The differential effects of interpersonal conflict from customers and coworkers: Trait anger as a moderator.

Interpersonal conflict (IC) at work is a frequently experienced type of workplace mistreatment that has been linked to a host of negative workplace outcomes. Previous research has shown that IC can have differential effects based on source, but this has not yet been investigated in terms of customer IC versus coworker IC. To remedy this oversight in the literature, we used a multimethod, multitime point design to compare IC from customers and coworkers experienced by 75 call center employees. Primarily, we investigated burnout, physical health symptoms, and task performance. Results indicated that customer IC was more strongly related to both personal and organizational outcomes. Additionally, trait anger was investigated as a moderator of these relationships, and the results indicated that people who are easy to anger may be more likely to experience negative effects as a result of customer IC. Implications of these findings, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social functional approach to emotions in bargaining: When communicating anger pays and when it backfires.

Previous research on the communication of emotions has suggested that bargainers obtain higher outcomes if they communicate anger than if they communicate happiness because anger signals higher limits, which in turn leads opponents to give in. Building on a social functional account of communicated emotions, the authors demonstrate that the behavioral consequences of communicated anger strongly depend on structural characteristics of the bargaining situation. The results of 3 experimental studies on ultimatum bargaining corroborate the notion that communicated anger signals higher limits and that emotion effects are contingent on bargainers' expectation that low offers will be rejected. The data also indicate, however, that communicating anger in bargaining may backfire. The findings suggest that bargainers who communicate anger may obtain lower outcomes (a) when their opponent has a possibility to deceive them during bargaining and (b) when the consequences of rejecting their opponent's offer are low. Taken together, the current article reveals the boundary conditions of successful communication of anger in bargaining. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture and egocentric perceptions of fairness in conflict and negotiation.

In this article, the authors advanced a cultural view of judgment biases in conflict and negotiation. The authors predicted that disputants' self-serving biases of fairness would be more prevalent in individualistic cultures, such as the United States, in which the self is served by focusing on one's positive attributes to "stand out" and be better than others, yet would be attenuated in collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, where the self is served by focusing on one's negative characteristics to "blend in" (S. J. Heine, D. R. Lehman, H. R. Markus, & S. Kitayama. 1999). Four studies that used different methodologies (free recall, scenarios, and a laboratory experiment) supported this notion. Implications for the science and practice of negotiation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task conflict and team creativity: A question of how much and when.

Bridging the task conflict, team creativity, and project team development literatures, we present a contingency model in which the relationship between task conflict and team creativity depends on the level of conflict and when it occurs in the life cycle of a project team. In a study of 71 information technology project teams in the greater China region, we found that task conflict had a curvilinear effect on team creativity, such that creativity was highest at moderate levels of task conflict. Additionally, we found this relationship to be moderated by team phase, such that the curvilinear effect was strongest at an early phase. In contrast, at later phases of the team life cycle, task conflict was found to be unrelated to team creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social justifications for moral emotions: When reasons for disgust are less elaborated than for anger.

In the present research, we tested the unreasoning disgust hypothesis: moral disgust, in particular in response to a violation of a bodily norm, is less likely than moral anger to be justified with cognitively elaborated reasons. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to explain why they felt anger and disgust toward pedophiles. Participants were more likely to invoke elaborated reasons, versus merely evaluative responses, when explaining their anger, versus disgust. Experiment 2 used a between-participants design; participants explained why they felt either anger or disgust toward seven groups that either violated a sexual or nonsexual norm. Again, elaborated reasons were less prevalent when explaining their disgust versus anger and, in particular, when explaining disgust toward a group that violated a sexual norm. Experiment 3 further established that these findings are due to a lower accessibility of elaborated reasons for bodily disgust, rather than inhibition in using them when provided. From these findings, it can be concluded that communicating external reasons for moral disgust at bodily violations is made more difficult due to the unavailability of those reasons to people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unresolved anger and sadness: Identifying vocal acoustical correlates.

