Pod Insights Hidden Brain Emotions 2.0: The Logic of Rage About this episode Neuroscientist Doug Fields was on a trip to Europe when a pickpocket stole his wallet. Doug, normally mild-mannered, became enraged — and his fury turned him into a stranger to himself. This week, we revisit a favorite 2020 episode about the secret logic of irrational anger.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Shankar Vedantam? This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. When Saro Najarian was about 10, his pastime was collecting baseball and basketball cards. These were hard to come by in Cyprus, where he grew up. So when Saro's cousin pestered him to share his cards with her, he always said no. But she didn't give up. As she pestered and begged and pleaded...
0:21 Speaker 01 It came to a boiling point where I got so angry that everything blacked out and I slapped her really hard.
0:33 Shankar Vedantam? Saro's arm seemed to act of its own volition. A second later...
0:38 Speaker 01 I came back into the reality and I saw her crying and had no idea what I had done.
0:48 Shankar Vedantam? Paula Reid experienced something similar at the same age. She was a budding environmentalist with a peace ecology flag hanging on her bedroom wall. One afternoon, she heard the cracking of trees and a low rumble. She realized that her neighbor was knocking down trees to build himself a shorter driveway. He was using a bulldozer.
1:11 Speaker 02 This neighbor came up the road in the bulldozer and was pushing over trees. And something in my head just
1:22 Speaker 02 snapped.
1:26 Shankar Vedantam? Paula's dad had bought a machete in his travels. Without thinking, Paula seized the weapon. Its blade was about as long as her arm. In shorts and bare feet, she climbed up on the bulldozer and swung the blade. Metal struck metal.
1:49 Shankar Vedantam? As the bulldozer stopped and retreated, Paula chased after it, cutting ribbons in the air with a machete.
1:55 Speaker 02 I have no idea where that came from, but I was in a complete wild red rage.
2:09 Shankar Vedantam? This week on the show, Wild Red Rage. We continue our Emotions 2.0 series with a favorite episode about the moments when we suddenly snapped. Such rage can harm others, it can harm us. But it turns out, we would be worse off without it. The deep logic of irrational rage, this week, on Hidden Brain.
2:52 Shankar Vedantam? Support for Hidden Brain comes from LinkedIn. Hiring for a small business is hard. LinkedIn Hiring Pro acts like a helpful hiring partner. Chat with it about what matters most, compare candidates side by side, and share feedback like, I want someone with more hands-on experience. Hiring Pro adjusts and surfaces candidates who fit your needs. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com/HB. Terms and conditions apply. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance.
3:37 Shankar Vedantam? Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive Home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state. Support for Hidden Brain comes from Dell. This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box, the Dell XPS 13 laptop. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet, with a long battery life, beautiful design, and powerful performance with Intel Core processors. Find perks like Dell Rewards, fast free shipping, and flexible financing. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.
4:33 Shankar Vedantam? This is the story of a woman who snapped.
4:37 Speaker 03 I would say that I'm a gentle person. And that's me putting it optimistically.
4:43 Shankar Vedantam? Jess Cavender always thought of herself as a timid person. Timid to the point of pushover.
4:50 Speaker 03 My brother wasn't shy about telling me that I was a doormat for most of my life. And I didn't want to see myself as a doormat, but I also didn't have evidence to the contrary.
5:01 Shankar Vedantam? In elementary school, for example, Jess saved up years of pocket money and birthday cash, storing her savings in a music box.
5:11 Shankar Vedantam? Her dream: a much coveted trampoline. Finally, one day, she had enough money. She and her dad drove to Sam's Club.
5:21 Speaker 03 I bought this trampoline and I was so excited.
5:23 Shankar Vedantam? Until her trampoline was taken over by intruders.
5:28 Speaker 03 My two siblings, my older brother and younger sister, would bounce on the trampoline as well. And sometimes I couldn't get it to myself the way I'd like it.
5:37 Shankar Vedantam? Jess's siblings didn't just hog the trampoline. They treated her as if she were an unwelcome guest. Jess tried to get her dad to step in. Instead of helping, he offered her some advice.
5:50 Speaker 03 My dad suggested to me that I, you know, charged them to use the trampoline, since it was my trampoline and I had done all the work to save for it, that I should charge them a fee to use it.
6:03 Shankar Vedantam? He might as well have suggested she punched someone in the face. Her siblings didn't even bother arguing with her. They just ignored her.
6:11 Speaker 03 I don't know how I would have ever enforced charging 25 cents for my siblings to use it. They certainly would just be like, no, walk past me and get on the trampoline.
6:23 Shankar Vedantam? Jess did not experience the slights with fury. She accepted them with resignation.
6:30 Shankar Vedantam? Over the years, there were other moments like this, moments that would have sparked anger in some people. But Jess usually kept her cool. Until one night, years later, when she didn't.
6:45 Shankar Vedantam? She was in graduate school, living with two roommates in off-campus housing.
6:50 Speaker 03 It has all of the the trimmings of being sort of college, living where you're paying for a lot and not getting very much, and people are packed in.
