Can negative emotions help us achieve goals? A new study published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests yes.
Functional accounts of emotions suggest different emotions allow us to solve different kinds of problems, much like a Swiss army knife equipped with various tools for a range of situations. These theories propose that emotions are adaptive responses to environmental challenges we encounter, triggered to resolve the discrepancies between current and desired states.
Anger is theorized to arise when goals are obstructed and promote behaviors that help overcome these obstacles. In this work, Heather C. Lench and colleagues examined whether anger improves goal attainment in challenging situations.
Study 1 examined whether anger could enhance performance in solving difficult anagrams. A total of 233 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of five emotional conditions: anger, neutral, amusement, desire, and sadness. To elicit these emotions, participants viewed a series of fifteen images from the International Affective Picture System and other sources, each displayed for five seconds; they were told that the task was for a memory exercise, ensuring their focus on the images. Following the emotional induction, participants were tasked with solving four sets of seven anagrams within 20 minutes. The primary focus was on the first set, which was designed to be particularly challenging. Time spent on each anagram and overall persistence on the task were also recorded.
The results showed that participants in the anger condition solved significantly more anagrams than those in the neutral condition. Additionally, participants in the anger condition spent more time working on the anagrams compared to those in other emotional conditions.
Study 2 explored whether anger would increase cheating behavior in a task where participants could win prizes. The sample consisted of 242 undergraduate students, randomly assigned to one of five emotional conditions as in Study 1. Next, participants were given five minutes to complete a challenging reasoning and logic task, which involved finding two three-digit numbers that summed to ten within a series of 19 puzzles. Participants were informed that they could win university memorabilia based on their performance. After completing the task, they were left alone to self-report their performance, with an opportunity to misreport their results to win more prizes. The primary measure was the rate of cheating, computed by comparing reported performance to actual performance.
The results revealed that participants in the anger condition were more likely to cheat compared to those in the neutral condition, with higher rates of misreporting their performance to win prizes. Anger also led to more cheating behavior than the desire and sadness conditions but was not significantly different from the amusement condition.
Study 3 investigated the impact of anger on performance in a video game involving both challenging and easy tasks. The study included 288 undergraduate students, randomly assigned to one of five emotional conditions as before. After practicing the video games, participants underwent an emotional induction like the previous studies. They then played a skiing video game, which included a challenging slalom course, and a simple ski jump task. Participants played each game three times, and their scores were averaged for analysis. The primary focus was on performance in the slalom course, which required greater physical and cognitive effort.
Participants in the anger condition performed better on the challenging slalom course compared to those in the neutral and sadness conditions, achieving lower completion times. The beneficial effect of anger was more pronounced in the challenging task, while there were no significant differences in performance on the simpler ski jump task across emotional conditions.
Study 4 examined the effect of anger on reaction time performance in a challenging task. The sample consisted of 100 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to different emotional conditions like previous studies. They next completed a modified anger incentive delay task, which involved responding to a target stimulus to win or lose money based on their reaction time. The task included a practice block followed by three experimental blocks: a success block with a long response window, a success with incentive block with the same long window but with a bonus for good performance, and an anger block with a very short response window designed to induce frustration and anger. Emotional responses were measured before and after each block using the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire.
The results showed that participants in the anger block had faster reaction times and performed better compared to those in other blocks. They were also more likely to want to redo the challenging block, indicating a higher level of engagement and persistence. The anger block effectively elicited higher levels of anger, which was associated with improved performance on the task.
Study 5 investigated the relationship between anger and voting behavior in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Presidential elections. The sample included 989 participants for the 2016 election and 416 participants for the 2020 election, recruited as part of a larger study. Participants were asked to report their anticipated anger if their non-preferred candidate won the election, and their actual voting behavior after the election. Two to three weeks before the election, participants were given a scenario to imagine how they would feel if the opposing candidate won and rated their anticipated anger and fear on a scale from 1 to 9. After the election, participants reported whether they voted and for whom. The primary measure was the relationship between anticipated anger and actual voting behavior.
The findings demonstrated that anger significantly predicted voting behavior in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Participants who anticipated higher levels of anger if their non-preferred candidate won were more likely to vote. This relationship held true even after controlling for predicted fear, indicating that anger, rather than fear, was a stronger motivator for voting behavior. The results were consistent across supporters of both major candidates in each election.
Study 6 examined whether anger could enhance proactive behavior to protect financial resources. The sample consisted of 125 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to different emotional conditions: anger, neutral, and physiological arousal. The emotional induction procedure was similar to previous studies. Next, participants were given a scenario where they had to decide on actions to protect their financial resources from potential loss. The primary measure was the number of proactive actions taken to prevent financial loss.
The results indicated that participants in the anger condition took more proactive actions to protect their financial resources compared to those in the neutral and physiological arousal conditions.
Across six studies, this research provides robust evidence that anger, often viewed as a detrimental emotion, can play a beneficial role in goal attainment in challenging situations.
One limitation is the artificial nature of laboratory tasks, which may not fully capture the complexity of real-world goal attainment.
The study, “Anger Has Benefits for Attaining Goals”, was authored by Heather C. Lench, Noah T. Reed, Tiffany George, Kaitlyn A. Kaiser, and Sophia G. North.
