PERSONALITY UNDER STRESS: WHO GETS ANGRY AND WHY? INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE APPRAISAL AND EMOTION

1.1 Introduction and overview
Anger is one of the most powerful human emotions and has generally been associated with adverse social, psychological, and physical consequences (Berkowitz, 1993; Tavris, 1989). This emotion is therefore primarily studied in clinical and health psychology, to understand the relationships between anger and psychological and physical suffering (e.g., Martin & Watson, 1997), or in developmental and educational psychology, to determine the causes of youth violence and criminal behaviors (e.g., Crowell, Evans, & O’Donnell, 1987). As illustrated by Carol Tavris’ (1989) book title Anger: The misunderstood emotion, however, there is still much to be learned about this emotion. Recently, due perhaps to Zeitgeist or to methodological advances, systematic examination of anger has flourished in other domains as well. For example, researchers in neuropsychology are identifying cerebral regions involved in anger and aggression (e.g., Harmon-Jones & Allen, 1998; Wacher, Heldmann, & Stemmler, 2003); and researchers in organizational psychology are examining anger in relation to interpersonal conflict (Fitness, 2000), leadership effectiveness (Lewis, 2000), and social hierarchies and power structures (Tiedens, 2000).
The workplace is probably one of the most interpersonally frustrating contexts in people’s lives (Allcorn, 1994; Bensimon, 1997), and it seems likely that anger and irritation are frequently experienced emotions. Indeed, a representative study of emotions in Switzerland (Scherer, Wranik, Sangsue, Tran, & Scherer, in press) found that individuals who reported an event provoking anger or irritation the day before, most likely experienced this emotion at work. Anger at work has both individual health outcomes and organizational consequences. For example, Prkachin, Mills, Zwaal, and Husted (2001) found that social stressors (in the form of an anger interview) produced larger, more sustained changes in blood pressure than cognitive and physical stressors. Similarly, hostility, frustration, and competitiveness (often regrouped under the Type A personality type), have been associated with cardio-vascular disorders (Fontaine, Kulbertus, & Etienne, 1996). Finally, anger is


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Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE.............................................7
1.1 Introduction and overview.......................................................................................7
1.2 Emotions................................................................................................................10
1.2.1 Appraisal theories of emotion.......................................................................10
1.2.2 Anger.............................................................................................................13
1.2.3 Causal attribution and emotion......................................................................18
1.2.4 Cognitive appraisal and causal attribution – a debate...................................20
1.3 Personality.............................................................................................................22
1.3.1 Individual differences in appraisal and anger................................................26
1.3.2 Individual differences in causal attribution and blaming..............................30
1.3.3 Explanatory style in depression and optimism research................................33
1.3.4 Individual differences in attribution and the effect on emotion....................36
1.4 Summary and discussion.......................................................................................36
1.5 General research questions....................................................................................37
1.6 Overview of the present research..........................................................................39
2 EMOTION INDUCTION METHOD and GENERAL PROCEDURE...........................43
2.1 Overview...............................................................................................................43
2.2 Method...................................................................................................................45
2.2.1 General procedure.........................................................................................46
2.2.2 Measures........................................................................................................54
2.2.3 Level of analysis............................................................................................58
2.3 Conclusion.............................................................................................................59
3 FIRST EXPERIMENT...................................................................................................60
3.1 Overview...............................................................................................................60
3.2 Method...................................................................................................................61
3.2.1 Recruitment and participants.........................................................................61
3.2.2 Procedure.......................................................................................................61
3.3 Overview of the measures and predictions............................................................63
3.3.1 Relationship-building questions....................................................................63
3.3.2 Hypotheses....................................................................................................64
3.4 Results...................................................................................................................66
3.4.1 Overview of analyses....................................................................................66
3.4.2 Preliminary analyses......................................................................................66
3.4.3 Manipulation check questions and implication.............................................67
3.4.4 Relationship-building paradigm....................................................................68
3.4.5 Testing the hypotheses..................................................................................69
3.5 Discussion.............................................................................................................85
4 SECOND EXPERIMENT..............................................................................................91
4.1 Overview...............................................................................................................91
4.2 Method...................................................................................................................92
4.2.1 Recruitment and participants.........................................................................92
4.2.2 Procedure.......................................................................................................92
4.3 Overview of the measures and predictions............................................................93
4.3.1 Hypotheses....................................................................................................94
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4.4 Results...................................................................................................................96
4.4.1 Overview of analyses....................................................................................96
4.4.2 Preliminary analyses......................................................................................97
4.4.3 Manipulation check questions and implication.............................................97
4.4.4 Testing the hypotheses..................................................................................98
4.5 Discussion...........................................................................................................116
5 THIRD EXPERIMENT................................................................................................122
5.1 Overview.............................................................................................................122
5.2 Method.................................................................................................................122
5.2.1 Recruitment and participants.......................................................................123
5.2.2 Procedure.....................................................................................................123
5.3 Overview of the measures and predictions..........................................................124
5.4 Results.................................................................................................................124
5.4.1 Overview of analyses..................................................................................124
5.4.2 Preliminary analyses....................................................................................124
5.4.3 Manipulation check questions and implication...........................................125
5.4.4 Testing the hypotheses................................................................................126
5.5 Discussion...........................................................................................................142
6 GENERAL DISCUSSION............................................................................................146
6.1.1 Emotion induction procedure......................................................................146
6.1.2 Understanding personality, appraisal, and anger in social situations..........148
6.1.3 Implications for the workplace....................................................................162
6.1.4 Relationship between blaming and anger....................................................164
6.1.5 Conclusions.................................................................................................166
7 References....................................................................................................................168
8 French summary..........................................................................................................187
9 Appendices...................................................................................................................198
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