Papers
"We're mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore": Anger self-stereotyping and collective action
Leonard, D. J., Moons, W. G., Mackie, D. M., & Smith E. R. (2010). "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore": Anger self-stereotyping and collective action. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations.
What can motivate members of disadvantaged groups to take action on behalf of their group? This research assessed a model in which measured perceptions of (study 1) and manipulated information about (study 2) other women's anger influenced female participants' group-based anger, their subsequent appraisals of instances of possible discrimination, and finally their collective action tendencies. Consistent with Intergroup Emotions Theory, the results suggested that emotional self-stereotyping is one mechanism by which group members can become motivated to respond to possible discrimination, a process supported by group-based anger-driven appraisals about specific discrimination events.
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Download (.pdf) Effects of a Supportive or an Unsupportive Audience on Biological and Psychological Responses to Stress
Taylor, S. E., Seeman, T. E., Eisenberger, N. I., Kozanian, T.A., Moore, A. N., & Moons, W. G. (2010). Effects of a supportive or an unsupportive audience on biological and psychological responses to stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 47-56.
Although social support is related to substantial benefits for health and well-being, research has uncovered qualifications to its benefits. In a test of the psychological and biological impact of an audience on responses to laboratory stress challenges, 183 participants going through the Trier Social Stress Test experienced either (a) an unsupportive audience, (b) a supportive audience, or (c) no audience. Both audience conditions produced significantly stronger cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure responses to the stress tasks, relative to the no-audience control, even though the supportive audience was rated as supportive. Contrary to hypotheses offered by several theories, these effects were not moderated by self-esteem, individual differences in psychological resources, or baseline social support. Psychological resources and baseline social support were, however, tied to more beneficial biological and
psychological profiles at baseline and at recovery in some cases. It was concluded that when one must perform stressful tasks in front of an audience, evaluative concerns may outweigh the potential benefits of a supportive audience.
Anger and Fear Responses to Stress Have Different Biological Profiles
Moons, W. G., Eisenberger, N. I., & Taylor, S. E. (in press). Anger and fear responses to stress have different biological profiles. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
In contrast to a general model of stress, a functional model suggests that emotions may regulate stress responses in specific adaptive ways. The current study examined whether anger and fear during a challenging stress task (Trier Social Stress Task) were differentially associated with cortisol and proinflammatory cytokine responses to an acute stressor. Baseline anger and fear were related to greater cortisol and proinflammatory cytokines. However, anger reactions to the stressor were associated with greater stress-related increases in cortisol over time but not proinflammatory cytokines. In contrast, fear reactions to the stressor were associated with increases in stress-related proinflammatory cytokines over time and a decrease in cortisol. Results are consistent with the functional perspective that distinct emotional experiences appear to trigger temporally-patterned adaptive biological processes to mobilize energy in response to anger and to promote withdrawal in response to fear. Discussion focuses on the role of the HPA axis to increase available metabolic fuel and proinflammatory cytokines to prompt behavioral withdrawal.
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I Feel Our Pain: Antecedents and Consequences of Emotional Self-Stereotyping
Moons, W. G., Leonard, D. J., Mackie, D. M., & Smith, E. R. (2009). I feel our pain: Antecedents and consequences of emotional self-stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
According to Intergroup Emotions Theory people categorized as group members experience the emotions of their ingroup as a consequence of that membership. Four experiments showed that participants converged toward what they believed to be their specific ingroup’s distinct emotional experience when reporting emotions as group members, but not when reporting emotions as individuals. Such self-stereotyping of ingroup emotions occurred for an experimentally fabricated ingroup as well as a range of naturally occurring groups. Demonstrating the roots of this process in categorization, self-stereotyping was increased when motivations to affiliate were amplified and was moderated by ingroup identification. The adoption of ingroup emotions changed participants’ cognitive processing in a predictable way, demonstrating that emotional self-stereotyping involved the experience rather than merely the expression of group-based emotions. Self-stereotyping of ingroup emotions is thus one mechanism by which group-based emotions are shared and can be changed.
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Seen by: The Impact of Repetition-Induced Familiarity on Agreement With Weak and Strong Arguments
Moons, W. G., Mackie, D. M., & Garcia-Marques, T. (2009). The impact of repetition-induced familiarity on agreement with weak and strong arguments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 32-44.
Repeated statements are perceived as more valid than novel ones, termed the illusion of truth effect, presumably because repetition imbues the statement with familiarity. In 3 studies, the authors examined the conditions under which and the processes by which familiarity signals from repetition and argument quality signals from processing of message content influenced agreement with persuasive arguments. Participants with low or high motivation to process information were presented persuasive arguments seen once or twice. In all 3 studies, repetition increased the persuasiveness of weak and strong arguments when little processing of message content occurred. Two of the studies used a process dissociation procedure to reveal that both greater controlled processing (which reflected argument content) and the greater automatic influence of familiarity (which reflected repetition) were associated with increased acceptance of strong arguments but that greater controlled processing dissipated the benefits of familiarity for agreement with weak arguments.
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Thinking Straight While Seeing Red: The Influence of Anger on Information Processing
Moons, W. G., & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Thinking straight while seeing red: The influence of anger on information processing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 706-720.
Because angry people apparently rely on heuristic cues when making judgments, anger has been claimed to trigger superficial, nonanalytic information processing. In three studies, the authors found that induced anger promoted analytic processing. Experiment 1 showed that angry participants were more likely to discriminate between weak and strong arguments than participants in neutral moods. Experiment 2 demonstrated that anger overrode dispositional preferences not to process, causing even those low in need for cognition to process analytically. Experiment 3 reconciled these findings with previous work by showing that angry people used accessible, valid, and relevant heuristics but otherwise processed analytically, as indicated by attitude change and elaboration data. Together, these experiments showed that angry people can have both the capacity and motivation to process and that their selective use of heuristics reflects the cue’s perceived validity and not the failure to process analytically.
