From anger to solidarity: The emotional echo-chamber of Gezi park protests

By using the Gezi Park protests that took place in Turkey in 2013 as a case, we explore the significance of emotional echo-chamber involved in protests. The analyses are composed of thirty-seven interviews conducted with activists on how they define and understand their preferences and motivations for protesting. We discuss how participants get influenced by beliefs, motives and opinions and bring forth the changes of emotions during such processes and help create an emotional echo-chamber.     

Emotional expressions forecast approach-avoidance behavior

The contention that basic behavioral intentions are forecasted by emotional expressions has received surprisingly little empirical support. We introduce a behavioral task that gauges the speed with which movement of angry and fearful faces (toward or away from an expressor's gaze) are accurately detected. In two studies we found that perceivers were faster to correctly detect approaching anger faces (i.e., faces that moved in the direction of their own gaze). The opposite, however, was not true for fear expressions. These findings offer evidence that, at least for anger displays, the basic behavioral intent to approach is strongly transmitted and at very low-levels of processing, even priming congruent behavioral responses in observers. The null results for fear faces may indicate that these signal a “freezing” response or behavioral inhibition rather than flight per se. The results of this work are discussed in relation to contemporary theories of emotion.     

Longer-term consequences of anger expression in negotiation: Retaliation or spillover?

Negotiators often concede to angry partners. But what happens when they meet again? According to the spillover hypothesis, negotiators demand less from previously angry partners because they perceive them as tough. According to the retaliation hypothesis, negotiators demand more from previously angry partners because of negative impressions and a desire to get even. Experiment 1 showed that participants demanded less in later negotiations when their partner in a previous negotiation had expressed anger (rather than no emotion) and the later negotiation was with the same (rather than a different) partner. Consistent with the spillover hypothesis, this effect was mediated by inferences regarding the partner’s toughness. Experiment 2 showed that apologies reduce the negative effects of anger on impressions and desire for future interaction. Behavioral reactions were moderated by social value orientation: extending the established might/morality effect, prosocial participants responded cooperatively to an apology, whereas proselfs responded competitively.     

The role of Dependency and Self-Criticism in the relationship between anger and depression

This study explored the role of Dependency and Self-Criticism, two personality dimensions conferring vulnerability for depression, in explaining relationships among anger, anger regulation strategies, and severity of depression in a sample of adults (n = 253) using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Dependency was associated with high levels of trait anger, the turning of anger towards the self, and low levels of anger directed towards others. Self-Criticism was associated with high levels of both state and trait anger, low anger control, and high levels of anger towards the self and others. Moreover, turning anger towards the self mediated the relationship among both Dependency and Self-Criticism and severity of depression. Problems with anger control also mediated the relationship between Self-Criticism and severity of depression. These findings suggest that Self-Criticism may be closely related to angry/hostile features in depression, while dependency may be more closely associated with the turning of anger towards the self. Although this study was cross-sectional and self-reports of anger might be biased by impression management, results suggest that these personality factors should be taken into account in both research on and treatment of anger in depression.     

A study of the greater male variability hypothesis in creative thinking in Mainland China: Male superiority exists

This study tested the greater male variability hypothesis in creative thinking with a Chinese student sample in Mainland China. The Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) was administered to 627 Chinese adolescent boys (n = 332) and girls (n = 295). Results using the boy/girl variance ratio (VR) generally supported the hypothesis that boys have greater variability than girls in creativity test performance. However, results using the boy/girl ratios from different regions of the creativity score distribution revealed a pattern of male superiority. While boys significantly outnumbered girls in the higher extremes, girls tended to outnumber boys in the central region and the lower extremes. Results from an analysis of the means lent further support to the findings of male superiority. Plausible explanations for greater male variability and male superiority in Mainland China are proposed. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Children's and adults’ understanding of the “disgust face”

By the age of 4 years, children (N=120) know the meaning of the word disgust as well as they know the meaning of anger and fear; for example, when asked, they are equally able to generate a plausible cause for each of these emotions. Yet, in tasks involving facial expressions (free labelling of faces, deciding whether or not a face expresses disgust, or finding a “disgust face” in an array of faces), a majority of 3- to 7-year-old children (N=144) associated the prototypical “disgust face” with anger and denied its association with disgust (25% of adults on the same tasks did so as well). These results challenge the assumption that all humans easily recognise disgust from its facial expression and that this recognition is a precursor to children's understanding of the emotion of disgust.     