7:02 Shankar Vedantam? Late one night, Jess was jolted awake by a sound.
7:07 Speaker 03 I hear heavy footfalls going down the stairs.
7:10 Shankar Vedantam? Jess immediately thought she knew what had happened. Her roommate, Kim, had torn her Achilles tendon and was wearing a boot. Jess figured that Kim had fallen on the stairs. She leaped out of bed, threw on her robe, and opened her bedroom door. Her other roommate, Shelby, opened her door at the same time. She had also heard the noise.
7:33 Speaker 03 She's looking at me, and I'm looking at her, and Kim's not at the bottom of the stairs, so we both just run down the stairs to see what had happened. Well, the both of us arrive at the bottom of the stairs, and a very large man with my kitchen rag held over his face comes wheeling out of the kitchen with a gun pointed at us.
7:54 Shankar Vedantam? The first thing Jess took in about the man was his size. He was at least six foot five. He was about a head taller than she was.
8:03 Speaker 03 All I could see was his eyes. The sclera of his eyes were yellow. And aside from that, really, I was staring at the barrel of the gun.
8:15 Shankar Vedantam? The man yelled, "Where's the money? Get the money! Go upstairs!" Standing there in her robe with a gun pointed at her head, Jess did not snap. Instead, her mind became cool and analytical. What could she do to get out of the situation? Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement. Another man had emerged from a side room.
8:41 Speaker 03 And I know that they want something valuable, and I have nothing. I'm aware that I have no cash. I have no TV screens.
8:52 Shankar Vedantam? The man with a gun motioned for the two women to go up the stairs, presumably to fetch their wallets. Shelby, normally a ball of energy, had gone still.
9:03 Speaker 03 I discovered that she's frozen.
9:07 Speaker 03 She isn't blinking. She's not looking at me. She's not moving. So I put my hand on her back and I say, "Everything's gonna be okay. We're going upstairs. Just give them what they want."
9:19 Shankar Vedantam? As Jess and Shelby climbed the stairs, the robbers came up behind them.
9:25 Speaker 03 One of the guys puts his hand on my butt to like push me. And that's when it occurred to me that something sexually violent might happen.
9:38 Shankar Vedantam? Still, Jess felt no rage. The second robber took Shelby into her room. The first man, the one with the gun, followed Jess into her bedroom.
9:49 Speaker 03 And he's yelling, "Get on the bed." And that's when the sort of thought, "There's no way in hell that I will get on this bed, not for anything. It's a second-story building. I probably would have jumped out of the window before I actually got on the bed."
10:04 Shankar Vedantam? Jess kept thinking, "What could she give the man to make him leave?"
10:09 Speaker 03 And I'm looking around my room and I'm looking for something of value. I have stacks of books. I have dance clothes. I have all sorts of things that could not possibly, in my mind, register giving to him. I'm just looking around for something valuable to give to him so that he will leave. And I look down and I see my camera.
10:35 Shankar Vedantam? The camera she used for work.
10:38 Speaker 03 Now, my camera is the main way that I provide for myself. And that's how I was making enough money to, really, to feed myself. And so that represented to me my livelihood, my survival. I had a split-second emotional response to it, thinking, "No, he doesn't get that." And that's when everything changed.
11:03 Shankar Vedantam? Jess did not snap when two men invaded her home. She didn't snap when one of them touched her. She didn't snap when she was forced at gunpoint into her bedroom and told to get on the bed.
11:17 Shankar Vedantam? But when she realized the robber might take her camera?
11:20 Speaker 03 That's when I realized this person has no right to come in here and to demand my things, or to even be in my space. That was really the first time that I had a strong response to this person violating me. I looked at the gun, just squarely faced him in a way that I don't think I've ever done to anyone, and said, "Get out. Get out of my house. You do not belong here."
11:52 Shankar Vedantam? Jess could hear the man's accomplice in the other room shouting, "Shoot her. Shoot her!" Jess spotted her cellphone. She grabbed it. The robber saw what she was doing.
12:04 Speaker 03 And as I got my hand on it, he jumped on top of me and were rolling on the floor, fighting each other. He's using one hand to try and pry the cellphone out, and I'm using the same hand that's on the cellphone to dig my fingernails into his skin, and then the other hand to try and pry the gun out of his hand.
12:23 Shankar Vedantam? Something primal stirred inside Jess. She was suddenly consumed by blinding rage.
12:31 Speaker 03 His chest is on my back. His arms are around my arms. He's completely sort of crouched over and around me as we're falling on our sides, and I'm kicking and scratching.
12:45 Shankar Vedantam? The one thought flooding her mind? Not survival.
12:48 Speaker 03 Don't let him win. Somehow, that mattered. I was using every ounce of my physical strength and not caring that I was inflicting pain, and actually being like, "That's fine. That's the point, if to get this phone back out of his hand." I don't know why. I was more focused on the phone than the gun, but I was.
