Anger Is Based on Your Belief System

You might think that your angry emotional and behavioral responses are caused by external events. This is not the case. Actually, your responses are filtered through and driven by your belief system, which is generally very complicated.

Your belief system builds on what we call a "ladder of inference," which is designed like this:

ACTIONS based on your beliefs

BELIEFS you adopt

CONCLUSIONS you draw

ASSUMPTIONS based on the MEANINGS OR INTERPRETATIONS

MEANINGS OR INTERPRETATIONS you add

DATA you select

ALL INFORMATION IN THE WORLD

This ladder makes sense if you read these rungs from the bottom up. As soon as you experience something, you very quickly climb this ladder. You select data, attach meanings or interpretations, make assumptions, draw conclusions, adopt beliefs and act without even thinking about it. When this dynamic happens in interpersonal relationships, with both you and the other person running up your respective ladders of inference, it can lead to conflict that can quickly escalate.

The better able you are to slow the process down -- to stop on any of the rungs and consider other ways of viewing the experience -- the better able you will be to find solutions to the problem at hand.