The authors conducted 2 studies to identify the vocal acoustical correlates of unresolved anger and sadness among women reporting unresolved anger toward an attachment figure. In Study 1, participants (N = 17) were induced to experience and express anger then sadness or sadness then anger. In Study 2, a 2nd group of participants (N = 22) underwent a relationship-oriented, emotion-focused analogue therapy session. Results from both studies showed that, relative to emotionally neutral speech, anger evoked an increase in articulation rate and in mean fundamental frequency (F0) and F0-range, whereas sadness evoked an increase in F0-perturbation. Both F0 and F0-range were larger for anger than for sadness. In addition, results from the mood-induction-procedure study revealed 2 Emotion×Order interactions. Whereas variations in amplitude range suggested that anger evoked less physiological activation when induced after sadness, variations in F0-perturbation suggested that sadness evoked more physiological activation when induced after anger. These findings illustrate the feasibility of using acoustical measures to identify clients' personally and clinically meaningful emotional experiences, and shifts between such emotional experiences, in the context of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From unresolved anger to sadness: Identifying physiological correlates.

This study was designed to identify physiological correlates of unresolved anger and sadness, and the shift between these emotions, in a context similar to that of emotion-focused, experiential psychotherapy. Twenty-seven university students reporting unresolved anger toward an attachment figure were induced to experience and express unresolved anger and sadness. Simultaneously, their heart rate variability, finger temperature, and skin conductance levels were monitored. The sequence of emotion induction was counterbalanced. Sympathetic activation, as reflected by finger temperature, increased significantly from anger to sadness, but not from sadness to anger. A follow-up study (N=36) of participants induced to experience and express either anger or sadness in both the 1st and 2nd inductions ruled out an Anger×Time interaction and a sadness-sadness effect, suggesting that the increase in sympathetic activation from anger to sadness was a function of the unique sequence of emotions. These findings represent a first step toward using physiological measures to capture shifts from unresolved anger to vulnerable primary emotions during a therapy-like task and provide evidence for the purported mechanism underlying unresolved anger. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When perspective taking increases taking: Reactive egoism in social interaction.

Group members often reason egocentrically, believing that they deserve more than their fair share of group resources. Leading people to consider other members' thoughts and perspectives can reduce these egocentric (self-centered) judgments such that people claim that it is fair for them to take less; however, the consideration of others' thoughts and perspectives actually increases egoistic (selfish) behavior such that people actually take more of available resources. A series of experiments demonstrates this pattern in competitive contexts in which considering others' perspectives activates egoistic theories of their likely behavior, leading people to counter by behaving more egoistically themselves. This reactive egoism is attenuated in cooperative contexts. Discussion focuses on the implications of reactive egoism in social interaction and on strategies for alleviating its potentially deleterious effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual categorizations of love and anger cues in schizophrenics.

The 1st study identified 4 filmed scenes indicative of high love, high anger, medium love, and medium anger. The 2nd study compared 30 good premorbid schizophrenics and 30 normals on the high love and high anger scenes. They were not differentiated on the high love scene. On the high anger scene, the normals reported significantly more anger than the good premorbids. The 3rd study evaluated 48 poor premorbid schizophrenics, 48 good premorbid schizophrenics, and 48 normals on 4 scenes of high love, high anger, medium love, and medium anger. The good premorbids and the normals were not different on the high love scene, but significantly different from the poor premorbids. On the high anger scene, good and poor premorbids were significantly different from normals. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 93(2) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2008-02855-019). Figure 2 on p. 184 (Theoretical Contributions section) is missing information about the numbers of teams and statements for the two groups using particularlistic strategies. For the decreasing and consistently low performance/decreasing and consistently low satisfaction group, there were 14 teams and 40 statements; for the decreasing and consistently low performance/increasing and consistently high satisfaction group, there were 11 teams and 46 statements.] This article explores the linkages between strategies for managing different types of conflict and group performance and satisfaction. Results from a qualitative study of 57 autonomous teams suggest that groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share 3 conflict resolution tendencies: (a) focusing on the content of interpersonal interactions rather than delivery style, (b) explicitly discussing reasons behind any decisions reached in accepting and distributing work assignments, and (c) assigning work to members who have the relevant task expertise rather than assigning by other common means such as volunteering, default, or convenience. The authors' results also suggest that teams that are successful over time are likely to be both proactive in anticipating the need for conflict resolution and pluralistic in developing conflict resolution strategies that apply to all group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of fear and anger on selective attention.

