Outrage as Entertainment: Why we’re addicted to anger

UnityDissolving Egoic Illusion
Written By Ashley Melillo

In this modern world of endless social media scrolling and heightened divisions, have you ever found yourself intentionally looking for something to be angry about? Perhaps you click into Twitter with the intention of seeing what the "other side" has to say fully expecting to get riled up about it? If so, you're not alone. Many of us have found ourselves caught in this "outrage as entertainment" cycle.

Are we addicted to outrage? What purpose does outrage serve? Is this type of morally cloaked anger prosocial or are we merely feeding into a self-serving neurobiological brain loop when we go looking for injustices? What biases underpin our perceptions? And what can we do to step out of the outrage cycle and into empathic, unifying awareness?

We’ll address all these questions and more below.

“We’ve allowed social media emotions to take over our own, and we’ve allowed social media to tell us how we should feel, and if you don’t conform, you’re ostracized. That’s groupthink folks in a nutshell. Today, people are vilified if they don’t use the good old fashioned groupthink method. We should just do what everybody else is doing to fit in and vilify the ones who don’t go along for the sake of getting along. That’s just wrong. At the end of the day, we should never vilify people for using their critical thinking skills, even when the results of their thought-processes don’t align with ours. It’s a form of dumbing us down. It’s telling people what to think and how to think—and no sane person wants this for their lives, especially not grown people.”
— Marley K. on Medium

Read more from Marley here.

here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

  1. What purpose outrage serves.

  2. The biases that underpin the mind’s tendency to feel outraged by perspectives that contradict its own.

  3. Ways to step out of the outrage cycle and move into empathic awareness and towards unity consciousness.

🎙 If you prefer to listen instead, click here to access the podcast episode.

The lightbulb that led to this post.

A couple years ago, I noticed myself going through a period where I seemed to subconsciously look for things to be outraged by on social media. It aligned with a period of time in which I felt a bit lost and uncertain about my purpose.

The process typically went like this...

I’d click into twitter or facebook and peruse posts almost hoping to find something that challenged my perspective. I didn't take outward action with the outrage I'd feel upon being triggered but internally it would then proceed to run amuck and wreak havoc. I'd find myself angered by what I'd discover or frustrated or disappointed.

One day, a mere moment before I clicked into Twitter, I heard an intuitive whisper…

"Hey, have you noticed you're looking for things to be mad about? Have you thought about why? What purpose is this serving? And are you consciously choosing this for yourself or is the mind taking you for a wild, rage-fueled ride?"

This certainly wasn't the first time I'd found myself in this pattern, but it was the first time I'd really stopped to question it. I'd noticed so many others around me engaging in similar patterns as well.

I thought: Isn't this just what we do as humans?

But then I felt a sinking pang in my gut—a metaphorical ‘stop sign’ from my higher self urging me to pause and look deeper.

I immediately reversed out of Twitter. I opened the notes app on my phone and began to jot down paragraphs of hypotheses, questions, and theories about this phenomenon.

As with many of the topics I write about and discuss, what follows below was inspired by my own desire to shift a pattern of behavior that wasn't serving my highest good.

Our ability to change an unwanted pattern begins the second we honestly and humbly recognize there's a problem.

The moment we acknowledge the thorn in our thinking, if you will.

From there, we can then get curious about why it's there so that we can both allow the thorn to work itself out and do our best to ensure it doesn't snag us up again..

The breeding grounds of outrage

It's no secret that the last many years have been breeding grounds for outrage. No matter which side we've found ourselves on all sides are outraged.

And yet outrage depletes us to the core. It's a metabolically and energetically demanding emotion. There's even a term for the experience of being overburdened by outrage—’outrage fatigue’.

If we're going to expend precious energy on being persistently disgruntled and angry, it better be serving some higher purpose or greater good. But is it? And if it isn't, what purpose does outrage serve and why are we so drawn to it?

If being mad and judgmental was an effective way to evoke positive change in the world, then we'd teach our kids to be mad and judgmental.

Instead, we teach them the exact opposite, yet we rationalize our own outrage as if being angry and judgmental and cruel towards others is somehow justified for certain topics or certain groups of people—particularly those groups we perceive to be the "other".

Let's take a closer look...

