A busy day, congested traffic, an overflowing email inbox. There are so many reasons you find yourself at the intersection of Hungry and Angry-better known as Hangry. It's not a place you choose to visit. And as soon as you arrive at hangry, you're desperate to leave. That's because hunger and the accompanying irritability is intensely unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unwelcome for you and anyone in your immediate vicinity.
While "hangry" is a newer word, coined to lend humor to an otherwise annoying situation, the hunger can be very real. Scientists agree there is biological and psychological validity to the state of hunger. One nutritionist, Sophie Medlin, even claims it as a bona fide emotion.
But what's really going on? Hunger isn't always accompanied by an emotional meltdown, so what brings about this extra reaction? Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found two factors determine hangry: context and self-awareness. The researchers conducted two studies to demonstrate this.
In the first experiment, participants were primed for a specific mood by viewing curated images associated with positive, neutral, or negative emotions. The images were shown to induce the corresponding mood. Immediately after priming, the participants were shown an ambiguous image and asked to rate it. The participants were also asked to evaluate how hungry they felt.
Results showed that after viewing negative images, hungrier participants were more likely to rate the ambiguous image as negative. The participants projected their negative feeling of hunger onto their subjective assessment of the image. Having a somewhat negative experience while hungry can skew your perceptions, making you report the image as more intensely negative. So, context matters.
The second experiment explored the other influential factor of hangry: self-awareness. Researchers required half of the participants to fast beforehand. The other half could eat as they normally would. Some participants were then asked to complete an assignment, in which they reflected on and wrote about their emotions.
Then all participants were given a tiresome computer task. During the activity, the program underwent a planned crash to evoke frustration. Study coordinators blamed the crash on the participants to further rile them up. Lastly, all participants were asked to fill out a survey to evaluate their experience and identify their emotions.
Researchers found that fasted participants who did not reflect on and write about their emotions prior to the computer task reported more negative feelings. They even reported feeling hateful toward the coordinators who blamed them for the computer crash. The results demonstrated that emotional self-awareness plays a part in being hangry.
So, if you're aware of your intense hunger as it builds, you're less likely to view it as a negative emotional experience. Alternatively, if you neglect to check-in with your emotions and you become hungry, you're more likely to lash out in anger at a frustrating situation.
