Research // Research note 02 Empirical
The venting hypothesis: what experiments show about letting anger out
Published 2026-09-14 · 4 min read
The hypothesis
The hydraulic model of emotion predicts that expressing anger discharges it. Hitting a punching bag, shouting into a pillow or playing an aggressive game should therefore lower anger and reduce later aggression. The advice has been repeated in popular psychology for decades, and it feels plausible because venting is often followed by a sense of release.
The experiments
Bushman, Baumeister and Stack (1999) tested the idea directly. Participants read a message claiming that hitting a punching bag relieves anger, a message claiming the opposite, or a neutral message, and were then provoked. Those who read the pro-catharsis message were more inclined to choose the punching bag. In a follow-up, participants who had vented were subsequently more aggressive toward the person who had provoked them, not less. Belief in catharsis did not protect against aggression; it steered people toward a strategy that increased it.
Bushman (2002) then compared three responses to provocation. One group hit a punching bag while thinking about the person who had angered them (rumination). A second group hit the bag while thinking about getting physically fit (distraction). A control group sat quietly for the same time. The rumination group reported the most anger and behaved most aggressively. The control group, which did nothing, behaved least aggressively. Distraction fell in between.
What the evidence does and does not show
The studies are laboratory experiments with brief provocations, mostly with university students, and aggression is measured with standardised tasks such as choosing the intensity of an unpleasant noise delivered to another participant. They show that venting anger does not reduce short-term aggression and can increase it. They do not show that every form of emotional expression is harmful, and they do not describe what happens over months.
The proposed mechanism is rehearsal. Venting while attention stays on the provocation keeps anger-related thoughts active and makes aggressive responses more accessible. Physical arousal alone is not release: exertion raises arousal, and if attention remains on the grievance, that arousal is experienced as anger.
What reduces anger instead
Strategies that lower arousal, such as waiting, slow breathing or genuine distraction, let anger decline without rehearsing it. Cognitive reappraisal changes the interpretation of the provocation before or while the emotion unfolds; people who habitually use reappraisal report more positive and less negative emotion than people who habitually suppress (Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 2003). Reflecting on an upsetting experience from a self-distanced perspective, as an observer rather than reliving it, reduced emotional reactivity and rumination compared with immersed recall (Kross, Ayduk & Mischel, 2005).
These strategies share one feature. They change the relationship to the emotion rather than trying to empty it out.
A meta-analytic test: turning arousal up or down
The experiments above are single studies with particular procedures. Kjærvik and Bushman (2024) asked the broader question across the literature: do anger management activities that increase physiological arousal work differently from activities that decrease it? Arousal-decreasing activities included deep breathing, mindfulness and meditation. Arousal-increasing activities included hitting a bag, jogging and cycling. Their meta-analytic review was based on 154 studies with 184 independent samples and 10,189 participants.
Arousal-decreasing activities reduced anger and aggression, with a pooled effect of g = -0.63 (95% interval -0.82 to -0.43), and the result was robust. The effect held across genders, races, ages and cultures; in students and non-students, criminal offenders and non-offenders, and people with and without intellectual disabilities; whether delivered digitally, by researchers or by therapists; in group and individual sessions; and in field and laboratory settings. Arousal-increasing activities, by contrast, were ineffective overall (g = -0.02, interval -0.13 to 0.09), and their results were heterogeneous and complex. The authors conclude that the findings do not support venting anger or going for a run as effective anger management activities.
Two cautions keep the result in proportion. The null average for arousal-increasing activities means no reliable reduction in anger on average, not that exercise is harmful; the heterogeneity means some studies found different results, and the pooled estimate does not identify which conditions made the difference. And the review concerns anger and aggression, not mood, fitness or social connection, where exercise has other documented benefits (Research note 04).
Catharsis is not the same as venting
The meta-analysis sharpens a distinction that everyday language blurs. Catharsis, in the sense this library examines, names an experienced release: the feeling, after expressing an emotion, that something has been let out. Venting names a behaviour: expressing anger, often with high physical arousal, in the expectation that this reduces it.