What is moral outrage?

Moral outrage is defined as feelings of anger directed at a third-party for violating a moral standard of justice or fairness.

This outrage is often expressed by a bystander on behalf of the victim of that perceived injustice. Because of this, moral outrage was historically described as a prosocial emotion that reflected a desire to restore justice by fighting on behalf of the victimized or marginalized party.

However, more recently and especially with the introduction of social media, this once altruistic portrayal has been called into question by research demonstrating that moral outrage can also be a self-serving method of defending or bolstering one's own moral standing as opposed to an authentic desire for justice.

Moral outrage is not merely a concern with justice alone; it is also an attempt by individuals to appear virtuous to others, and to reduce their guilt

(Rothschild & Keefer, 2017; Puryear, 2020)

So, is it good? Bad? Somewhere in between?

Although the literature doesn’t differentiate, I see moral outrage as having two distinct subtypes:

  1. Unifying Moral Outrage:

    Anchored in empathy.

    Spurs us internally to take outward supportive action.

    Our efforts are directed towards compassionate and genuine prosocial support of those groups or people who are perceived as being unjustly affected.

  2. Divisive Moral Outrage:

    Anchored in contempt.

    Un-fun fact: Feelings of contempt have been shown to be related to the dehumanization of members of the outgroup (Esses, Veenvliet, Hodson, & Mihic, 2008).

    Thanks to feelings of contempt, the efforts we make on behalf of divisive moral outrage are directed at destroying those people or groups who are perceived as committing injustice, whether through internal thoughts or outward actions.

    The focus of our actions or attention, then, is on the perceived "other" (i.e., the perceived antagonist or perpetrator) as opposed to those experiencing the injustice.

    Divisive moral outrage can result in either outward actions or inward rumination. Outward outrage actions aren't necessarily displayed in public forums like social media but may be taken into the real world and brought to life in conversations with friends, family members, etc.

    Unfortunate truth: Mainstream news media is particularly good at inflaming topics in a way that induces divisive moral outrage. They weaponize certain topics in such a way that we’re triggered to outrage just by hearing a simple word, phrase, label, or name.

Which type of outrage do we favor?

Depending on our natural disposition as well as the nature of the triggering topic at hand, we may tend towards one type of moral outrage over the other, but I think it's probably safe to say that we've all engaged in both types at one point or another.

For the purpose of this conversation, we're going to focus on divisive moral outrage.

The Moral Self-Licensing Effect

When we engage in divisive moral outrage, we're trying to access the positive by way of directing negative emotional states towards others. We're essentially bundling nonmoral behavior in a moral facade.

There's a social psychology phenomenon known as the Moral Self-Licensing Effect that seems to be at play here (Merritt et al. 2010), whereby we justify bad behavior by calling to mind past or future good behavior. We do this to help soothe cognitive dissonance.

When doing ‘good’ becomes bad

Anger can feel purposeful when it’s channeled at a goal.

In the case of divisive moral outrage, our goal is to convince others that our beliefs or perspectives are right or morally sound and that their beliefs or perspectives are wrong or immoral.

BUT…

Is doing bad to the "other" group in the name of doing "good" to our group really doing good?

Research (Brady & Van Bavel 2021) suggests that moral outrage expressions in online networks serve in-group reputation functions while at the same time hindering discourse between groups.

When an individual expresses moral emotions that negatively depict the out-group, he’s perceived by out-group members as less open-minded and less worthy of political conversation.

Although such expressions strengthen in-group belonging and acceptance, it comes at the cost of intensifying divisions and therefore seems to be more self-serving than beneficial to the collective.

On a similar note, research by psychologist John Gottman has shown that contempt is absolutely devastating to relationships. When we show contempt for someone else's opinions, thoughts, actions, etc. we're essentially saying, "You, your thoughts, and your views are beneath me."

Important things to consider…

If this type of moral outrage is only enhancing divisions, why are we so drawn to it?

Why are we fooled into thinking that ridiculing the collective "other" could lead to unity?

Not to mention the internal costs that anger and outrage have on our physical health and mental well-being.

And on more nuanced topics of ethics, why is the mind so certain that we're on the “right” side of the debate to begin with?