13:10 Shankar Vedantam? The second robber barged into the bedroom. There were now two of them in the room. But she had no thought for risk or danger. Something new had taken over.
13:23 Speaker 03 I just started screaming. A full-on, high-pitched, blood-curling screech of a scream. And apparently, my scream was so loud that I woke up one neighbor, who was wearing headphones, and then the other neighbor, who was asleep on the other side.
13:43 Shankar Vedantam? The men were so startled by the screams that they took off. One grabbed Jess's laptop on his way out. Jess's scream woke up her other roommate. Unbelievably, Kim had slept through the whole thing.
13:58 Speaker 03 And she opened the door and says, you know, what's wrong? And I was like, call the police.
14:05 Shankar Vedantam? In that moment, Jess Cavender, who had lived her life as a timid person, had no sense that she had acted out of character.
14:15 Speaker 03 All that unfolded was in no way, shape, or form unnatural or surprising to me in the moment. It was what needed to happen. I wasn't surprised at myself until but later, when I was like, I cannot for the life of me believe that I looked at a guy who's holding a gun at my head and decided that I was going to yell at him.
14:37 Shankar Vedantam? Or fight.
14:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, or fight.
14:47 Shankar Vedantam? Jess's story reveals a strange truth about our capacity for fury. It often arrives without warning. It seems to have a mind of its own. We can ignore serious provocations for years and then, boom, we snap. Only later do we look back at our actions in wonder. When we come back, understanding the triggers that can push even the most mild-mannered among us to see red. You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.
15:33 Shankar Vedantam? Support for Hidden Brain comes from Progressive. The mighty dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add Progressive Renters Insurance to your auto insurance. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates and other insurers. Average premium cost based on Progressive Home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state.
16:05 Shankar Vedantam? Support for Hidden Brain comes from Quince. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.
16:49 Shankar Vedantam? Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Hidden Brain.
17:01 Shankar Vedantam? This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. A defining quality of wild, red rage is that it often comes out of nowhere. It takes over our minds and deprives us of reason and logic. When Jess Cavender lost it and literally fought a robber who had a gun pointed at her head, she took a very serious risk. She and her roommates could have ended up dead. In retrospect, you could say it was foolhardy and irrational.
17:33 Shankar Vedantam? All this presents a mystery. It's taken millions of years of evolution to produce the human brain. It has an exquisite capacity for reason and logic. Why would natural selection install a circuit breaker to undermine our capacity for logical thinking? Doug Fields has long puzzled over this question. His interest in rage grows out of his fascination with the brain, but it's also based on an unforgettable personal experience. The story he told me has the ring of a Hollywood thriller, but with a catch. Doug, our leading man, is not a muscle-bound hero. He's a neuroscientist. And not just any neuroscientist,
18:17 Shankar Vedantam? but a walking stereotype of a neuroscientist.
18:21 Shankar Vedantam? Here's his daughter, Kelly Fields.
18:23 Speaker 04 We'd be watching a movie together and there's some sort of car accident or some, you know, big scene going on. And he'll just sort of chime in and be like, wow, there, you know, you can't see the shadow behind that plant in the corner anymore. Like, did you notice that they changed the lighting for no reason, even though it's the same scene? And I would be like, no, actually, I was watching the car accident.
18:50 Speaker 04 So, yeah, just a very sort of typical nerd.
18:54 Shankar Vedantam? Doug is five foot seven and weighs maybe 135 pounds.
19:00 Speaker 04 Glasses, thin hair.
19:05 Speaker 05 Don't think of Sean Connery or, you know, Matt Damon. You've got to think of Woody Allen here.
19:11 Shankar Vedantam? In 2007, Doug was scheduled to go to Barcelona to present some research at a neuroscience conference. He decided to turn a work trip into a father-daughter vacation and took Kelly with him. She was 17, he was 57. Their first stop was Paris. Waiting in line at the Eiffel Tower, Kelly got a new glimpse into how her dad's mind worked.
19:37 Speaker 04 A couple came up to us and was speaking perfect English with American accents. And they were very nice. And I just noticed they were standing too close to us. I kept glancing behind us, sort of like, why are you standing so close? And I noticed this woman's hand near his pants. And then I look again and I notice his pocket is unzipped. And I just sort of whispered to my dad, I think they're trying to rob you.
20:02 Shankar Vedantam? Doug was completely unfazed.
20:05 Speaker 04 My dad informed me that that was a decoy wallet.
20:09 Shankar Vedantam? Your dad had a decoy wallet?
20:12 Speaker 04 You are just as surprised as I was. I was like, what?
20:16 Speaker 04 He had this special wallet that he would keep in his front pocket. It was special because the way it was cut to fit into his front pocket. And that was his wallet. Sorry, I'm blowing all your covers, Dad. And then he had a fake wallet in his back pocket with not a lot of money in it and a few fake credit cards.
20:36 Shankar Vedantam? Doug came up with a strategy many vacations ago.
