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Anger and sadness as adaptive emotion expression strategies in response to negative competence and warmth evaluations

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Abstract

Previous literature suggested that anger and sadness may be necessary to restore social bonds in the face of immediate relationship threat. The present research compared the social effectiveness of expressing anger and sadness in response to a negative personal evaluation. Results indicated that target anger in response to a negative competence evaluation, and target sadness in response to a negative warmth evaluation, had the most positive effects on the evaluators’ subjectively perceived persuasiveness of the targets’ communication (Study 1) and on the subjectively perceived fluency of the interaction by both interaction partners (Study 2). Results are discussed in the light of the social functionality of emotion expression and the importance of interpersonal emotion congruency with evaluation content.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 1
Anger and Sadness as Adaptive Emotion Expression Strategies in Response to Negative
Competence and Warmth Evaluations
Word Count: 7013 (excluding abstract, reference list and figures)
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 2
Abstract
Previous literature suggested that anger and sadness may be necessary to restore social
bonds in the face of immediate relationship threat. The present research compared the social
effectiveness of expressing anger and sadness in response to a negative personal evaluation.
Results indicated that target anger in response to a negative competence evaluation, and target
sadness in response to a negative warmth evaluation, had the most positive effects on the
evaluators' subjectively perceived persuasiveness of the targets' communication (Study 1) and on
the subjectively perceived fluency of the interaction by both interaction partners (Study 2).
Results are discussed in light of the social functionality of emotion expression, and the
importance of interpersonal emotion congruency with evaluation content.
Keywords: negative evaluation; warmth and competence; emotion congruency; anger; sadness
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 3
Anger and Sadness as Adaptive Emotion Expression Strategies in Response to Negative
Competence and Warmth Evaluations
Anger and sadness are in many ways related to one another. They are both negative, and
unpleasant emotions, and arise in negative social interactions often in parallel. The concept of
„hurt feelings‟ perhaps exemplifies this best, as it consists of undifferentiated negative affect like
anxiety and hostility (Leary, Springer, Negel, Ansell, & Evans, 1998). Anecdotal evidence
suggests that in situations in which people expect that expressing their negative emotions is
necessary to save an important relationship that is under threat, people may struggle in deciding
whether they should express their anger or their sadness about the situation.
Being negatively evaluated may be one of these situations in which the dilemma of
choosing between anger and sadness can be especially salient. An individual receiving a negative
evaluation is expected to change aspects of his or her behavior that the evaluator has voiced
concern about. Individuals who wish to address these concerns could find themselves in a
difficult predicament, as they feel strong negative emotions like anger and sadness, coupled with
a strong urge to express disagreement and counter the evaluator‟s opinion (Jussim, Yen, &
Aiello, 1995; Taylor & Bright, 2011). The dilemma comes from the fact that expressing anger
could appear bothhostile, as well as strong and confident, while expressing sadness could appear
warm, as well as passive and weak (Izard & Ackerman, 2004; Kassinove, Roth, Owens, &
Fuller, 2002; Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2012; Rucker & Petty, 2004). Both
emotions could thus potentially drag the interaction further into negativity, endangering the
future of the relationship, and inadvertently cause further rejection (Baumeister, 1982; Metts &
Grohskopf, 2003). Nonetheless, people attempt to strategically feel and express their negative
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 4
emotions, because of possible personal and social benefits (Ford & Tamir, 2012; Tamir & Ford,
2012).
To date, few is known about how socially effective expressing anger is compared to
expressing sadness in disagreement with a negative evaluation. The effects of negative emotion
expression, and specifically the comparative study of anger and sadness, have received little
attention in the context of negative interpersonal evaluation. We believe that the comparative
study of anger and sadness can be an important addition to the literature in refining our
understanding of the social functionality of these emotions. The goal of the present paper is
therefore to compare the interpersonal consequences of expressing anger and sadness for targets
of negative evaluation and their evaluators.
As we will outline in more detail in what follows, we distinguish between two types of
evaluation content: evaluation that communicates concerns about the target‟s competence, and
evaluation that communicates concerns about the target‟s warmth (e.g., Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick,
2008). Our basic premise is that anger and sadness each possess different social functional
properties (Frijda, 2000), with anger being more congruent with the competence dimensionof
interpersonal perceptions, and sadness being more congruent with the warmth dimensions of
interpersonal perceptions. Therefore, we expect that depending on whether a negative evaluation
communicates to an individual to improve his or her competence or warmth, either anger or
sadness expression by the target should be better suited to address the evaluator's concerns, and
lead to positive perceptions of the target and the interaction. Before we describe our hypotheses
and studies in more detail, we first give a short overview of the relevant literature.