The Four-Pronged Problem

In preparation for this article, I dove deep into research for months—scouring the realms of social psychology, kinesiology, neurobiology, and ethics.

Given the size of this rabbit hole, I came out with even more questions than when I started.

But the essence of what I discovered pointed me to four distinct variables that have intersected to create this widespread divisive rage addiction.

Prong 1. Neurobiological basis. Outrage is internally rewarding + stimulating, which keeps us coming back for more.

Prong 2. Accessibility and Addictive Rewards. Social media increases both accessibility to topics to be outraged about (i.e., trigger material) and our ability to express outrage. Social media also rewards us for expressed outrage in a very addictive manner.

Prong 3. Cognitive biases. There are inherent cognitive biases that enhance our natural tendency towards divisive (us-them) thinking.

Prong 4. Ego identification. Because the ego requires identification and separation to exist, it's constantly working to keep itself alive by clinging to our identities, especially those that keep us separated and distanced from others. It can see itself more clearly when it sees itself as separate.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these four issues…

Outrage is Rewarding + Stimulating

Brain basis

The brain is addicted to drama because drama releases feel-good neurochemicals.

Specifically…

When we internally experience drama, endorphins are released which suppress pain and induce a pleasurable numbing effect. To put it more bluntly, consuming drama in any form triggers the same mechanisms and circuitry in the brain as opiates or heroin. Is it any wonder then why we're addicted to those hits of drama and subsequent outrage? And is it any wonder why we're more drawn to search for outrage when we're feeling out of sorts ourselves?

When we externally express moral outrage, dopamine* is released. For instance, punishing a perceived evildoer releases dopamine.

But, studies show that the initial high or cathartic effect of expressing outrage online (i.e., venting) actually makes us feel worse in the long run (Martin et al. 2013).

*Dopamine was originally labeled the "pleasure" neurotransmitter, but is now understood to be the neurotransmitter responsible for desire, seeking, and wanting.

Energetic or spiritual basis

When we chart the vibrational frequency of emotional states (Kinesiology—see Power v. Force), anger is a higher frequency emotion than things like fear, grief, apathy, guilt, and shame.

Thus, moving from one of these lower emotional states to anger is vibrationally productive.

Perhaps we reach for anger to pull us out of apathy, sadness, boredom. Whatever lower frequency feeling might be ailing us.

We look for something to stimulate our minds so that we can numb out ramblings of inadequacy.

Of course, in the greater scheme of emotions, anger is still quite low and is considered a contracting emotion (v. an expansive emotion). Thus, anger limits our consciousness instead of expanding it. This is because anger relies on external force as opposed to revealing internal power.

Social Media Increases Trigger Accessibility + Expression Opportunities

Customized attention grabber

Social media is architected to grab your individual attention.

Your time and attention are highly valuable currencies, and these platforms know how to get you to spend. They also know how to exploit the inherent brain processes that keep you coming back for more.

A study published in 2021 revealed that out-group language is the strongest predictor of social media engagement (reactions, comments, reposts), suggesting that social media may be creating perverse incentives for content expressing out-group animosity. (Rathje et al. 2020)

For every moral, emotional word that people use in a tweet, the rate of retweeting from other people is increased by 15 to 20%.

Out-group negativity is stronger than in-group positivity.

This is particularly unsettling in the context of Facebook's announcement about "Bringing People Closer Together" by changing its algorithm to value "deeper" forms of engagement such as reactions and comments. Ironically, posts about the political out-group are highly effective at generating comments and reactions. Thus, these algorithmic changes may have actually helped prioritize posts that include out-group animosity.

Reduced empathic distress

The two-dimensional nature of online interactions reduces what’s known as empathic distress.

This means we can inflict interpersonal judgment or harm with less intrapersonal guilt or distress.

Positive reinforcement

We're positively reinforced in the form of likes, shares, etc. when we express moral outrage online. We're also reinforced for scrolling.

Perhaps most importantly though, this feedback is delivered in an unpredictable manner, meaning it's inconsistent or occasional.

In behavioral psychology, this is known as variable-ratio or intermittent reinforcement and it's one of the most addictive forms of reinforcement with a high potential to be exploited.

It's essentially akin to gambling.

