Antecedence to Injury | Illumination

Antecedence to Injury. Story by Alan Bavley.

But equally possible, the injury itself may have made you angry. Or the anger and injury may have occurred at the same time, but be unrelated. "Anger was associated with injury," Vinson cautions. "'Associated' is jargon, but it's necessary jargon."

Some of Vinson's findings seem obvious. Getting into an argument is a real hazard, for example. "If I get angry, I increase the risk of someone else injuring me -- by a lot," Vinson says. He found also that the association of anger and injury was much stronger among men than women. "All I can do is speculate," Vinson says. "When women get angry they respond in a different way than men. A man may be more likely to do something physical when he's angry. A woman may talk it out."

But there were surprises. Road rage, for example, may not be as physically dangerous as we've come to assume. The study didn't find a relationship between anger and traffic injuries. "That really puzzles me. For one thing, traffic makes most of us angry. And motor vehicles are a dangerous weapon, if you make them into one," Vinson says. "Maybe it's because people who get angry driving decide 'I don't want to put a dent in my car.' It might be that the great majority of people who get angry driving react that way."

Another revelation was how generally disgruntled people say they are. Among those in Vinson's telephone survey, 33 percent said they were irritable and eight percent reported feeling hostile. Vinson wouldn't link that pervasive anger to intermittent explosive disorder, the latest psychiatric condition that's been making headlines. "I would be willing to bet that, of the 33 percent who were at least irritable, very few would have a disorder of explosive anger. I would bet most are just normal folks who get angry from time to time," Vinson says. "But it makes me think we live in a pretty angry society."

Vinson's research has gotten some good-natured ribbing in the scientific community. Earlier this year, his alcohol and anger studies were critiqued in the journal Nature in a column devoted to "seemingly pointless" research.

"When we get angry we're more likely to hurt things, and, crucially, ourselves. Pretty much common sense, really," the columnist wrote. "So why do we need a newly published scientific study to hammer home the message?" Vinson sighs impatiently when he hears criticism like this. "That's the 'well, duh,' argument," he says. "But two drinks doubling the risk of injury, that's no 'well, duh.' People don't know that."

Published by the Office of Research.