Motivation and emotion/Book/2026/Irritability

Irritability:
What is irritability, what causes it, what are its consequences, and how can it be managed?

Edit the title and sub-title to match the wording (and casing) in the 2026 list of topics.
Seek approval for any changes.
Do not include your name (authorship is as per the page history).

Overview

Figure 1. A very irritated man Imagine this ... You go to work, feeling refreshed after your morning coffee and ready to tackle whatever challenges get thrown your way. Ten minutes after arriving, your boss assigns you a marketing project to work on. Only, there a catch. You have to work on it with your coworker, Tom. The grumpiest person in your workplace. Tom always seems to be in a bad mood. It doesn't matter if the sun is shining or if someone brings in afternoon tea for everyone to share. He always has something negative to say. He will criticise someone for making a small typo and yell at another person for accidently jamming the printer. No matter what, he always seems to be a pin drop away from snapping at someone. You may have gone to work in a good mood, but now you're stuck dreading this project. Tom might be someone as someone who struggles with irritability. But what is irritability? Why does it happen, and how can we manage it?

This chapter covers:

• What the concept of irritability, the different types of irritability and what makes irritability different than similar concepts such as aggression.
• Social information theory and how the way we process social cues can influence how irritable we feel
• The translational model and some of the neuroscience behind why we might feel irritable.
• The negative consequences of irritability such as aggression and mental illness.
• How we can manage and reduce irritability through numerous ways such as reducing stress and using emotional regulation skills

The Overview section should provide:

1. Scenario: A short, engaging case study or real-world example in a feature box, with an accompanying image (see above)
2. Explanation of the problem, issue, or topc: Briefly explain the problem, why it is important, and outline how psychological science can help
3. Focus questions: Unpack the sub-title into focus questions in a feature box

Recommended length: 180 to 330 words.

This template provides key headings, examples, and tips for each section. Gradually remove this generic information as the chapter develops. It is OK to retain some of the template material for the topic development, but it should all be removed for the final book chapter.

Key resources:

• Tutorial 02 explains about how to edit
• Topic development guidelines
• Book chapter guidelines

Focus questions 1. What is irritability? 2. What are some of the different explanations as to why we might become irritable? 3. How can experiencing irritability impact us? 4. What can be done to manage and reduce irritability?

What is Irritability?

• When you think of irritability, you might think of someone who always seems to be on edge and annoyed. Or maybe you see it as a state where you cannot help but yell at everyone around you. But what is the actual definition of irritability? The answer: we do not know. Different researchers in the field of irritability have all given different definitions to what irritability is. To try and fix this, some researchers conducted a concept analysis where they looked at what the concept of irritability to finally condense it into a singular definition. They settled on something similar to irritability being a chronic or temporary state of experiencing increased levels of negative emotions, such as annoyance, along with increased difficulty in controlling emotions (Saatchi et al., 2023).
• Briefly mention the link between irritability and young people, and how a lot of the research is predominantly done on young people. Let readers know that for this reason, a lot of the concepts in this chapter focus on young people.

What Irritability is Not:

Irritability can sometimes be confused for anger and aggression. However, while similar, they are different concepts.

Much of the research defining anger appears to be conducted in the late 20th century. Smedslund (1993) defined anger as an emotion experienced when a person perceives someone they care about, which may include their own self, has received unjust treatment. In contrast, irritability is a state where a person may be more likely to experience anger as well as other negative emotions, but it is not anger itself (Saatchi et al., 2023).

Aggression on the other hand, refers specifically to a behaviour that is performed with the aim of causing harm to someone else (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Again, while irritability may increase the chance someone will engage in aggression (Saatchi et al., 2023), they are two separate concepts.

Classifying Irritability

Irritability can be classified and sorted in different ways. Some ways to do this include categorising it as tonic or phasic, or alternatively, as normative or abnormal.

Tonic vs Phasic Irritability

Irritability can last different lengths of time. A study in 2006 found episodic irritability and chronic irritability to be distinguishable concepts in young people (Leibenluft et al., 2006). This suggests some people may experience irritability for temporary periods of time (e.g. a few hours) while other may feel irritable for years on end.

Today, episodic and chronic irritability have been referred to through different names, being phasic and tonic irritability respectively. Phasic irritability is described as presenting in outbursts that are out of proportion for a person's age (Leibenluft, 2017). Tonic irritability refers to irritability presenting through a persistent angry mood (Leibenluft, 2017).