You take mini bets with each post or each social media scroll, and even if you don't receive reinforcement for every post or scroll, you maintain hopefulness that you'll eventually be rewarded because reinforcement can come at any time.

The 90/9/1 rule

Those who study social networks and online communities have defined what they call the 90/9/1 rule.

This rule summarizes the finding that in any social network or online community, 1% of the users generate 90% of the content; 9% of the users create the other 10% of the content, and the other 90% of people are predominantly silent observers. Interestingly, almost all of the 9-percent groups content is in reaction to what the 1% has created.

The content generated by that 1% tends to be oriented around things they're very passionate about—whether that's meaningful memories or highly charged topics.

This is something to keep in mind in order to better understand the picture we're seeing scattered across posts in online platforms. It's a very narrow and extreme slice of perspectives no matter the side.

Inherent Biases Enhance Us-Them Thinking

Because of inherent biases, we rarely step back to evaluate the validity of our perspectives.

There are many biases and paradoxes at play when it comes to divisive outrage. Because there are so many, I’ve highlighted the ones that appear to be most applicable and useful in understanding why we feel so justified in our outrage.

Naïve Realism

Definition
The belief that "I see the world as it really is" and anyone who disagrees with me is uniformed, irrational, self-serving, and/or biased. (Pronin et al. 2004; Ross & Ward 1995).

Naive realism describes the human tendency to believe that we perceive the social world as it actually is (i.e., objectively) without bias. This also leads us to believe that people who have different perceptions from us must be uninformed, irrational, biased, or have self-serving motives.

Repercussions
Leads to selective, biased, and distorted information processing regarding conflict-related issues. Inhibits the acquisition of new ideas as well as the peace-making process because we simply believe we're right and "others" are wrong.

Who's affected?
We're all subject to this bias, but of particular interest is the finding that subjective socioeconomic status (or SSS) and political naive realism are positively correlated. Meaning that the higher our SSS, the higher our naive realism towards those from a different political party tends to be. (Brown-Iannuzzi et al. 2020)

How to overcome?
Simply being aware of this bias and that we're prone to it has been shown to lead to more acceptance of difference in perspectives, enhanced openness, and self-awareness about the bias. (López-Rodriguez et al. 2021) Also see bias correction (wegener & petty, 1997; wilson & brekke, 1994).

Related: False Consensus Effect in which we see our own behavioral choices and judgments as common and appropriate while viewing alternative responses as deviant or inappropriate.

Negativity Bias
(aka Positive-Negative Asymmetry)

Definition
As humans, we have a tendency to:

  1. Register negative stimuli more readily than positive stimuli

  2. Dwell on negative events longer than positive events.

Negative stimuli produce a significantly stronger response in the cerebral cortex than positive or neutral stimuli. (Ito et al. 1998)

This is the same reason the 5:1 ratio exists. It takes five positives to balance out one negative in interpersonal relationships (Lisitsa, 2012).

Repercussions in Social Media
Our minds tend to be more attentive to the negative. Because the negative grabs our attention more than the positive and our attention is an invaluable commodity to media platforms—social or traditional—negative news and posts are algorithmically prioritized over positive.

Studies have shown that negative news is more likely to be perceived as truthful.

How to overcome?
Gratitude practice. When you find yourself in a funk of negativity, it can be helpful to intentionally invoke gratitude.

This isn't bypassing, this is balancing. Our minds still notice the negative as they did back when we were running from tigers. For most of us today, we no longer require the intensity of this bias to survive, and so we can work to soften it by intentionally appreciating positives.

Region-Beta Paradox
aka “The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad”

Definition
The phenomenon that we tend to recover more effectively and fully from more intense emotions or experiences than from less distressing experiences.

This is because intense states of mind trigger psychological defense processes that reduce distress, while less intense states fail to reach the threshold required to trigger these defenses and thus fail to elicit the same attenuation of distress.

Simply put, when really devastating things happen to us, the brain engages highly effective recovery mechanisms; however, these recovery mechanisms aren’t engaged for smaller slights and so they endure.

A study conducted in 2004 revealed that participants recovered faster from insults directed at themselves than from witnessing insults being directed at someone else. (Gilbert et al. 2004)

This is the same reason that bystanders to a crime often become more upset than the victims themselves. Being a bystander isn't enough to hit the threshold that triggers the brain's healing processes.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why we can harbor such persistent outrage for those whose beliefs grate against our own. They irk us but not enough to elicit the mind’s soothing and forgiving defenses.