20:39 Speaker 05 You know, when you travel, it's a wise idea not to have all your money and credit cards in one place. You know, you can get robbed or mugged. And so the idea is, you know, if it's a pickpocket and they get a wallet that's useless, that doesn't matter. But if you're mugged, you can hand them the wallet or throw it on the ground and run. So that's why I do that.
20:59 Shankar Vedantam? For anyone keeping score, that's neuroscientist one, pickpockets zero.
21:10 Shankar Vedantam? After visiting the Eiffel Tower, father and daughter went back to their hotel and packed their bags. The next day, they took the metro to the airport. This is when Doug broke one of his cardinal rules.
21:23 Speaker 05 I violated my rule of having money in multiple places because TSA makes that difficult when you have to go through inspections. So I figured we're just going to take the ride to the airport. So I had everything in my wallet.
21:40 Shankar Vedantam? Everything in one wallet.
21:43 Speaker 05 We got on the metro, lots of people. Then we came to a stop and everybody on the metro train left, except one lady who looked very sympathetic at us. And I felt that my wallet was gone.
21:57 Shankar Vedantam? They had lost their money and credit cards. That's neuroscientist one, pickpockets one.
22:05 Shankar Vedantam? Doug and Kelly still had their passports, so they were able to get on their flight to Barcelona, where Doug's conference was being held.
22:12 Speaker 05 If you have your wallet stolen in Europe, how do you check into a hotel? What are you going to do? What ultimately happened is I managed to reach my brother in the United States, and he arranged to wire us cash.
22:28 Speaker 05 My brother had picked this place for us to get money, kind of at random on the internet.
22:33 Shankar Vedantam? Doug and Kelly got in a cab and gave the driver the address of the bank where they were to pick up the money. Except it wasn't a bank.
22:43 Speaker 05 So we got in a cab, took us way out of the Barcelona tourist area to the most seedy neighborhood you've ever seen.
22:51 Shankar Vedantam? As vacant shops and trash-strewn streets replace sprawling parks and cafes, father and daughter got more and more anxious.
23:01 Speaker 05 Our adrenaline is like coming out our ears already because we've just been pickpocketed and had all this stress. And we end up in a seedy part of town at an internet cafe.
23:13 Speaker 04 And it was just a small dingy building full of really big men, basically.
23:20 Shankar Vedantam? The burly man was staring at a TV. When Doug and Kelly entered, the men silently turned to watch. Doug went up to the cashier.
23:30 Speaker 05 I gave him this receipt. He reaches in his pocket, pulls out this wad of money, and starts peeling off, you know, $1,000 or something.
23:40 Speaker 04 And we were just standing there, sort of looking at them like, are you contacting your friends to come and rob us?
23:45 Speaker 05 Kelly and I just know we're going to get robbed again. It was terrible.
23:50 Shankar Vedantam? They didn't get robbed.
23:52 Speaker 05 The cab stayed there. We got in the cab, and then we went back.
23:57 Shankar Vedantam? The next morning, they resolved to put the unpleasantness of the previous days behind them. Doug had to give a talk at the conference that afternoon. In the morning, he and Kelly decided to visit a famous Barcelona cathedral. Now, it would seem like too much bad luck to get robbed again, but...
24:16 Speaker 05 We're coming up the steps of the metro station, and suddenly I felt this tug at my pant leg. And I slapped the zipper pocket above my knee, and my wallet was gone.
24:27 Shankar Vedantam? This wasn't a decoy wallet. It was the real thing, with all the cash that Doug's brother had wired him from the United States. Something snapped inside the 57-year-old neuroscientist. He was done being used as a portable ATM by European thieves.
24:47 Speaker 05 I shot my arm back.
24:50 Shankar Vedantam? The robber hadn't gotten far. He was right behind Doug.
24:54 Speaker 05 He started to turn, and I snagged him in the crook of my arm.
24:58 Shankar Vedantam? He had the robber around the neck. Now what? Doug didn't have to ask himself the question. His arm seemed to know what to do.
25:09 Speaker 05 I flipped him over my hip to the ground on the pavement, jumped on his back and put him in a chokehold. And then this thought bubbles up to my cerebral cortex. "What are you doing? If you're robbed, you should give him the money." But I was sort of just like a spectator in this whole thing.
25:28 Shankar Vedantam? Kelly, who was a couple of paces in front of Doug, turned around to see something she'd never expected to see in all her life: wild, red rage from her father.
25:43 Speaker 04 And I see my dad choking this random person. He has this young guy in a headlock. And I was just looking at him like, what is going on? And I hear my dad yell, "My wallet." And when he says "my wallet," I knew instantly what had happened. Somebody had...
26:04 Speaker 03 Pickpocketed him again.
26:06 Speaker 05 So I'm on the ground with this guy and he's in his twenties. I'm just thinking back to watching my kids wrestle. And I'm trying to do what they do. I'm thinking hip control. I got to keep this down, keep him pinned. And I yell, call the police, call the police, I've got him.
26:21 Speaker 05 And there's no, no reply. And then from my perspective on the ground, all I saw were men's feet circling around me. And I then realized they were all part of a gang.