Normative vs Abnormal Irritability

The dimensional approach of irritability views it as a spectrum, where people can experience mild, or normal levels of irritability all the way to abnormal levels of irritability (Alam et al., 2023). Determining the point at where irritability becomes abnormal can be difficult. However, one way to do this is by assessing the level of impairment accompanying the irritability, with one study using impairment to decide cutoff scores for an irritability screener (Alam et al., 2023). Essentially, it is the question of whether irritability has a large enough negative effect on a person's quality of life or not.

Why do we get Irritable?

• There are different perspectives researchers can take when explaining the reasons why we get irritable. Some will look at the brain and hypothesise about what might be happening on a biological level. Others might turn to the environment and explain irritability as a reaction to an external event. Below are just a couple of the many theories researchers have created to describe what might make us irritable.
• Potentially might include another theory/approach here such as irritability as a trait or frustration theory

Social Information Processing Theory

• Social information processing theory refers to how the way you process social cues may impact on how well you handle a social situation (Dodge & Crick, 1990)
• There is a five step sequence on how we process social cues (Dodge & Crick, 1990)
  1. Encode what is relevant from the present cues
  2. Represent the encoded information in your long-term memory and interpret it
  3. Access one or multiple responses from your memory
  4. Choose which response to make based on rules or criteria to evaluate them
  5. Make the response
• Certain ways of processing social cues may result in irritability
  • One study found an association between irritability and rating ambiguous face stimuli as having an angry emotional expression (Deveney et al., 2019)

Translational Model

• The Translational Model is a model that combines previous neuroscience research to explain why young people might experience irritability (Brotman et al., 2017). This model specifically focuses on abnormal irritability, In simple words, this means it is not talking about the teenager who snaps at their parents after only getting four hours of sleep. It is talking about the children and teenagers who experience irritability to the extent where it starts to cause significant problems in their lives.
• Irritability in youths is a response to one of the following (Brotman et al., 2017):
  • Being interrupted when trying to achieve a goal (see Frustration theory)
  • Being presented with a potential threat
• There may be some abnormalities in the brain when processing rewards (Brotman et al., 2017). For example, youths with abnormal irritability might experience a stronger frustration response to not getting a rewards compared with youths who do not struggle with irritability.
• (Note to self: Maybe consider putting in the figure of the model that was in the journal article?)

The Bad Side of Irritability

• What are the consequences of being irritable? How can it negatively impact us? Maybe you find yourself snapping at people more often, similar to Tom. Or, maybe you hate the feeling of irritability and feeling it results in a bad day.

Aggression

• Discuss the frustration-aggression theory or, alternatively, frustration theory (Amsel, 1992) (as frustration theory seems to be talked about more in terms of irritability in the literature. Still need to check if it links to aggression though). Talk about how being interrupted in the pursuit of a goal may result in frustration and therefore potentially aggression
  • Also discuss the link between frustration and irritability, to link irritability to aggression
• Discuss research directly relating irritability to aggression, such as the study conducted by (Perhamus et al., 2024)
• Why aggression is a negative consequence of irritability. Briefly discuss how aggression might negatively impact relationship with others etc.

Mental Disorders

• Research seems to talk a lot about the connection between mental disorders and irritability
• Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder might represent the severe end of irritability
• Talk about the whole chicken and egg debate. What came first, the irritability or the mental disorder? Did being high in trait irritability increase your risk of meeting criteria for a mental disorder? Or, did you only start feeling irritable when you met criteria for the mental disorder?
  • Talk about mood disorders potentially here as an example of feeling irritable because of the mental disorder.

Is Irritability Always a Bad Thing?

• Maybe talk about potential positives of irritability? However there doesn't seem to be much research on this. Therefore maybe pose this question to the reader. Also include some research on positives of anger. While not the same concept, it may relate.

How to Manage Irritability

• Now that we know what some of the negative impacts of irritability might be, you might want some ways or methods to manage it. Some of these methods are simple things you can easily implement into your daily life, such as making sure you are getting enough sleep. Others might involved a visit to a therapist to help work through some strategies to reduce the amount of irritability you experience.

Take Care of Your Mind and Body

Sometimes not getting enough sleep may contribute to feeling irritable

• Irritability can be associated with not getting enough sleep (Whiting et al., 2023), therefore, if you get enough sleep it will potentially reduce the chance you will feel irritable.
• Irritability can be associated with not eating enough food (Swami et al., 2022), therefore, if you eat enough food it will potentially reduce the chance you will feel irritable.
• Irritability can be associated with stress (Harrison et al., 2025), therefore if you avoid stressful situations it will potentially reduce the chance you will feel irritable.