How to Overcome
Simply being aware of this bias and its effects is the key to releasing its reactive grip.

Ego + The Outrage

Because the ego requires identification and separation to exist, it's constantly working to keep itself alive by clinging to our identities, especially those that keep us separated from others.

In the words of Eckhart Tolle,

The conceptual I cannot survive without the conceptual other. The others are most other when I see them as my enemies.

To strengthen the boundaries of itself versus "others" the ego criticizes, complains, and condemns. This allows it to feel both superior and well-defined. And the more defined the ego is, the more "real" it believes its existence to be.

This is especially true for those of us who are unaware of the ego's existence. It's through becoming conscious of the ego and its various schticks that we soften its affinity for outrage.

Even in cases where someone's behavior is truly abhorrent, with awareness we can choose to step out of the ego's typical response pattern of disgust or outrage.

Instead, we can realize that the other person's behavior is merely a reflection of their own unconscious egoic trappings.

When we choose this path of conscious non-reaction, we not only soften the ego within us, we also soften the burden of the collective ego.

The Consequences of Unbridled Outrage

It’s no surprise that outrage has damaging and divisive effects on the collective, but how does it individually affect those who regularly harbor or express it?

Cortisol overload. Anger and outrage are metabolically demanding emotions that are closely related to stress. Harboring or expressing outrage releases cortisol, which has all sorts of devastating consequences on the body when left unchecked.

Emotional imbalance and distress.

Emotional and spiritual stagnation. Anger and outrage are contracting, shrinking emotional states. When we become mired in these emotions too often or for too long, our emotional and spiritual growth tends to stall out.

Overcoming Outrage

Be aware of biases at play.

Simply being aware of the biases that are at play is often enough to begin to overcome them. (Chien et al. 2014)

Know your triggers.

Know what triggers you. Don't avoid them—recognize when you’re triggered, reflect through compassionate curiosity, and breathe.

We can be internally stimulated by emotions like anger and outrage without allowing them to overcome us to the point of acting in a way that's out of line with our inherent values.

In other words, we don't have to do anything with anger. We can just observe it internally.

Both numbing and expressing unbridled outrage are spurred by the same desire—to escape or rid ourselves of the discomfort of the emotion. We can move through the emotion by allowing it to be without doing anything more than observing it.

And if we feel the need to do something with it, we can choose other outlets to channel it through (e.g., a great workout).

Whose responsibility is your anger? It's yours. No one else's. When we stop waiting for the world to conform to our views and our biases, we free ourselves to choose more intentional, values-based reactions.

Essentially, we give ourselves space to invoke moral consistency whereby our actions align with our inherent moral values.

This is supported by empathy research suggesting that the more individuals are able to regulate adverse empathic responses, the more likely they are to act prosocially. In other words, "...one predictor of who actually acts [prosocially] is the ability to gain some detachment, to ride, rather than be submerged by, the wave of empathy." (Sapolsky 2017)

Don’t Survive, Think.

Sapolsky (2017) notes that our intuitive survival instincts in Us-versus-Them moral dilemmas tend to result in selfish and divisive displays (e.g., we are good, they are bad). His solution is that when making moral decisions in us-versus-them scenarios, we need to keep survival instincts as far away from us as possible. He says,

Instead, think, reason, and question; be deeply pragmatic and strategically utilitarian; take the perspective of the other group or person, try to think what they think, try to feel what they feel. Take a deep breath, and then do it all again.

Remove Your Inner Thorn

"We normally attempt to solve our inner disturbances by protecting ourselves. Real transformation begins when you embrace your problems as agents for growth."

—Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul

In the book The Untethered Soul, Singer gives the example of having a thorn stuck in your arm that’s directly touching a nerve. When the thorn is touched, it's incredibly painful. The thorn is a metaphor for our triggers or our internal pain points, wounds, hot buttons, etc.