26:34 Shankar Vedantam? The thief somehow managed to fling Doug's wallet toward an accomplice. It was now Kelly's turn to do something crazy.
26:43 Speaker 05 The next thing I see is a woman's hand flying through the air and I recognize it as Kelly. Kelly was captain of the ultimate frisbee team at that time. And she's doing a full on layout on a solid concrete to deflect the disc, you know, and taps the wallet into my outstretched right hand.
27:01 Speaker 03 And I sort of jump up to my feet and I'm looking around like, okay, now what? And I see these big guys and I watch, I follow the gaze of one of these guys. I follow his eyes as he looks down at the ground and I see that he sees my dad's BlackBerry. And as I'm locking eyes with him, I jumped on my dad's BlackBerry. Just like a football player would like grab a football or something, which is a funny image to me because it was just a BlackBerry. So I'm like on the ground, hugging this little BlackBerry and I'm like, dad, I got your phone.
27:38 Speaker 03 And I'm yelling because there's now a circle of men around me. And I can see through their feet, there's a circle of men around my father as well. And he has his wallet and he knew the next move and that was to let the guy go.
27:55 Shankar Vedantam? That's neuroscientist two, pickpockets one.
28:02 Speaker 05 When I let the bandit go that I had in the chokehold, he scooted away on his back, kind of like on his butt, sort of like a crab, and he pointed at me going, "Crazy man, crazy man." And now I'm staring eye to eye with like the ringleader and all these other guys, you know, so what am I going to do now? I had so much adrenaline going, which I've never felt before. I was ready to throw him into his accomplices and knock him down the steps into the metro station. And there was no question whether I could do that or not.
28:37 Speaker 03 And then, yeah, really, pretty well-dressed elderly man with a cane just sort of walks up really casually and said, "Yeah, he's no crazy, go." And they all fled, you know, like a bunch of birds leaving a telephone wire or something. They were just like, "Poof." And I'm just sort of like trying to process it all, like, "What just happened? Oh, my dad must be a spy. This is, of course. And he just like did some spy things when that guy stole his wallet. He's not really a scientist at all."
29:10 Shankar Vedantam? Doug and Kelly stumbled away from the scene. Their hearts were racing.
29:16 Speaker 03 My dad says, you know, "We have to get a knife." And I was like, "What? Okay, now I'm concerned. That's like a horrible idea on multiple levels. That's a really bad idea, you know? And I couldn't believe that my father, who I had only ever seen use knives for like cutting vegetables or firewood, was now suggesting like, "We need to go get a weapon." And I was sort of like, "Oh, okay, I need to step in in the decision-making process. That's insane. We're not getting a knife."
29:46 Shankar Vedantam? Doug was sure that they were being tracked by members of the street gang. And it turns out, he was not being paranoid. He and Kelly really were being followed.
29:57 Speaker 05 And now it turned into a scene out of like a spy movie.
30:02 Speaker 05 We're running down back alleys. We're running through restaurants, going into shops, going in one door, out the back door.
30:12 Speaker 04 And so we go into a different shop and I bought this skirt so we could try and change clothing, which was really bizarre. And it's funny that we thought that would help. And we get out of the store and I remember seeing another person walking towards us on one side of the street and then a group of men walking towards us on the other side. And my dad just goes, "We need to cross the street. Ready, go." Like, no conversation. And we just started booking it across this crowded road. And we run across the street. We realize these people are following us for sure. We see them now crossing the crosswalk to come to our side of the street again. And we're like, "What do we do?"
30:57 Speaker 04 And he goes, "Let's get a taxi." And we run into the street and he hits the hood of a taxi driving by, you know? And he's like, "We need to get in."
31:06 Shankar Vedantam? When they got out of the taxi, they still hadn't shaken the robbers. They jumped in another cab and asked the driver to get them the hell out of Barcelona.
31:17 Speaker 05 Ben went to the next city. A 170-year-old cab fare, I still remember.
31:31 Shankar Vedantam? It was here, far outside of Barcelona, that Doug's heart rate started to slow. And as his normal, logical brain came back online, he couldn't believe what he had just done.
31:45 Speaker 04 He's like, "I should have given them my wallet. That's crazy. Why did I do that? Why was I doing that? Like, never do that. If this ever happens to you again, you know, give them your wallet."
31:53 Shankar Vedantam? Doug's behavior disturbed him as a father, but it also disturbed him as a neuroscientist who thought he had a good handle on how the brain worked, on how his own brain worked.
32:04 Speaker 05 From a neuroscience perspective, how does this happen? That you can instantly do this aggression without even being aware and it's all unconscious? If something in my environment could cause me to suddenly risk life and limb with no conscious thought, I wanted to understand how that worked at a neuroscience level. What's going on in the brain?
32:26 Shankar Vedantam? The question again was why evolution, which has sculpted our brains and bodies to be skilled survival machines, would preserve systems in the brain that cause us to act with unthinking haste and violence. Haste and violence that can place our own lives at great risk. Doug wrote a book as he pondered this question. It's called Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain. He realized that the answer lay in the question itself. It was all about speed.