Emotions in social interactions
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 5
Negative evaluations can occur for several reasons and in several contexts i.e., at
school, at work, in friendships etc. In the present paper we focus on one aspect of negative
evaluations: their content. In the literature, warmth and competence are considered core and
universal dimensions that people rely on when describing and judging others (Cuddy et al., 2008;
Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). When people evaluate individuals on competence, they rely on
characteristics such as skill, creativity, intelligence, and foresight, whereas when they evaluate
individuals on warmth, they rely on characteristics such as friendliness, sincerity, helpfulness,
deference and benevolence. The competence-warmth distinction has been also applied to study
interpersonal traits (Conte & Plutchik, 1981; Wiggins, 1979), interpersonal problems (Horowitz
& Sales French, 1979), and interpersonal relations (Wish, Deutsch, & Kaplan, 1976).
An individual receiving a negative evaluation, either due to a perceived lack of warmth,
or due to a perceived lack of competence, is expected to change certain aspects of his or her
behavior. Because the evaluator implicitly (or explicitly) communicates to the individual the
prospect of potential rejection, individuals who wish to continue the relationship may feel the
need to answer to the specific concerns of the evaluator and demonstrate competence and
warmth. These individuals may, for example, verbally try and convince the evaluator of
betterment, or attempt to bring the evaluator to doubt his or her initial judgment with arguments.
The question that we ask is, in such endeavors, which emotion would be the most effective to
accompany the verbal plea of the target, anger or sadness?
The existing emotion literature is not fully clear on this. Sadness and anger (among other
emotions) are both accepted in the literature as emotions that can potentially strengthen relational
bonds in the face of relationship threat (Averill, 1983; Mikulincer, 1998). Expressing negative
emotions (as opposed to suppressing them) is positively associated with psycho-social well-
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 6
being, because it can help people achieve their personal goals that are social in nature (Butler,
Egloff, Wilhelm, Smith, Erickson, & Gross, 2003; Gross & John, 2003). There are, however, no
studies that directly compare the effectiveness of anger expression with the effectiveness of
sadness expression in negative evaluation interactions.
One possibility is that the effectiveness of anger and sadness may depend on the gender
of the interaction partners. For example, there are implicit cultural rules that prescribe women to
express sadness and conceal their anger, and men to express anger and conceal their sadness
(Timmers, Fischer, & Manstead, 1998). Another possibility derives from the given that anger is
expected to be a response to an injustice, while sadness is expected to be a response to an
irrevocable loss (Ekman, 2003). As such, anger expression could be assumed to be most
effective when a negative evaluation leads to (or is caused by) injustice, while sadness
expression could be most effective when the negative evaluation causes irrevocable losses for the
individual. A third possibility is that anger may be overall more effective than sadness, as studies
indicate positive consequences of anger expression in negotiation contexts (Sinaceur & Tiedens,
2006; Tamir & Ford 2012). Finally, one couldalso reason that sadness is overall more effective,
because anger could be interpreted as hostility, and could lead to more hostility in return (Orford,
1986).
We argue, however, that alongside factors like gender rules, or perceptions of injustice or
loss, the very content of the evaluation itself i.e., competence or warmth may be a prime
determinant of how effective sadness and anger expressions are in the interaction between an
evaluator and target of the evaluation. Specifically, we propose that the effectiveness of anger
and sadness may partly depend on whether their expression is congruent with the content of the
negative evaluation.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 7
Social congruency of emotion expression
When one is suddenly confronted with a poisonous snake that is ready to attack
expressing fear would probably be a more functional response than expressing joy. This is
because fear causes adrenaline to spike and prepares the body to hide, attack, or flee, whereas joy
does not (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000). Likewise, expressing anger and sadness may be especially
functional in situations of negative warmth and competence evaluation, because compared to
positive emotions, they signal and call for behavioral change and improvement (Brown &
McConnell, 2011). Moreover, literature suggests that the functional properties of anger and
sadness resonate with the fundamentally distinct behaviors, intentions and qualities associated
with respectively competence and warmth characteristics of individuals. Specifically, anger may
be more congruent with the competence dimension than with the warmth dimension, whereas
sadness may be more congruent with the warmth dimension than with the competence
dimension.