This experiment examined the effects of two discrete negative emotions, fear and anger, on selective attention. A within-subjects design was used, and all participants (N = 98) experienced the control, anger, and fear conditions. During each condition, participants viewed a film clip eliciting the target emotion and subsequently completed a flanker task and emotion report. Selective attention costs were assessed by comparing reaction times (RTs) on congruent (baseline) trials with RTs on incongruent trials. There was a significant interaction between emotion condition (control, anger, fear) and flanker type (congruent, incongruent). Contrasts further revealed a significant interaction between emotion and flanker type when comparing RTs in the control and fear conditions, and a marginally significant interaction when comparing RTs in the control and anger conditions. This indicates that selective attention costs were significantly lower in the fear compared to the control condition and were marginally lower in the anger compared with the control condition. Further analysis of participants reporting heightened anger in the anger condition revealed significantly lower selective attention costs during anger compared to a control state. These findings support the general prediction that high arousal negative emotional states inhibit processing of nontarget information and enhance selective attention. This study is the first to show an enhancing effect of anger on selective attention. It also offers convergent evidence to studies that have previously shown an influence of fear on attentional focus using the global-local paradigm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attraction and aversion to power: A psychoanalytic conflict theory of homosexuality in male paranoids.

Consideration of psychoanalytic views of paranoid symptomatology led to the assumption of an approach-avoidance conflict in male paranoids regarding power in other men. Approach involved wishes to be dependent on powerful men and to appropriate their power through magical sexual-aggressive means. Avoidance involved anticipated fears of retaliatory injury and destruction by more powerfully perceived males. A deduction that increments in the power of males, but not females, would result in paranoids' decreased resultant attraction was confirmed. The traditional, undifferentiated like-sex attraction hypothesis was not supported. (38 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moderators and mediators of the stress-aggression relationship: Executive function and state anger.

The present study examined the effects of executive function (i.e., EF) and anger/hostility on the relationship between stress (across individual stress domains, as well as at the aggregate level) and aggression. Two independent groups of participants—a college sample and a low-income community sample—were administered a battery of self-report measures concerning the subjective experience of stress, aggressive behaviors, and feelings of state anger and hostility in the last month, along with a battery of well-validated neuropsychological tests of EF. Across both samples, the stress domains that demonstrated the strongest associations with aggression were those involving chronic strains of daily living (e.g., job, financial, health) versus interpersonal stressors (e.g., family, romantic). In the community sample, analyses also revealed a significant interaction between perceived stress (aggregated across domains) and EF in predicting aggressive behavior. Specifically, participants with relatively low EF abilities, across different EF processes, showed a stronger relationship between different domains of stress and aggression in the last month. Similar effects were demonstrated in the college sample, although the interaction was not significant. In both samples, experiences of anger and hostility in the last month mediated the relationship between perceived stress (aggregate) and aggressive behavior among those low, but not high, in EF. These findings highlight the importance of higher-order cognitive processes in regulating appropriate affective and behavioral responses across different types of individuals, particularly among those experiencing high levels of stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

How negotiators get to yes: Predicting the constellation of strategies used across cultures to negotiate conflict.

Individualism, hierarchy, polychronicity, and explicit-contracting values explain why managers from Germany, Japan, and the United States use a different mix of strategies to negotiate workplace conflict. Hypotheses extend prior research in showing that conflict behavior is multiply determined and that each culture uses a variety of interests, regulations, and power-based conflict management strategies. Results of actual (rather than survey-based) conflict resolution behavior suggest several fruitful avenues for future research, including examining the inferred meaning of negotiation arguments, analyzing interaction effects of cultural value dimensions, studying the effectiveness of different strategies across cultures, and examining whether strategic adjustments are made during intercultural conflict management. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes": Correction.