32:58 Speaker 05 The conscious brain is too slow and it doesn't have the capacity. So when you're faced with a sudden threat, like a fist thrown to your chin, you have to respond faster than the conscious brain can handle it.
33:15 Shankar Vedantam? There are lots of things that can be done slowly, but surviving an immediate threat is not one of them. When you're dealing with a predator or some other imminent danger, you have to act fast.
33:29 Speaker 05 So, nature has developed high-speed pathways to the amygdala. All our senses go there before they go to the cortex, which is where we have consciousness. And that's so you can have this rapid response to a real threat. Now, we've all experienced this. You're on a basketball court and a wayward basketball comes towards you and you duck and turn and you bat it away and then you go, what was that?
33:59 Speaker 05 Your unconscious mind detected, because the visual input went first to your amygdala, that something was in your visual space that shouldn't be there. Sort of like a motion detector. But not only that, then put you on a very definitive course with a complex behavior. You think about the behavior where you turn and you intersect this thing and you bat it away.
34:20 Shankar Vedantam? Rational thought isn't just unhelpful when that basketball is hurtling toward you. It's actually counterproductive. Being deliberate can end up getting you smashed in the face. But short-circuiting logic creates dangers, especially when you're in the grip of an emotion like rage. You can literally stop thinking about your arm as your arm. It becomes a weapon that can be wielded, deployed, sacrificed.
34:48 Speaker 05 The brain's threat detection mechanism, which is highly controlled, to engage in a violent, aggressive interaction risks life and limb.
34:59 Shankar Vedantam? Most of the time, we are well-served by being logical and deliberate. But on rare occasions, it's helpful to act with unthinking haste. The operative word here is rare. What Doug has found is that wild, red rage erupts in very specific situations, often when you're defending your most vital interests.
35:24 Speaker 05 The brain controls this response so that it's only tripped by very specific triggers.
35:31 Shankar Vedantam? Doug says most of these triggers are related to our basic needs. For example, you can easily imagine an animal or a human reacting with protective rage when its own life is in danger.
35:43 Speaker 05 Life or limb. If you're attacked, you will fight back. There's nothing to lose. All animals will do that.
35:49 Shankar Vedantam? Another thing most animals will do? Protect their young. You know the rule: never get between a mama bear and her cub. And while you're at it, don't try to steal her dinner.
36:01 Speaker 05 Resources. That was the other thing that was tripped when my wallet got snagged. Even a family puppy will snap at your hand if you get too close to the dish.
36:09 Shankar Vedantam? The list goes on. Don't try to take my mate. Don't encroach on my territory. Don't corner me.
36:17 Speaker 05 If an animal's trapped, it will use aggression to break free. I mean, an animal in a trap will chew its leg off, but so will a human.
36:25 Shankar Vedantam? These triggers remind us of a truth we cannot avoid. Humans, at the end of the day, are animals. But we're also more complicated than this list may suggest. One story that made an impression on Doug involved a man named Ray Young. He was 67 years old and lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, where Doug lived too. Ray was waiting his turn at a post office one day when he saw what he thought was another customer cut the line.
36:57 Speaker 05 The next thing that happened was unbelievable. He pulled out a knife and started knifing the guy viciously. I went to many of his trials and, you know, he had no record of violence, no arrest record, is completely out of character.
37:16 Shankar Vedantam? Ray snapped because he was defending something that is of vital importance to humans.
37:22 Speaker 05 Order in society. This guy broke the rules. He cut in line.
37:26 Shankar Vedantam? We all depend on a functioning social order. A stable, rule-following society is as essential to our survival as food and shelter. We're willing to fight to maintain such order.
37:39 Speaker 05 In social animals, in order to maintain order, following the rules, aggression is what is used. That's still what we use. We use violence.
37:50 Shankar Vedantam? Now, it's not as if every threat produces mindless rage. Plenty of people see the social order breached or get insulted and don't turn into Rambo. The threshold for snapping and the drivers of violence can vary between people.
38:06 Speaker 05 So sometimes the right thing to do is to, you know, be the Marine and charge after the threat, and sometimes that's going to get you killed. But as a species, the group as a whole will survive because somebody's going to do one thing and somebody's going to do something else.
38:21 Shankar Vedantam? Doug says stress is often a factor in sending us over the edge. He sees stress at play in Just Cavender's response to the armed robber. She didn't scream and dig her hands into the attacker when she first saw him. She tried to appease him.
38:39 Speaker 05 She had been enduring this for a while and stress was building and it tripped that trigger.
38:45 Shankar Vedantam? The resource trigger.
38:46 Speaker 05 She said that it was the most valuable thing in her life that she depended on for food and everything was her camera and they weren't going to get it.
