Can you be "at fault" for causing anger?

yes, but if there is a reason it might be worth it

Yes, you are guilty of causing their anger if they told you in the past that a particular behavior irritates them. For example if you don’t flush the toilet. And you keep doing that. It will cause anger. And you are at fault.

No; I think it is each persons responsibility to control or diffuse their own anger (emotions). You might know that eating the last peep out of my easter basket could provoke a firestorm of blazing temper; BUT, it’s totally up to me if I let that temper fly. Anger management is a learned trait and not at all the responsibility of the provoking party. In this instance there is not “victim” only a “volunteer”.

If course you can, some people make their sole purpose to “make angry”.

I am going to differ and say, no. You can be guilty of acting in a controversial manner, but you are never “responsible” for another person’s emotional reaction, whether it be happiness or anger. Each person is responsible for how they feel and react to others.

Guilt has responsibility tied to it. If you assume responsibility for another causing another person’s anger, then in essence a wife would be “responsible” for her husband beating her because she was late getting dinner on the table and that angered him.

I would say that both parties could be at fault simultaneously.

Yes, people need to take responsibility for their own actions and reactions, but to intentionally push someone over the edge is probably wrong in most cases.

Crap! This just happens to be the justification that abusers have used for years.

Of course you are not responsible for how another person responds to an action of yours. You do, however, have to live with the consequences of your own actions. Thus, deliberately provoking someone might result in that individual ending your relationship (or worse as noted above).

He’s asking if one is guilty of causing the anger – which is not the same as responsible.

A person can be guilty, or faulted for causing the source of the anger, but the other person is responsible for their anger.

In your example, which is to say you know that pushing a button will cause someone to be angry so you push that button to anger them, of course you are at fault of creating that anger. I believe yes you are guilty because your intentions are not positive for that person. Furthermore, you are guilty of not showing respect if you continue to press the same button in the future for your own enjoyment.

That said, the second person has choices they can make too. Such as leaving the room. Or lashing out on you. Or not associating with you anymore. I don’t really see this situation (when you purposely press someone’s button to get a rise out of them) to be their fault at all, but the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” applies here – if it was my buttons you were pushing, my fist would be pushing your face pretty quickly.

The question should be “Am I guilty of immaturity if I deliberately act in a manner that provokes another person to react to my behavior in a negative manner?”

The actor is responsible for immature behavior, the reactor is responsible for how they express a negative reaction.

What @AlfredaPrufrock said, both times. Just because someone pushes your buttons, you don’t have the right to blast them in return. The button pusher is indeed guilty of bad judgment and immature behavior, while the pushee is guilty of letting their anger out when it could be held in check.

@squirbel, you cannot have “guilt” without assuming “responsibility”.

Everyone is responsible for managing their own anger but you’re not responsible for the actions of an instigator. However we do have the power to not take the bait.

Of course you can… no reason to over-think this one.

I don’t think so…no. You are at fault for your behavior, but you are not in control of someone’s emotions. You can act like an ass; however, you do not “force” someone to be angry.

This question could also be worded: “Can you make someone angry?” ... to which the answer seems fairly obvious.

@AlfredaPrufrock : People do it all the time. What about the kid who sneaks out at night, gets high, and then gets into some mischief that destroys property. They get away, but the next day they feel guilty and hope no one finds out. Some may say – “hey, I did that”, but most will try to get away with it if they can. That’s guilt without responsibility.

Some young seed donor may get a girl preggers – and he may feel guilt, and he may try to deny his responsibility of caring for the child. That’s guilt without responsibility.

One can dream up any number of instances of when guilt and responsibility share inverse relations.

Squirbel, what you described is not “guilt.” Your examples are derived from self-preservation and lack of responsibility. In the first, if they felt guilty, they would own up to what they did because they recognize the harm they did to others. Feeling bad because they did something wrong and may be held accountable for self-serving reasons is not guilt.

Guilt does not always result in responsible action.

Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes – whether justified or not – that he or she has violated a moral standard, and is responsible for that violation.[1] It is closely related to the concept of remorse.
In psychology, as well as in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by ‘conscience’. Sigmund Freud described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego parental imprinting. Freud, an atheist, rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he ironically added another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that may contribute to illness and also to the kind of so called accident that, until then had been attributed to God’s will or simply bad luck. Today, as a result of Freud’s views, even the victim of someone else’s accident or bad luck may be offered criticism rather than comfort. The theory is that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person’s hostility.[2] Guilt and its causes, merits, and demerits are common themes in psychology and psychiatry. It is often associated with anxiety, and sometimes depression. The philosopher Martin Buber underlined the difference between the Freudian notion of guilt, based on internal conflicts, and existential guilt, based on actual harm done to others.[3]

Source: Wikipedia

for any person who does become angry, if it is not the other person doing it then what does force someone to be angry?

@ninjacolin – The other person presents a stimulus. However, how someone reacts to the stimulus is up to them. Thus, the only way to truly force someone to be angry is for that person to allow you to make them angry.

In other words, no one and nothing can actually force someone to become angry. There is always another choice that could be made, although it may be a difficult one.

This question itself just managed to piss me off.

^^ but does your answer make sense? if “no one” and “nothing” can force someone to be angry then why do people get angry?

Anger is an adrenalin response, a result of a “self-preservation” instinct. Whether it seems logical or not, stimulus that presents a “threat” that is not necessarily physical, but disruptive to the status quo or expectation, causes feelings of “anger.”

Using the dinner example, husband asks for dinner to be on the table when he comes home. Dinner not on the table is a threat to his control of the situation. Reason does not enter into it. He said the wife is to dinner on the table, dinner not on the table means that she chose to not do everything within her power to get dinner on the table. The fact that the baby got sick, the dog ate the meat, the stove broke, the wife fell asleep and got started late, whatever, are all incidental to the expectation that dinner should be on the table because the husband said so. Otherwise, the baby, the dog, the husband, the wife have control over the husband by rendering his wants subordinate to their needs.

LOL. Talented talented jellies… always making a fruit smoothie out of a peanut. At least I get a laugh out of it. =)

@ninjacolin – Some people like to get angry so they look for any excuse to burst into a rage. Some of them are actually adrenalin junkies who love the feeling they get when all fired up.

Many people feel that first rush of adrenalin but rather than nurturing it and allowing it to burst into flame, they have matured enough to realize that “This, too, shall pass.” They remain calm in the face of temptation.

A person’s anger is ALWAYS ultimately their own responsibility. Someone may “push their buttons”, and they may not be enlightened enough to realise that every angry word they make is a choice – albeit, it is a difficult choice to get out of (and I know that as well as anyone). But that effort must be made. You can excuse anything in that way, but to do so is cowardly and morally reprehensible.

@Blondesjon

awesome

Yes, but then you are sorry… Hey, that is another post.

Yes. My online behavior during a mental breakdown about two months ago. I destroyed friendships that can never be recovered.