Reports an error in "The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes" by Kristin J. Behfar, Randall S. Peterson, Elizabeth A. Mannix and William M. K. Trochim (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2008[Jan], Vol 93[1], 170-188). Figure 2 on p. 184 (Theoretical Contributions section) is missing information about the numbers of teams and statements for the two groups using particularlistic strategies. For the decreasing and consistently low performance/decreasing and consistently low satisfaction group, there were 14 teams and 40 statements; for the decreasing and consistently low performance/increasing and consistently high satisfaction group, there were 11 teams and 46 statements. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-00266-012.) This article explores the linkages between strategies for managing different types of conflict and group performance and satisfaction. Results from a qualitative study of 57 autonomous teams suggest that groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share 3 conflict resolution tendencies: (a) focusing on the content of interpersonal interactions rather than delivery style, (b) explicitly discussing reasons behind any decisions reached in accepting and distributing work assignments, and (c) assigning work to members who have the relevant task expertise rather than assigning by other common means such as volunteering, default, or convenience. The authors' results also suggest that teams that are successful over time are likely to be both proactive in anticipating the need for conflict resolution and pluralistic in developing conflict resolution strategies that apply to all group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ostracism: How much it hurts depends on how you remember it.

Substantial evidence demonstrates that ostracism has powerful negative effects on psychological well-being. However, little is known about how to ameliorate the negative effects of this ubiquitous social experience. A key preliminary strategy for developing effective methods to reduce the negative impact of ostracism is to examine factors that influence the persistence of these effects. Therefore, the authors examined whether the persistence of these negative effects is dependent on the vantage perspective from which an experience of exclusion is recalled. Using a virtual ball-toss game, being ostracized elicited an immediate aversive effect; furthermore, these effects persisted when individuals recalled the experience from an observer perspective compared with a field perspective. This study shows, for the first time, that the persistence of the debilitating effects of ostracism is influenced by how individuals recall that experience. These results have implications for the development of ameliorative strategies to manage the impact of social exclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electromyographic evidence for age-related differences in the mimicry of anger.

Although older adults have difficulty recognizing all facial emotions, they have particular difficulty decoding expressions of anger. Since disruption of facial mimicry impairs emotion recognition, electromyography of the corrugator supercilii (i.e., brow) muscle region was used to test whether there are age differences in anger mimicry. Associations between mimicry and emotion recognition were also assessed. The results indicated that although there were no age differences in anger mimicry, older (but not young) adults' corrugator responses to angry expressions were associated with reduced anger recognition. Implications for understanding emotion recognition difficulties in older adulthood are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The appraisal basis of anger: Specificity, necessity and sufficiency of components.

The nature of the association between anger and 5 appraisal-action tendency components--goal obstacle, other accountability, unfairness, control, and antagonism--was examined in terms of specificity, necessity, and sufficiency. In 2 studies, participants described recently experienced unpleasant situations in which 1 of the appraisal-action tendency components was present or absent and indicated which emotions they had experienced. The results showed that (a) other accountability and arrogant entitlement, as an instance of unfairness, are specific appraisals ability for anger; and most important, (b) none of the components is necessary or sufficient for anger. The findings suggest that the relation between emotions and appraisal-action tendency components should be conceptualized instead as a contingent association, meaning that they usually co-occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conjunctive and disjunctive conflict: A theory of need conflict.

The ego disjunction theory of conflict for pairs of needs is revised to yield a theory of conjunctive and disjunctive conflict for individual needs: the concept of incompatibility is dimensionalized; the concept of compatibility is introduced; a combined dimension of compatibility-incompatibility is posited for all pairs of needs; however, joint scores of pairs of needs are not independent; the dimension of compatibility-incompatibility is therefore posited for all needs individually. Intensity of conjunctive or disjunctive conflict is specified as a function of the score for the need in relation to the degree of compatibility or incompatibility. Assumptions are made concerning variations of conflict within different populations. The assumptions generate predictions which are generally confirmed. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication during marital conflict: When couples alter their appraisal, they change their behavior.

In a sample of 77 recently married couples, within-person variance in cognitive appraisal was expected to predict corresponding within-person variance in communication behavior during conflict. Three types of appraisal were considered: expectancies of partner understanding, expectancies of partner negative communication, and attributions. Couples were observed in 4 different conflict conversations, completed during 2 assessment sessions, and appraisals were assessed prior to each conversation. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze within-person effects. Changes from one conversation to the next in all 3 types of appraisal predicted corresponding within-person change in communication, and many effects were larger for wives than for husbands. Results were strongest for expectancies of partner understanding. Expectancies predicted change in one's own behavior after controlling for the accuracy of the expectancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)