38:57 Shankar Vedantam? Now, there is a wrong lesson you can draw from this account of rage. You could say, look, Jess lost it and because she became enraged, she managed to save her camera. Doug was furious at being robbed and his rage allowed him to take his wallet back from the Barcelona thieves. These examples suggest rage always results in good outcomes, that you would end up better off when you violently lose your temper. What this misses is that literally no one in their right mind will tell you to attack a man with a gun or to take on a street gang in a foreign country. Risking your life to save some money or to protect a camera is a very definition of foolishness.
39:39 Shankar Vedantam? When we come back, why you can't understand the deep logic of blinding rage by looking only at situations where things turn out well for you.
39:50 Shankar Vedantam? You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.
39:58 Speaker 06 Working as a dedicated fidelity advisor, I always ask, what's important to you? I'll look at those priorities and goals alongside your full financial picture to build a comprehensive plan designed to help grow and protect your wealth. With proactive portfolio insights and an eye on taxes, I'm here to help you make the most of your money. I'm Laura Maxwell and I'm a dedicated fidelity advisor. Learn more at fidelity.com/wealth. Investment minimums apply. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.
40:27 Shankar Vedantam? Support for Hidden Brain comes from Mazda. Being safer on the road starts with the person behind the wheel. That's Mazda's philosophy when designing every vehicle. Their proactive safety features help keep you more aware, connected, and engaged during every drive, which means your car does more than help protect you. It helps make you a safer driver, which helps protect everyone. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. To learn more, visit MazdaUSA.com. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.
41:00 Shankar Vedantam? Support for Hidden Brain comes from Southern New Hampshire University. Science consistently tells us, learning starts with motivation. That's why SNHU offers over 200 flexible, affordable, online programs to help you get where you want to go. Take classes that spark your curiosity, shape your skill set, and prepare you for what's next. A degree can help move you forward, no matter what motivates you. Start yours at SNHU.edu/brain. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. Mohamed Bouazizi was sick of the police and their demands for bribes.
41:42 Shankar Vedantam? He was a produce seller in the city of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, in North Africa. The harassment felt endless. On a Friday morning in December 2010, Mohamed had an encounter with the police. Years later, there are still varying accounts of what happened. According to some, a cop confiscated the scales that Mohamed used to sell his produce. Others said an officer wouldn't let him set up his stand. Some accounts said Mohamed was slapped, or perhaps kicked. The street vendor did what citizens are supposed to do. He went to the authorities to protest his mistreatment.
42:26 Shankar Vedantam? But when he got to the government building to lodge a complaint, he was barred from entry. Mohamed was gripped by an intense feeling of injustice. And then, he snapped. He doused himself with gasoline. Standing in front of the government building that had shut the door on him, he struck a match and set himself ablaze.
42:57 Shankar Vedantam? One of the last things onlookers heard from him were these words, "How do you expect me to make a living?"
43:06 Shankar Vedantam? By the time the fire was doused and Mohammed was rushed to a hospital, burns covered 90% of his body. He died a few weeks later.
43:18 Shankar Vedantam? His story shows the self-destructive power of wild, red rage.
43:26 Shankar Vedantam? But it also reveals the hidden logic of fury.
43:34 Shankar Vedantam? Thousands of Mohammed's fellow Tunisians showed up at his funeral. On social media, he was dubbed a martyr.
43:42 Shankar Vedantam? Members of the crowd shouted, "Farewell, Mohammed. We will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep."
44:03 Shankar Vedantam? 10 days after Mohammed's death, with escalating protests around the country, the president of Tunisia ended a 23-year autocratic reign and fled the country. Within weeks, protests in Tunisia spread to other Arab countries in what came to be known as the Arab Spring.
44:23 Speaker 07 It is the end of an era in Tunisia. President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down.
44:34 Shankar Vedantam? Neuroscientist Doug Fields has found that we are capable of fury when we want to defend our lives or protect family or guard resources. Rage can be triggered when we want to maintain the social order.
44:49 Shankar Vedantam? It also serves another useful purpose. Rage acts as a signaling device.
44:57 Speaker 02 If you look at the long history of social protests, it's just clear that powerful emotions like anger and rage have a huge and have had a huge role to play in galvanizing people, motivating them, bringing them together in movements towards increased justice.
45:19 Shankar Vedantam? This is Amiya Shrinivasan, a philosopher at the University of Oxford. Amiya recognizes that rage does have costs, but she wants us to remember that it can be useful to communities, causes, and individuals.
45:33 Speaker 02 Anger can play this clarifying role for myself, so it can help me understand what's going on, right? It can make me come to certain kinds of moral and political realizations I didn't have before. I come to realize there is actually an injustice at work.
45:53 Shankar Vedantam? The benefits of anger don't stop with the clarity it brings to us as individuals.
45:58 Speaker 02 Getting angry can act as a certain kind of warning signal to other people. And in fact, there's a lot of social psychological evidence that suggests that getting angry can be an effective means of changing other people's behavior, right? Counter to the kind of standard liberal understanding where calm group deliberation is the only way to get people to change, actually getting angry sometimes is an effective social signal to motivate other people.