We define social congruence of emotions as the „match‟or harmony between expressed
(and/or felt) emotions, and the social context. As such, social congruency of emotions refers to
the functionality of emotions. From a functionalist perspective, emotions can be seen as
processes that ultimately function to activate and direct goal-related behaviors (Tooby &
Cosmides, 2008). Different emotions are each theorized to fulfill distinct signaling functions of
intra- and interpersonal intentions, and they directly evoke distinct behavioral impulses, with
each emotion activating specific “readiness potentials” for certain actions (Ekman, 1992; Frijda,
2000; Tooby & Cosmides, 2008; Van Kleef, 2010). Each emotion is thus a more or less potent
response to specific demands in the social context of the individual.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 8
Literature shows that sadness and angercommunicate different intentions and qualities
when expressed, and activate within the individual different relationship goals and readiness
potentials that are congruent with respectively warmth and competence related behaviors.
Sadness, for example, communicates one‟s friendly and benevolent intentions, and elicits
nurturance from others (Burgoon, Guerrero, & Manusov, 2011; Vingerhoets, Cornelius, Van
Heck, & Becht, 2000; Zeifman, 2001). Within the individual, sadness leads to feelings of
helplessness, and motivates the individual to actively reach out to others (Gray, Ishii, & Ambady,
2011; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O‟Connor, 1987). Anger, on the other hand, signals
dominance and toughness and motivates the individual to reassert his or her strength and
competence (Kassinove et al., 2002; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Knutson, 1996; Shaver et al., 1987;
Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van Beest, Van Kleef, & Van Dijk, 2008; Van Kleef, 2010). People
expressing anger subjectively feel stronger, are perceived as being of higher status, and are also
given more status than people expressing sadness (Tiedens, 2001; Tiedens, Ellsworth, &
Mesquita, 2000).
In short, expressing sadness, together with down-regulating anger, signals one‟s warmth
and friendly intentions and prepares the individual to engage in (and receive) communal
behaviors like helping and nurturing. Expressing anger, on the other hand, signals one‟s strength,
power and competence, and prepares the individual for behaviors that aid in building competence
(Timmers et al., 1998). Therefore, a negative competence evaluation may be more
effectivelyaddressed by expressing anger, than by expressing sadness, whereas a negative
warmth evaluation may be more effectively addressed by expressing sadness, than by expressing
anger.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 9
In support of this idea, studies found that in negative evaluation situations what people
feel anger or sadness depends on whether they were evaluated as lacking warmth, or as
lacking competence (Çelik, Lammers, Van Beest, Bekker, & Vonk, 2013). In their studies, Çelik
et al. (2013) informed participants about how they had been graded by a potential interaction
partner on several traits related to competence and warmth, based on a short and minimally
informative exchange of personal information. Half of the participants then learned that their
assigned partner did not want to continue with them anymore. Results showed that rejected
participants responded with more anger than sadness to negative competence evaluations, and
with more sadness than anger to negative warmth evaluations.
If it is true that this selectivity in study participants‟ subjective emotion experience (i.e.,
„anger over sadness‟, and „sadness over anger‟) represents a readiness potential to engage in
action (Frijda, 2000), these individuals seemed to be „gearing up‟ to demonstrate either their
warmth or their competence, depending on whether they had been negatively evaluated on their
warmth or on their competence. As participants in these studies were not expecting to meet their
evaluator, the selective activation of these emotion systems supports the idea of an evolved and
hardwired emotion mechanism (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000). Crucially, this could also mean that
observing and expressing socially congruent anger and sadness could lead to more positive
interpersonal consequences, than observing and expressing incongruent anger and sadness.
In sum, we argue that whether expressing sadness or anger in response to a negative
evaluation has the most positive interpersonal consequences, could partly depend on the
(in)congruence of their expression with the content of the evaluation i.e., warmth or
competence. Assuming that receiving a negative evaluation motivates individuals to persuade
their evaluator to revise his/her negative opinion in a more positive direction, we argue that
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 10
selectively and congruently expressing either anger or sadness (compared to incongruently
expressing them) could potentially have the evaluator doubt his/her initial opinion and positively
influence perceptions of the individual and the quality of the interaction. We test our ideas in two
studies that we shortly introduce below.