Emotion Regulation:

• Discuss Gross's emotion regulation theory and how it potentially can be applied to regulating irritability (Gross, 1998, as cited in Gross, 2015)
• Talk about studies linking irritability and emotion regulation together
• Discuss the link between irritability and self-regulatory control processes (Urben et al., 2025)

Therapeutic Interventions

• For people with severe or pathological irritability, sometimes intervention in the form of therapy can be helpful
• Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) appears to be the main therapy with research behind it to treat irritability
  • Exposure techniques may be helpful, with one study find cognitive behavioural therapy to be helpful in reducing irritability for young people by exposing participants to cues that trigger irritability (Naim et al., 2024)
  • A focus on emotional regulation skills may also be helpful, with an indirect link between improving emotional regulation skills through CBT and a reduction in irritability found in one study (Derella et al., 2019)

Quiz

1

Tonic irritability refer to having brief periods of time where you have frequent angry outbursts:

	True
	False

2

Which of the following options according to this book chapter might help you reduce irritability?:

	Getting enough sleep
	Watching a sci-fi TV show
	Filling in your tax return

Conclusion

• Irritability is a temporary or chronic state where you have the tendency to experience unpleasant emotions such as anger that are difficult to manage
• There are many different reasons or causes behind why we might feel irritable, such as how we interpret a social situation or physiological processes happening in the brain
• Irritability can at times have a negative impact on our lives, with it being associated with aggression and mental disorders
• There are numerous way to manage irritability, such as taking care of your body, using emotional regulation skills or seek out therapeutic support.

Key points

For the topic development, for each heading and sub-heading:

• Provide at least three bullet-points, including for the Overview and Conclusion
• Include key citations

Figures

Figure 2. Example of an image with a descriptive caption.

• Use figures to illustrate concepts, add interest, and to serve as examples
• Figures can show photos, diagrams, graphs, video, audio, etc.
• Embed figures throughout the chapter, starting with the scenario in the Overview section
• Caption figures (use Figure #. and explain the relevance of the image to the text)
• Images must be embedded from Wikimedia Commons
• Images can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons if they are openly licensed
• Cite each figure at least once in the main text (e.g., see Figure 2)

Learning features

Interactive learning features help to bring book chapters to life and can be embedded throughout the chapter.

Scenarios

• Scenarios, case studies, or examples describe concepts in action
• Can be real or fictional; if real, provide citations
• Can be split into multiple boxes throughout a chapter (e.g., to illustrate different theories or stages)
• Present using feature boxes

Feature boxes

• Highlight key content using feature boxes, but don't overuse, otherwise they lose their effect
• Consider using feature boxes for:
  • Scenarios, case studies, or examples
  • Focus questions
  • Tips
  • Quiz questions
  • Take-home messages

Embedded links

• When key words are introduced, use interwiki links to:
  • Wikipedia articles (e.g., "An early psychological view dreams) of dreams was provided by Sigmund Freud") or
  • Related book chapters (e.g., "If you're feeling stuck, check out the chapter about writer's block")

Tables

• Use to tables to organise and summarise information
• Cite each table at least once in the main text (e.g., see Table 1)
• Tables should be captioned
• More example tables which can be adapted

Table 1

A Descriptive Caption Which Explains The Table Contents and its Relevance to the Text e.g.,

The 2 x 2 Johari Window Model Showing Knowing x Self/Other

	Known to self	Not known to self
Known to others	Open area	Blind spot
Not known to others	Hidden area	Unknown

Quizzes

• Using one or two quiz questions for each main section is better than a long quiz at the end
• Quiz conceptual understanding, rather than trivia. Ask about important information such as take-home messages
• Ask easy rather than hard questions
• Different types of quiz questions are possible; see Quiz

Example simple quiz questions. Choose your answers and click "Submit":

1

The purpose of quizzes is to provide an interactive learning feature:

	True
	False

2

Long and complex quiz questions are recommended:

	True
	False

Conclusion

• The Conclusion is arguably the most important section
• Draft clear take-home message(s), even at the topic development stage
• Together, the Overview and Conclusion should summarise the problem, its significance, and how psychological science contributes to understanding and addressing it
• Recommended length: 150 to 330 words

Suggestions for this section: What is the answer to the sub-title question based on psychological theory and research? What are the answers to the focus questions? What are the practical, take-home messages?

See also

Provide internal (wiki) links to the most relevant Wikiversity pages (esp. related motivation and emotion book chapters) and Wikipedia articles. Use sentence casing and alphabetical order. For example:

• Irritability (Wikipedia)
• Anger (Book chapter, 2011)

Suggestions for this section: Only select links to major internal resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses

References

This section lists the cited references in APA style (7th ed.) or wiki style.

APA style example:

Alam, T., Kirk, N., Hirsch, E., Briggs‐Gowan, M., Wakschlag, L. S., Roy, A. K., & Wiggins, J. L. (2023). Characterizing the spectrum of irritability in preadolescence: Dimensional and pragmatic applications. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 32(S1), e1988. https://doi.org/10.1002/mpr.1988

Amsel, A. (1992). Frustration theory: Many years later. Psychological Bulletin, 112(3), 396–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.3.396

Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). Human Aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27–51. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231

Brotman, M. A., Kircanski, K., Stringaris, A., Pine, D. S., & Leibenluft, E. (2017). Irritability in Youths: A Translational Model. American Journal of Psychiatry, 174(6), 520–532. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16070839

Derella, O. J., Johnston, O. G., Loeber, R., & Burke, J. D. (2019). CBT-Enhanced Emotion Regulation as a Mechanism of Improvement for Childhood Irritability. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 48(sup1), S146–S154. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2016.1270832

Deveney, C. M., Stoddard, J., Evans, R. L., Chavez, G., Harney, M., & Wulff, R. A. (2019). On defining irritability and its relationship to affective traits and social interpretations. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, 61–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.02.031

Dodge, K. A., & Crick, N. R. (1990). Social Information-Processing Bases of Aggressive Behavior in Children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16(1), 8–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167290161002

Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781

Harrison, T. J., Silver, J., Calentino, A. E., Mackin, D. M., Finsaas, M. C., Carlson, G., Davila, J., Olino, T. M., & Klein, D. N. (2025). Irritability and stress: Prospective, bidirectional relationships in adolescence. Journal of Affective Disorders, 372, 598–607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2024.12.051

Leibenluft, E. (2017). Pediatric Irritability: A Systems Neuroscience Approach. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(4), 277–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.02.002

Leibenluft, E., Cohen, P., Gorrindo, T., Brook, J. S., & Pine, D. S. (2006). Chronic Versus Episodic Irritability in Youth: ACommunity-Based, Longitudinal Study of Clinical and Diagnostic Associations. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 16(4), 456–466. https://doi.org/10.1089/cap.2006.16.456

Naim, R., Dombek, K., German, R. E., Haller, S. P., Kircanski, K., & Brotman, M. A. (2024). An Exposure-Based Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy for Youth with Severe Irritability: Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 53(2), 260–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2023.2264385

Perhamus, G. R., Ostrov, J. M., & Murray-Close, D. (2024). Aggression and Irritability in Middle Childhood: Between- and Within-Person Associations. 'Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology', 53(2), 184–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2023.2272941

Saatchi, B., Olshansky, E. F., & Fortier, M. A. (2023). Irritability: A concept analysis. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 32(5), 1193–1210. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.13140

Smedslund, J. (1993). How Shall the Concept of Anger be Defined? Theory & Psychology, 3(1), 5–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354393031001

Swami, V., Hochstöger, S., Kargl, E., & Stieger, S. (2022). Hangry in the field: An experience sampling study on the impact of hunger on anger, irritability, and affect. PLoS ONE, 17(7), e0269629. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269629

Urben, S., Ochoa Williams, A., Ben Jemia, C., Rosselet Amoussou, J., Machado Lazaro, S., Giovannini, J., Abi Kheir, M., Kaess, M., Plessen, K. J., & Mürner-Lavanchy, I. (2025). Understanding irritability through the lens of self-regulatory control processes in children and adolescents: a systematic review. 'European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry', '34'(5), 1497–1509. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-024-02591-8

Whiting, C., Bellaert, N., Deveney, C., & Tseng, W.-L. (2023). Associations between sleep quality and irritability: Testing the mediating role of emotion regulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 213, 112322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112322

Suggestions for this section: Wrap the set of references in the hanging indent template: Use "Edit source" {{Hanging indent|1= the full list of references}} Important aspects of APA referencing style Author surname, followed by a comma, then the author initials separated by full stops and spaces Year of publication in parentheses Title of work in lower case (except first letter and proper names), ending in a full-stop Journal title in italics, volume number in italics, issue number in parentheses, first and last page numbers separated by an en-dash(–), followed by a full-stop doi as a URL which is a working hyperlink (i.e., clickable) The most common mistakes include: Incorrect capitalisation Incorrect italicisation dois which aren't clickable as working hyperlinks Citing sources that haven't been consulted

External links

Provide external links to highly relevant resources such as podcasts and videos, news articles, and professional sites. Use sentence casing and alphabetical order. For example:

• Coping with irritability: when everything gets on your nerves (Young Minds Network)
• Minding your Mind podcast episode - irritability (Spotify)

Suggestions for this section: Only select links to major external resources about the topic Include the source in parentheses after the link