Seneca and the Email That Makes Us Angry: The Oldest Remedy Is to Wait

A curt email lands at 5:40 pm. Your finger is already on the keyboard, the reply is ready in your head. More than two thousand years ago Seneca, in his treatise “De ira” (“On Anger”), wrote that the greatest remedy for anger is delay (De ira 2.29). A simple idea: give judgement time before giving the reaction room. I quoted the passage from a popular summary and did not re-read the full text.

What does psychology say?

In 2002 Brad Bushman, in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, tested the idea that “venting is good for you”. 600 students, angered by criticism of their essay, hit a punching bag while thinking about the person who had annoyed them (rumination), or while thinking about getting fit (distraction), or sat in silence for two minutes (control). Rumination increased anger and aggression; doing nothing turned out to be more effective than venting.

In 2003 James Gross and Oliver John, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, compared in five studies two ways of regulating emotions: reappraising the situation (looking at it differently) and suppressing the expression of emotions. People who habitually reappraised reported more positive and fewer negative emotions, better relationships and more well-being; those who suppressed showed fewer positive emotions, more negative ones, worse relationships and less well-being.

A few cautions

Bushman’s study concerns students in a laboratory, with aggression measured by a noise blast, not workplace conflicts, and its result concerns venting accompanied by rumination, not every expression of anger. Gross and John used questionnaires: these are associations and do not prove cause. I read the abstracts and, for Bushman, the available text. The link with Seneca and with the office is ours.

Three common-sense suggestions (ours, not findings of the studies)

1. Write your reply as a draft but do not send it at once: a short pause (a walk, a glass of water) is part of the “delay”.
2. Before replying, look for two alternative explanations for that tone (rush, tiredness, habit): it is a way of looking at the situation differently.
3. Avoid retelling the scene on a loop to colleagues: replaying it aloud resembles the rumination in the study. Then reply to the facts, with a clear request and, if needed, a phone call.

A gesture for tomorrow: the next time an email irritates you, wait before replying and jot down one alternative explanation.

And you, what do you do when an email makes you angry? Tell us in the comments.

Sources: Seneca, De ira 2.29 (quoted from a popular summary, whatisstoicism.com; full text not re-read) · Bushman (2002), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(6), 724-731, DOI 10.1177/0146167202289002 · Gross & John (2003), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(2), 348-362, DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348