Remember the guy that was late for work? Let’s use an old psychology exercise to dive deeper into why his anger is manifesting. This psychology exercise is called the “five (or seven) why’s” and the exercise basically uses the question “why?” to dive deeper beyond the surface reaction. We are just going to tweak it to keep it focused on the emotional reaction.

If we put ourselves in the gentleman’s shoes of a gentleman who is angry because he’s late, the first question is “why am I angry?” Now the obvious answer to that is because he’s worried about being late. 

The second “why” asks the first answer. The second one is “why are you worried about being late?”  

Third, “why” asks the second answer. The third is “why are you worried about being late?” Now the answer may be I’ve been late far too many times and a lot is riding on this presentation. 

Now the fourth “why” again asks the third answer. “Why is there so much pressure on this presentation?” and the answer may be because I feel that they may have moved this presentation so early to correct my lateness. 

Finally, the fifth “why” may be “why are you late all the time for work?”  The answer may be because it’s really hard to get up and motivated for a job I don’t like.

Now the purpose of this exercise is somewhere between five and seven questions. If done correctly you’ll dive down to the chief complaint of the actual emotion. In this case, all that anger for this gentleman was boiling out to the surface and manifesting in something completely different, but it was dying to get out. This can lead to overreactions, misplaced anger or even blaming somebody that clearly has nothing to do with the core of the problem.