The two can come apart. A person can feel released after hitting a bag and still be as angry, measured by self-report or behaviour, as someone who did nothing, or angrier. The feeling of release is real as an experience, and it is also what makes venting attractive to repeat. It is not a measurement of whether anger and aggression have gone down. On the measured outcome, the evidence favours lowering arousal over raising it. The distinction between how a change feels and what it changes is developed in Research note 04.
Relevance to the artifact
The process shown in the artifact, repetition, synchronization and discharge, is not venting anger at a target, and the findings above should not be stretched to cover dancing or music. Their relevance is narrower and still important: the feeling of release is not evidence that the cause of an emotion has been dealt with, and some kinds of release keep the emotion rehearsed. That is the distinction the next notes develop.
Claims made on this page
Each claim is graded in the evidence ledger, with its sources and review dates. Evidence →
In laboratory experiments, hitting a punching bag while thinking about a provocation produced more anger and aggression than sitting quietly, and belief in catharsis increased the wish to vent without reducing later aggression.
- Scope
- Short-term anger and laboratory aggression after brief provocations, mostly in university students.
- Caveat
- Aggression was measured with standardised laboratory tasks; the studies do not describe long-term outcomes or every form of emotional expression, and they are not about dancing or music.
Last reviewed · Review due · venting-increases-anger
A meta-analysis of 154 studies found that arousal-increasing anger-management activities, such as hitting a bag or running, did not reduce anger and aggression overall (g = -0.02, 95% CI -0.13 to 0.09).
- Scope
- Anger and aggression outcomes across 184 samples and 10,189 participants in laboratory and field settings.
- Caveat
- The pooled effect was close to zero but the arousal-increasing studies were heterogeneous, so some activities in some contexts may differ; physical exercise has other benefits.
Last reviewed · Review due · arousal-increasing-activities-ineffective
The same meta-analysis found that arousal-decreasing activities, such as slow breathing, relaxation and mindfulness, reduced anger and aggression (g = -0.63, 95% CI -0.82 to -0.43), with robust effects across populations and delivery formats.
- Scope
- Students, non-students, offenders and people with and without intellectual disabilities, in group, individual, digital, laboratory and field formats.
- Caveat
- A pooled average does not predict the effect for an individual, and frequent or harmful anger warrants professional help.
Last reviewed · Review due · arousal-decreasing-activities-reduce-anger
Catharsis as a felt release and venting as the expression of anger at a target are distinct; evidence that venting fails to reduce anger does not by itself test dance, music or collective release.
- Scope
- How findings on venting are applied across this site.
- Caveat
- The distinction is conceptual; the shared point is only that a feeling of release is not evidence that the cause of an emotion has changed.
Last reviewed · Review due · catharsis-distinct-from-venting
Instructed cognitive change such as reappraisal had a small-to-medium effect on emotional outcomes, whereas attempts to suppress the experience of emotion were not effective; habitual reappraisal is associated with more positive and less negative emotion than habitual suppression.
- Scope
- Short laboratory emotion inductions (experimental) and adult self-report samples (correlational).
- Caveat
- Average effects are small to medium and vary with the emotion, the tactic and the person; the habitual-use findings are correlational.
Last reviewed · Review due · reappraisal-changes-emotional-experience
Reflecting on an anger-eliciting experience from a self-distanced perspective reduced negative affect compared with immersed recall, in two experiments.
- Scope
- Recall of everyday negative interpersonal experiences in laboratory settings.
- Caveat
- Outcomes are short-term, effects depend on the person and experience, and recent or severe trauma requires professional support.
Last reviewed · Review due · self-distancing-reduces-reactivity
References
- (1999). Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 367–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.367
- (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 724–731. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289002
- (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
- (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
- (2005). When asking "why" does not hurt: Distinguishing rumination from reflective processing of negative emotions. Psychological Science, 16(9), 709–715. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01600.x
- (2024). A meta-analytic review of anger management activities that increase or decrease arousal: What fuels or douses rage?. Clinical Psychology Review, 109, 102414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102414