46:29 Shankar Vedantam? In fact, Amiya argues, it's important when we talk about fury to distinguish between what might be counterproductive or even harmful to individuals in the short run and the usefulness of that fury to movements, groups, and causes.
46:45 Speaker 02 Individual anger can often spread and become communal anger and collective anger. And collective anger has extraordinary forms.
46:59 Shankar Vedantam? She asked me to think of an example in an interpersonal setting. Imagine the scenario: you're in a romantic relationship and your partner cheats on you.
47:09 Speaker 02 I mean, it might be that getting angry at your cheating lover just encourages that cheating lover to cheat more. And if your lover were to say to you, "Well, you shouldn't get angry at me because it just makes me cheat more," I mean, that's an infuriating response. And it's infuriating because it treats your anger as just an instrument, an instrument for encouraging or discouraging his or her behavior, whereas in fact...
47:38 Shankar Vedantam? Anger, like other moral emotions, is something that makes a claim about the world. An angry spouse does more than show her displeasure at infidelity. She's also sending a signal about the kind of behavior we think is appropriate in a society, in interpersonal relationships. Her anger sends a message to other spouses.
48:06 Shankar Vedantam? Obviously, this is not happening at a conscious level. Rage can prompt you to take a stand about something and make you incur personal costs. By short-circuiting reason, it makes you ignore those costs. Your actions might be personally harmful, but it can help the group to which you belong. This is why natural selection might conserve such behavior.
48:31 Speaker 05 We have these circuits because we need them. We have violence because unfortunately we need them. We don't call it snapping when the outcome is good. Then we call it heroism or quick thinking.
48:45 Shankar Vedantam? Rage, in fact, might be one way that nature gets us to prioritize the interests of our groups over our narrow self-interest. By disabling logic and impairing reason, we can be prompted to do things that we would never do if we were only looking out for ourselves.
49:04 Speaker 05 So somebody violates a social norm, and we become angry. Again, anger is prepare you to fight. And as we know, sometimes these turn out tragically. People get into a fight on the road and pull out a gun.
49:19 Shankar Vedantam? Acting in the interest of a group is not always the right or virtuous thing. Terrorist organizations have long used rage as a recruiting tool for new followers. The anger of partisan politics can cause us to think more about the well-being of narrow groups, like our political parties, rather than the well-being of larger groups, like our nation. Fury can drive massacres, wars, and genocide. All this leaves us in a bind. If we were to eliminate rage or to logically determine when to get angry, we lose the speed and potency of sudden anger. But when we allow our furies to flare unchecked, we can cause senseless damage to ourselves and others.
50:04 Shankar Vedantam? Many centuries ago, the philosopher Aristotle said, "Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not easy."
50:35 Shankar Vedantam? Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristin Wong, Laura Kwerel, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury. Audio mix on today's episode by Rob Byers, John Evans-Evans, and Michael Rayfield of Final Final V2. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.
51:03 Shankar Vedantam? Today's show is the final episode in our Emotions 2.0 series. Over the past few weeks, we've talked about how group dynamics shape the way we feel about our lives and the world around us. We've looked at the importance of ambivalence and the complex emotion of pride. If you missed any of the episodes in the series, be sure to go back and check them out on our podcast or on our website, hiddenbrain.org. If you want even more Hidden Brain after you're done with that, please subscribe to our newsletter. In each issue, we bring you interesting ideas and research on human behavior, along with a brain teaser and a moment of joy. You can subscribe at news.hiddenbrain.org. That's N-E-W-S dot hiddenbrain.org.
51:49 Shankar Vedantam? I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.
52:01 Speaker 04 This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT, Remadipant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you.
52:26 Speaker 06 Because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NUR-TAC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.
53:02 Speaker 07 The Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO Max bundle. The best in entertainment in one bundle.
53:07 Speaker 06 This is gonna be a good time.
53:08 Speaker 07 With new seasons of your favorites like Percy Jackson: Ambi Olympians on Disney+
53:13 Speaker 06 Do you ever get used to all this?
53:14 Speaker 07 Nope. The scandalous All's Fair on Hulu.
53:17 Speaker 03 Let's give these girls a show.
53:18 Speaker 07 And the high society drama of the HBO original, The Gilded Age on HBO Max. What have I gotten myself into? Streaming this month. Plans starting at $21.99 a month. Terms apply. Visit DisneyPlusHuluMaxBundle.com for details.
53:32 Speaker 05 What do I gift my mom and nieces?
53:33 Speaker 07 Walmart has top brands you know, like Ninja, Disney, let go.
53:40 Speaker 05 Oh, Dad loves music.
53:42 Speaker 07 Sonos can bring his songs to life with sound that hits just right.
53:48 Speaker 05 And my coffee-obsessed bestie?
53:50 Speaker 07 Delongi Brews Coffee, right for mornings extra bright.
53:53 Speaker 05 All those great brands at Walmart? Who knew?
53:55 Speaker 07 We knew, now you do too. Shop gifts, no love at Walmart.
Previous Emotions 2.0: What's Better than Being Happy? Next The Power of Family Stories Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated