Irritability: Definition, Causes, & Coping Skills​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Irritability is the tendency to become frustrated or angry – and let other people know – when things rub you the wrong way. Why does this happen to us, and how can we cope?​
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So much of life is beyond our control, and yet that does not stop us from wishing it was otherwise. Part of my self-growth process has been to let go of trying to manage the things in my life that can’t be managed, and yet I still find myself irritable when things don’t go my way. Whether it is a traffic jam, a conversation in a meeting that seems to be going nowhere, a client who clings to their resentments and sense of victimhood, 
or the data analyses that just aren’t giving me the results I expected, things pop up all the time that make me irritable. And what am I supposed to do with that?

Thankfully, there are ways to reduce irritation when we feel it. Learning how to do this, however, starts with understanding how and why we get irritated. So let’s see what psychology research has to say about the nature of irritability.
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What Is Irritability? (A Definition)​

The trait of irritability is the tendency to become frustrated or angry when things happen that we perceive to be unpleasant or undesired (Stringaris & Taylor, 2015). Irritability is an interesting psychological phenomenon in that it is present in both externalizing and internalizing mental health disorders. In other words, people who externalize their struggles (through the actions they take towards others) and internalize their struggles (by turning their negative feelings toward themselves) are both likely to feel irritation. 

Many, if not most, psychological symptoms are more characteristic of either externalizing disorders (such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] or antisocial personality disorder) or internalizing disorders (such as social anxiety or depression), but not both. This suggests that being predisposed to irritation might put people at risk of many different kinds of mental health problems, and indeed, some psychologists have recognized irritability as just this kind of general risk factor (Beauchaine & Tackett, 2020).
 
Psychologists typically think of irritability as having both an emotional aspect and a behavioral aspect (Caprara et al., 1985). What they mean by this is that people don’t just feel irritated – they show their irritation, too. If I see traffic getting backed up in front of me and I simply acknowledge the internal feeling of frustration, I am not exactly irritated. But if I see that traffic jam coming and I curse out loud and smack my hand on the dashboard, then I’m definitely irritated. We can all have moments of irritation, but some people are dispositionally more likely to experience irritation – the world just seems to provoke them more than it does other people.
 
Some scientists give irritability an even more precise definition, describing it as how we express our frustration with not experiencing a reward we expected to get or an achievement we expected to reach (Insel et al., 2010). Looking at irritability this way is advantageous in that scientists can expect to see it happening across many different species, not just humans. For example, a dog whose favorite tennis ball has rolled out of reach under the couch could very well be experiencing a moment of irritation as it whines and fruitlessly tries to reach its toy.

Opposite of Irritability​

To be the opposite of irritable is to be easygoing and carefree. Just as people who are by nature more irritable are likely to experience mental health problems, people who are much less reactive to the world around them, particularly with regards to having negative reactions, experience the world more positively and have better life outcomes (Charbonneau et al., 2009). This is likely because getting irritated – and staying irritated, in particular – makes us more stressed out and makes coping harder in the long term.​

Causes of Irritability

So why do we get irritated, and why are some people more irritable by nature than others? It is natural to get irritated when things do not go our way; we were expecting one outcome and got a different one, and some degree of letdown is inevitable. Anybody could reasonably be expected to get irritated, for example, if they had looked forward all day to eating at their favorite restaurant that night only to find out that for some unforeseen reason, the restaurant is closed that day.
 
How likely we are to experience irritation, and how much of it we experience – that is something psychologists have put plenty of thought and time into trying to predict. It is clear that, as with most other traits, our individual levels of irritability – what we might call trait irritability – are the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors (Vidal-Ribas & Stringaris, 2021). For example, our temperament when we were children impacts our irritability as adults – the more easily upset we were then, the more irritable we will be now. Going back even earlier, the genes we inherit from our parents determine a fair amount of our propensity to become irritated (Vidal-Ribas et al., 2016). As we age, these factors in our biology that predispose us to become irritable actually make our brains more vulnerable to irritation over time. In other words, people who are vulnerable to irritability experience more of it over time, until for some people it becomes a very stable personality trait (Vidal-Ribas et al., 2016).

​​Irritability & Parenting

How we were raised makes a big difference, too – if we saw people regularly getting irritated by the world, we likely learned that the world was an irritating place. I know that the things that irritated me, until I became consciously aware of this pattern and worked on changing it, were the same things that clearly irritated my dad when I was a child.
 
What is happening in the brain of a naturally irritable person? 

They have come to experience an irrationally strong negative response to not getting what they want, or even to the threat of not getting what they want (Vidal-Ribas & Stringaris, 2021). Their brains are literally wired to experience these situations as especially upsetting. Perhaps there is someone in your life whom you believe reacts to the world this way – you might notice that people around them do their best to avoid tripping that person’s alarm system for frustration and anger. By minimizing their chances of experiencing frustration, the people around this person may actually deprive that person of opportunities to learn to deal with their irritation.
 
Child psychologists work hard with irritable children to help them change these patterns, typically by helping them experience and overcome irritating situations. This is an essential corrective step to take because children who are chronically and intensely irritable are at risk for many mental health disorders in adulthood (Leibenluft & Stoddard, 2013). As these children have overly strong reactions to their environment, they are liable to lash out at people and things in the environment, ultimately making their own situations worse.​

Symptoms of Irritability

You may notice irritability in yourself or others as either an ongoing, overall mood, or as briefer flashes or outbursts (Brotman et al., 2017). The classic situation in which irritability occurs is when a person is frustrated in their desire for something and they express outward anger as a result (Caprara et al., 1985). Irritability that is intense and shorter-lived may look like a temper tantrum, with the person yelling and potentially causing damage to themself, other people, or inanimate objects in the area. People who are more consistently irritable may come across as generally grouchy or grumpy; they may complain frequently about aspects of their daily lives, insist on having things their way, or avoid situations they know will upset them.

Treatments for Irritability

For a small subset of people, irritability is a chronic and pretty impairing aspect of their personalities (Caprara et al., 2007), a character trait that is associated with high rates of physical and verbal aggression. This puts them at higher risk of getting into legal trouble and suffering severe consequences from their irritability, which makes it crucial for people high in irritability to get effective treatment and support, ideally when they are still children.
 
With children, one of the most effective treatments for irritability is called parent management training, or PMT for short (Barkley, 2013). As the name might suggest, PMT has the goal of teaching parents to more effectively manage their children’s behavior. For example, if a child has outbursts every time they do not get a candy bar at the grocery store checkout line, a therapist using PMT would help the parent develop a plan to disincentivize the outburst and reward the child for being compliant.
 
With other children and adults, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has also been shown to be helpful for irritability (Barkley, 2013). CBT therapists will help people high in irritability to develop coping strategies for their strong emotions and more effective ways to interpret situations they find irritating.​

Coping Skills for Irritability​

As I noted above, some of the primary coping skills for irritability focus on identifying triggers and powerful emotions, problem-solving in irritating situations, and learning to de-escalate one’s emotions (Sukhodolsky et al., 2016). These skills can be learned and practiced in group therapy, individual therapy, or on one’s own.
 
For example, imagine a father who becomes enraged when his children misbehave in public. He might decrease his irritability in this situation by recognizing a trigger (e.g., he thinks his children are specifically trying to disrespect him), coming up with better strategies to handle the situation (e.g., he plans ahead of time for what to do if his child is not compliant during this errand), and learning emotion regulation skills (e.g., he practices deep breathing techniques and walks away from the family briefly to use them when he gets irritated).

Irritability and Depression

Irritability is one of the symptoms of depression in children, and individuals who are more irritable in adolescence are at increased risk of becoming depressed as adults (Stringaris et al., 2009). Where children with depression may express their irritation in many situations, adults with depression tend to show irritation primarily when they are feeling sad or disinterested in life (Fava et al., 2010). Unfortunately, depressed individuals often blame themselves for their irritability and end up feeling even worse about themselves.

Irritability and ADHD

Although irritability is not a defining symptom of ADHD, it is a common experience among people with ADHD (Vidal-Ribas et al., 2016). Researchers are not sure if people with ADHD who experience lots of irritation should be thought of as distinct from people with ADHD who experience little irritation (Karalunas et al., 2019).

Irritability in Pregnancy

It is also not uncommon for people who are pregnant to experience periods of heightened irritability (Born et al., 2008). This may be because their bodies are undergoing substantial hormonal changes, which can make them more sensitive to changes in their environments.

Irritability and Autism

Irritability is a common experience for people with autism, and it often powerfully impacts their families (Volkmar et al., 1999). Since people with autism experience the world pretty differently from folks without autism, it probably should not surprise us that they frequently find the world irritating. 

Irritability and PMS

Experiencing some degree of physical discomfort or emotional distress during the premenstrual period of one’s menstrual cycle is quite common (Mishell Jr, 2005), and for a select few people, these symptoms can be quite intense and include significant irritability.

Irritability and Menopause

Just like people who are experiencing the hormonal changes associated with a menstrual cycle or a pregnancy (Freeman et al., 2004), people experiencing menopause often report increased irritability as a symptom (Born & Steiner, 1999).

Irritability After Quitting Alcohol

When people quit consuming alcohol, their brains undergo a withdrawal period that makes them especially susceptible to negative emotions (Bayard et al., 2004). Thus, irritability is common in people trying to quit drinking alcohol.

Irritability After Quitting Smoking

When we don’t have our favorite substance regulating our experiences for us, our brains have to learn how to deal with the world on their own again. Thus, people trying to quit smoking also experience a wide range of withdrawal symptoms (Benowitz, 2008), which include irritability.

Articles Related to Irritability

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Irritability

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Irritability​

As with so many human experiences, irritability is a good thing to have in moderation. Getting irritated is a common experience but being irritated much or most of the time will lead us down the road to poorer well-being. For a better understanding of what the stakes are around leaving one’s irritability unaddressed, I recommend watching this video:

Video: Extreme Irritability and its Impact on Physical and Mental Health​

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