understand what his own fear and pain feel like, and without strategies for caring for himself when he’s in distress.” Irritability continues to be culturally more “appropriate” for men than other emotions, such as sadness, says Stephen Benning, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Both men and women can be high in negative emotion, but women tend to [make] themselves the objects of that negative emotion, such as anxiety or self-consciousness, whereas men tend to be more irritable and hostile,” Benning says. “Thus, women may be more likely to withdraw when they feel badly, but men may tend to approach the objects of their negative emotion.” In addition, although we’re making strides toward men feeling comfortable expressing emotions, there are still plenty of dads who see themselves as someone who’s never allowed to be in distress, Bognar notes. “That’s a lonely and painful place to be,” he says. “And of course, when we bottle things up, eventually the bottle gets full — and full bottles rarely leak. More often, they burst.”
The Trouble With Short Tempers
Unhealthy expressions of anger affect you and your family. Bottling up anger tends to lead to health issues later on, specifically heart disease, says Thomas DiBlasi, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and an assistant professor at St. Joseph’s College who studies anger, domestic violence, and revenge. Bottling emotions also can lead to being short-tempered and irritable, he says, or it could lead to explosions and impulsive, heat-of-the-moment reactions. A short temper can become a problem if you see that it’s interfering with your relationships, work or other aspects of your life, Lira de la Rosa says. Or maybe you’re — understandably — worried if your partner or children seem afraid of upsetting you. It can be helpful to imagine the roles were switched during one of your temper episodes and to honestly answer some tough questions, Sultanoff suggests, such as, If you were a child, how would you react to you being angry? What impact might that have, if the child, or your partner, is scared? And if you’re angry at your child or your partner, what is the function of being angry? How is being angry helping you? Some men with short tempers aren’t particularly motivated to change because anger can be empowering and even useful, Sultanoff says. If a father’s temper flares and his wife collects the kids and leaves the room because he’s scaring everyone, for example, it achieves the result of getting everyone to stop bothering him. But at what cost? Considering how your temper might be hurting those around you can provide an incentive to change. “If your wife backs off when you’re angry, your anger is pushing her away, in a sense,” Sultanoff says. Once men realize their children are growing fearful and they’re creating emotional distance between themselves and their partners, they’re likely to be more motivated to change the behavior. These strategies can help you get some control over your short temper.
