A question that has been on my mind lately is when it is appropriate to feel hurt, and when it is appropriate to feel angry.
One of my priors is that both emotions are a way of communicating a response to harm. The difference in my view is that an expression of anger includes the assertion that someone has violated a your rights, and an expression of hurt does not. So in a way, expressing anger is a demand for justice, and expressing hurt is an appeal to mercy.
So when are they appropriate? It depends on whether an established norm has been violated. If someone violates an established norm and you experience harm as a result, it is appropriate to demand justice. If there is no established norm, it is appropriate to ask for mercy…or to begin the process of establishing a norm.
The Coase Theorem
This brings me to one of my favorite economic papers of all time: The Problem of Social Cost, by Ronald Coase. In the paper, Coase makes the point that rights are symmetric in the sense that to give one person a right necessarily takes a right away from others. He uses the example of a train passing through a field. The train causes sparks that damage the crops. Does the train have the right to create sparks, or does the farmer have the right to be spark-free?
Coase analyzes this question by noting that even if you give the right to one person, the other person can negotiate to buy it. However, negotiating rights is expensive, so for unestablished norms it is generally better to give the right to the person who is expected to value it most. That way you can avoid costly negotiations, or situations where the rights are allocated inefficiently because of transaction costs.
I Statements
This brings me to a common therapy technique called “I statements”. When I was young, my mom was studying to become a psychologist, and she taught us that phrasing our feelings in a certain way can avoid defensiveness. An I statement is when, instead of accusing someone of violating a norm, you express how you felt as a result. So, in the case of a farmer, your don’t say:
“You made these sparks that damaged by crops! You had no right to do that!”
Instead you say:
“You may not be aware, but when you cause sparks it really damages my crops.”
Although “anger” is usually accepted as one of the feelings you can express in an “I statement,” in my view the statements are generally a way to avoid accusing someone of violating a norm and instead focusing on the harm done (i.e., the hurt).
In a world without established norms, “I statements” are always preferred over accusations of norm violation. However, when there are established norms, it is more straightforward to simply point out that someone’s behavior violates the norm.
Race to the Bottom
When norms aren’t established, or when people feel like it isn’t appropriate to express anger, we have to revert back to the Coase Theorem to determine how to allocate rights. That is, whoever is hurt the most wins.
This can cause some problems with incentives. Namely, both parties have an incentive to exaggerate their harm in order to obtain the right to establish norms. Taken to the extreme, this can result in something like emotional insurance fraud. That is, someone can exaggerate the harm they experience because it gives them a right to compensation (or more compensation).
Thus, as a defense mechanism, people need to maintain some level of skepticism about the harm expressed by other parties in this kind of negotiation. One of the problems with the “I statement” technique is that it doesn’t really recognize this risk. That is, it is considered bad form to question someone when they express how hurt they are.
Finding Balance
At the end of the day, there area variety of techniques and strategies that come up during negotiations and all of them are necessary to achieve balance. Anger, Hurt, Defensiveness, Skepticism…they all have their place and anytime you try to eliminate one of them you end up with unintended consequences. So in my view, an overly simplistic solution such as restricting communication to “I statements” is not as effective as trying to employ the appropriate communication strategy given the circumstances.
