Losing your temper and your perspective: Anger reduces perspective-taking

Publication date: January 2019Source: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 150Author(s): Jeremy A. Yip, Maurice E. SchweitzerAbstractAcross six studies, we find that both incidental anger and integral anger reduce perspective-taking. In Study 1, participants who felt incidental anger were less likely to take others’ perspectives than those who felt neutral emotion. In Study 2, we demonstrate that arousal mediates the relationship between anger and diminished perspective-taking. In Studies 3 and 4, we show that anger reduces perspective-taking compared to neutral emotion, sadness, and disgust. In Study 5, we find that integral anger impairs perspective-taking compared to neutral emotion. In Study 6, prompting individuals to correctly attribute their feelings of incidental anger moderates the relationship between anger and perspective-taking. Taken together, across different anger inductions and perspective taking measures, we identify a robust relationship between anger and diminished perspective-taking. Our findings have particularly important implications for conflict, which is often characterized by feelings of anger and exacerbated by poor perspective-taking.

Source: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes - December 1, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research