When it comes to the thorn, Singer notes that we have two choices:

  1. Since it's so disturbing to touch the thorn, we simply make sure nothing ever touches it.

  2. Allow the thorn to work itself out.

When we choose the first option, we end up building our entire lives around the thorn. We avoid people, places, and situations that could potentially brush against or aggravate the thorn because it's so painful. The thorn, then, runs our entire life. It affects all of our decisions. We can trick ourselves into believing the problem is solved because we've architected our life in such a way that the thorn is never touched, and yet the reality is that we've actually devoted our entire life to the thorn.

On the other hand, if we choose the second option and allow the thorn to be worked out, we're completely free from it.

Singer suggests that to free ourselves from our inner thorns, we stop playing with them. We stop avoiding or over-compensating, and we simply allow them to naturally work themselves out. In this way, we can allow ourselves to feel disturbed when our inner thorns are triggered and simply observe the feelings for what they are. We can notice that we noticed the pain of the inner thorn being activated. And we can allow the feelings to pass through us in their own time instead of numbing them out, avoiding, or reacting.

Send ‘em Love + Gratitude

When all else fails, place your hands over your heart, close your eyes, and visualize sending a genuine (not condescending) loving energy to those "others" the mind tricks you into believing are your adversaries.

Express gratitude for their profound ability to teach you in a way that is far more powerful than if someone had simply held up a mirror to you.

Our teachers offer us windows into new perceptions. If all we saw were mirrors, we wouldn't be called forward to evolve, change, grow, and expand.

This practice is especially useful with specific individuals. Research shows that we're more sympathetic towards identifiable people than towards groups of people.

*Priming with gratitude reduces moral hypocrisy. (source)

Final Thoughts

I hope these ideas have sparked something with you. And at the very least have reminded you that you always have a choice.

Sources

Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L., Lundberg, K. B., Kay, A. C., & Payne, B. K. (2020). A Privileged Point of View: Effects of Subjective Socioeconomic Status on Naïve Realism and Political Division. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(2), 241–256.

Chien, Y., Wegener, D., Petty, R., & Hsiao, C. (2014). The Flexible Correction Model: Bias Correction Guided by Naïve Theories of Bias. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(6), 275-286.

Esses, V. M., Veenvliet, S., Hodson, G., & Mihic, L. (2008). Justice, morality, and the dehumanization of refugees. Social Justice Research, 21, 4–25.

Gilbert, D. T., Lieberman, M. D., Morewedge, C. K. & Wilson, T. D. (2004). The peculiar longevity of things not so bad. Psychological Science, 15(1), 14–19.

Hawkins, D. R. (2002). Power vs. force: The hidden determinants of human behavior. Carlsbad, Calif: Hay House.

Ito, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(4), 887–900.

Lisitsa, E. (2012, December 3). The Positive Perspective: Dr. Gottman’s Magic Ratio! [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.gottmanblog.com/2012/12/the-positive-perspective-dr-gottmans.html

López-Rodriguez, L., Halperin, E., Vázquez, A., Cuadrado, I., Navas, M., & Gómez, A. (2021). Awareness of the Psychological Bias of Naïve Realism Can Increase Acceptance of Cultural Differences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Martin, R. C., Coyier, K. R., VanSistine, L. M., & Schroeder, K. L. (2013). Anger on the Internet: The Perceived Value of Rant-Sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16(2), 119–122. 

Merritt, A., Effron, D., & Monin, B. (2010). Moral Self‐Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5)

Pronin, E., Gilovich, T., & Ross, L. (2004). Objectivity in the eye of the beholder: Divergent perceptions of bias in self versus others. Psychological Review, 111, 781–799.

Puryear, C. (2020). The threat to virality: Digital outrage combats the spread of opposing ideas.

Rathje, S., Van Bavel, J. J. & van der Linden, S. (2021). Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(26).

Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1995). Psychological barriers to dispute resolution. Advances in experimental social psychology, 27, 255–304.

Rothschild, Z. K. & Keefer, L. A. (2017). A cleansing fire: moral outrage alleviates guilt and buffers threats to one's moral identity. Motivation and Emotion, 41(2), 209–229.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Penguin Books.

Singer, M. A. (2007). The Untethered Soul. New Harbinger Publications.

Tong, E., & Yang, Z. (2011). Moral Hypocrisy. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(2), 159-165.

Your Brain on Drama

Ashley Melillo
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