More and more people are turning to social media to better understand their mental health and get over depressive and lonely sensations. In order to better comprehend a different emotion, rage, TikTok users are now using the “Multidimensional Anger Test” as a new tool.

You can probably find hundreds of videos of folks sharing their test findings by doing a fast search for #AngerTest on TikTok. The Multidimensional Anger Test is a collection of 38 questions that challenge you to consider your past encounters with anger. It is offered by IDR Labs, a website that offers several individual personality evaluation tests. Your susceptibility to the feeling is being tested by it.

However, there is no assurance that the test will be “accurate” for you. However, it can assist you in considering your own experiences. Very well, a Brooklyn, New York-based psychotherapist named Rachel Harlich, LMSW, said.

As a trauma therapist, Harlich said she believes the test might serve as a starting point for self-awareness. She might advise you to consider asking yourself, “What have I encountered in my life to be furious about,” after seeing your results, for instance. The test has the potential to elicit thought and produce something more than a static character sketch.

The exercise can also encourage us to consider the function of anger. According to Aaron Sell, PhD, a professor of psychology and criminology at Heidelberg University in Ohio, rage has developed over time to aid in communication, the recalibrating of boundaries, and problem-solving.

The Multidimensional Anger Test: What Is It?

The exam gauges the following five emotional “dimensions”:

• Getting Mad: The frequency, size, and length of angry reactions
• Anger Spectrum: The variety of circumstances that are likely to make someone angry.
• Hostile Outlook: How pessimistic/skeptical one is about the world.
• External Anger: The propensity to “take anger out” on one’s environment externally.
• Internal Anger: A propensity to hold one’s anger inside or to keep it to oneself.

According to the website, the test is based on the Multidimensional Anger Inventory (MAI), which was created by psychologist Judith Siegel in 1986. Researchers have also employed MAI to assess specific health risks since they believe that wrath and rage are related to coronary heart disease and high blood pressure.

Sell also noted that there are numerous other criteria by which specialists assess fury. However, as this TikTok-famous exam is self-reporting-based, it shouldn’t be utilized for diagnostic purposes.

Therefore, despite the fact that IDR Labs’ tests are “based on peer-reviewed scientific research,” you should proceed with caution. The quizzes should only be taken for enjoyment and introspection, Harlich added.

Aggression Does Not Always Follow Fury

Anger is “an emotion characterized by hostility toward someone or something you feel has purposefully done you wrong,” according to the American Psychological Association (APA). Even though everyone experiences rage occasionally, it occasionally has a poor reputation.

According to Sell, calls to “control anger before it dominates you” and the concept of “anger management” can distort our perception of the emotion’s evolutionary function, which is to inspire us to interact with others and discover solutions to issues.

Darlich concurred. She claimed that anger “is a tremendously stigmatized emotion.” However, there are situations when mobilizing can be beneficial. When someone crosses or infringes upon our boundaries, rage can sometimes reveal those boundaries to us in a way we wouldn’t have otherwise realized.

The recalibration theory of anger, which Sell developed with the aid of his research in evolutionary psychology, contends that we experience rage in order to readjust or recalibrate agreements and limits. This “recalibration” need not always manifest as hostility.

However, Sell continued, unchecked anger may undoubtedly result in hostility and even hatred.

Additionally, regular rage and animosity may raise one’s risk for cardiovascular disease, according to health professionals. According to a recent study, the association between anger and blood pressure is moderated by one’s capacity for managing unpleasant emotions, or distress tolerance.

Due to the fact that emotions like anger are so challenging to accurately quantify, the verdict is still out on the relationship between rage and cardiovascular disease.

The Implications For You

Aggression is not the same as anger. As we work through our anger with others, it may also be a positive emotion that helps us communicate our thoughts and feelings, solve issues, and even feel more connected to other people. Tolerating or expressing anger, however, is not always simple. You can process your anger, think about it in new ways, and create methods for dealing with it in the future by talking to a psychotherapist.

Making rage productive

Before someone misinterprets the anger test as a true character description, Harlich advised, they should start by asking questions. “When I consider all the possible causes of someone’s anger, I ask, “How did they become angry? What is causing their rage? Why might that be the case if they are more likely to be furious than other people?

According to Harlich, working through these types of questions in therapy can be quite therapeutic. Perhaps in previous relationships, the client was told they couldn’t be furious or was afraid of losing a connection if they did. It might be a “corrective emotional experience” to be able to feel angry while in therapy and have the therapist accept that anger, she said.

Sell said that having difficult conversations about anger can sometimes make you feel more connected to the person you were furious with initially.

In part because it encourages conversation, Sell added, “People prefer to point out that they’re illogical when they’re furious, but they’re truly not in all aspects.”

“People most frequently communicate quickly, listen to excuses, and reply to the arguments the other person makes when they are furious,” he said. Therefore, learning how to argue is a crucial next step.