Fuel In The Fire: How Anger Impacts Judgment And Decision-Making

In keeping with the handbook format, this chapter identifies four types of methods in the behavioral decision-making literature for detecting the influence of anger on judgments and choices. The types of methods include inferring the presence of anger from behavior, measuring naturally occurring anger or individual differences in anger, Manipulating anger, and both measuring and manipulating anger. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each method and present evidence showing that the effects of anger often differ from those of other negative emotions. The chapter also introduces an overarching appraisal-tendency framework for predicting Such effects and connects the framework to broader theories and associated mechanisms. Finally, we examine whether anger should be considered a positive emotion and propose that anger is experienced as pleasant when one is looking forward and unpleasant when one is reflecting back oil the anger's source.