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The effect of anger on intentionality bias
1Laboratoire de Psychologie (EA4139), Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
Aggressive Behavior
|April 1, 2021
Summary
This study shows that anger, unlike sadness, significantly increases the likelihood of judging actions as intentional. This finding helps explain why angry individuals may make more hostile social inferences.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Emotions play a crucial role in social judgments and inferences about others' behavior.
- Previous research highlights the influence of affect on decision-making processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the specific effects of anger and sadness on the attribution of intentionality.
- To understand how emotional states influence the interpretation of actions.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Participants in angry, sad, or neutral emotional states read action descriptions and judged intentionality.
- Experiment 2: Replicated the effect of anger on intentionality judgments using a similar methodology.
Main Results:
- Anger significantly predicted a higher proportion of intentional judgments, particularly for ambiguous actions.
- Angry participants were more likely to attribute intentionality to actions compared to neutral participants.
- Sadness did not show a significant effect on intentionality attribution in this context.
Conclusions:
- Anger enhances the tendency to attribute intentionality to actions, potentially leading to hostile inferences.
- Emotional states, specifically anger, can bias social cognition and judgment.
- Understanding the impact of emotions on attribution is key to comprehending social perception.
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