The appraisal basis of anger occurrence and intensity revisited

In a diary study we examined the relation between anger appraisals on the one hand, and the occurrence and intensity of anger experiences in frustrating situations on the other hand. The appraisals of frustration, other presence, other-accountability, and hostile intention are shown to be jointly sufficient for the occurrence of anger experience. Absence of one or more of these appraisals further results in a smaller proportion of anger occurrences, in lower anger intensities, and in both within- and between-person differences in anger occurrence. These results are interpreted in terms of anger experience as a categorical phenomenon for which the jointly sufficient set of appraisals acts as a cognitive point of reference. Willingness to go for anger categorisations in appraisal patterns that deviate from this cognitive point of reference is, at least in part, subject to dispositional individual differences.     

Searching for emotion or race: Task-irrelevant facial cues have asymmetrical effects

Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visual search tasks. However, it remains unclear whether these facial cues interact in visual search. If both cues equally facilitate search, a symmetrical interaction would be predicted; anger cues should facilitate detection of other race faces and cues of other race membership should facilitate detection of anger. Past research investigating this race by emotional expression interaction in categorisation tasks revealed an asymmetrical interaction. This suggests that cues of other race membership may facilitate the detection of angry faces but not vice versa. Utilising the same stimuli and procedures across two search tasks, participants were asked to search for targets defined by either race or emotional expression. Contrary to the results revealed in the categorisation paradigm, cues of anger facilitated detection of other race faces whereas differences in race did not differentially influence detection of emotion targets.     

Trait anxiety and trait anger measured by ecological momentary assessment and their correspondence with traditional trait questionnaires

Ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of anxiety and anger/hostility were obtained every 25–30 min over two 24-h periods, separated by a median of 6 months, from 165 employees at a university in the Northeast. We used a multilevel trait-state-error structural equation model to estimate: (1) the proportion of variance in EMA anxiety and anger/hostility attributable to stable trait-like individual differences; (2) the correspondence between these trait-like components of EMA anxiety and anger/hostility and traditional questionnaire measures of each construct; and (3) the test–retest correlation between two 24-h averages obtained several months apart. After adjustment for measurement error, more than half the total variance in EMA reports of anxiety and anger/hostility is attributable to stable trait-like individual differences; however, the trait-like component of each construct is only modestly correlated with questionnaire measures of that construct. The 6-month “test–retest” correlations of latent variables representing the true 24-h EMA average anxiety and average anger are quite high (r ? 0.83). This study represents the longest follow-up period over which EMA-based estimates of traits have been examined. The results suggest that although the trait component (individual differences) of EMA momentary ratings of anxiety and anger is larger than the state component, traditional self-report questionnaires of trait anxiety and anger correspond only weakly with EMA-defined traits.     

A group comparison of those with hypertension and other chronic illness: A factor and item level analysis of anger and hostility

Abstract

A considerable body of research has suggested that essential hypertension is related to both expressed anger and suppressed hostility. This study suggests and provides some evidence that these reported results may simply have arisen as the result of a lack of proper statistical control and differential item functioning across the items on which the measures were based. Three groups of respondents were selected (a) those diagnosed as having hypertension (b) a group who admitted to having a chronic medical condition unrelated to hypertension and (c) individuals who did not have a chronic medical condition. A confirmatory factor model was used to test the structure of a measure of expressed anger and suppressed hostility. Differences were then examined across the three conditions at both the factor and item levels within a MIMIC structure and controlling for age and gender. Differential effects were found between females and males on two observed measures of expressed anger. Age had a direct effect on both the measure of expressed anger and suppressed hostility. After the effects of age and gender were controlled, no statistically significant group differences were found. Previous results indicating a difference on expressed anger and suppressed hostility may, as in the present analysis, be put down to a combination of lack of appropriate statistical control, and to ignoring the differential pattern of responding across the observed measures.