Study overview
We hypothesize that in response to a negative competence evaluation, an angry
disagreement should lead to more positive interpersonal outcomes than a sad disagreement.
Conversely, we hypothesize that in response to a negative warmth evaluation, a sad disagreement
should lead to more positive interpersonal outcomes than an angry disagreement. Consequently,
we investigate whether selectively emphasizing anger or sadness in a socially congruent manner
i.e., by matching reactions of anger and sadness respectively to an evaluation of lack of
competence, or lack of warmth produces effective interpersonal outcomes, compared to
incongruent emotion expression.
In two studies we focus on the interaction between evaluators and targets that either lack
warmth, or lack competence. In Study 1,our main dependent variable is the evaluators‟ perceived
persuasiveness of the targets‟ disagreement with the evaluation. As already mentioned, we
assume that when people are negatively evaluated their disagreement is presumably aimed at
persuading the evaluator to revise his or her evaluation in a more positive direction, and
evaluators on their turn are presumably motivated to be persuaded. We hypothesize that, relative
to incongruent expressions of anger and sadness, congruent expressions of anger and sadness
will increase the subjectively perceived persuasiveness of the target, and increase the extent to
which the evaluator doubts his/her initially negative opinion.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 11
In Study 2, we assess a more intuitive measure of effectiveness of anger and sadness
expression and focus on subjective perceptions of easiness and naturalness of the interaction in a
staged negative evaluation interview. The ease with which an interaction is processed has been
identified in the literature as an indicator of interaction quality (Zitek & Tiedens, 2012). In short,
interactions that are more easily processed, are interactions that function well. In daily life, these
interactions are more often repeated and encountered, which further feeds a sense of naturalness
and familiarity (Zitek & Tiedens, 2012). Literature suggests that high processing fluency is
accompanied by a „feeling right‟ experience, which increases liking, trust and perceptions of
truth, and facilitates intergroup communication (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2009; Pearson &
Dovidio, 2013; Reber, Meier, Ruch-Monachon, & Tiberini, 2006; Zitek & Tiedens, 2012). We
hypothesize that congruent expressions of anger and sadness will increase processing fluency of
the interaction, relative to incongruent expressions of anger and sadness.
Study 1
In this study evaluators were real life managers in companies. Negative evaluations
frequently occur on the work floor, and subordinates often disagree with them (Ilgen & Davis,
2000). Considering that anger expressions are highly condemned, especially on the work floor
(Kramer & Hess, 2002), testing our research questions with managers provided a strong test of
our hypothesis.
Managers read and imagined negatively evaluating a hypothetical employee about his/her
comportment on the work floor, which concerned either the employee‟s warmth, or the
employees competence. Employees in the scenarios either responded with an angry or a sad
plea of disagreement to the evaluation. We hypothesized that emotion congruency of the
employee‟s response with the content of the evaluation would increase the perceived
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 12
persuasiveness of the target‟s disagreement with the evaluation, compared to emotion
incongruency. Since anger expresses the motivation and readiness to compete and work harder, a
supervisor who is concerned about an employee‟s competence should be more convinced by an
angry disagreement with the evaluation, than a sad one. In the same vein, since sadness expresses
the readiness to build trust and friendship, a supervisor who is concerned about an employees‟
warmth should be more convinced by a sad disagreement with the evaluation, than with an angry
one.
Literature shows that expressed emotions can alter observers‟ and interaction partners‟
attitudes and opinions towards the expresser in a positive direction (Côte & Hideg, 2011; Van
Kleef, Van Doorn, Heerdink, & Koning, 2011). Therefore, we additionally hypothesized that an
angry disagreement should enhance managers‟ perceptions of employees‟ competence, relative
to warmth, while a sad disagreement should enhance perceptions of the employees warmth,
relative to competence.
Method
Participants and design
We recruited 343 managers (158 women; Mage= 35.56 years, SDage= 14.90, ranging
between 18 and 68 years old) to participate in the study. Participants had to have at least one
direct subordinate to be included in the study. Managers were recruited by business students as
part of a course project. Managers participated voluntarily and received no compensation for
their participation. They were randomly allocated to one of four types of negative evaluation
scenarios.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 13
Materials
Negative evaluation scenarios. To manipulate emotion congruency we devised four role
hypothetical scenario‟s that varied according to two factors: the content of the evaluation and the
emotional response of the employee.In all scenarios the hypothetical employee responded with
disagreement to the negative evaluation, and expressed the desire to prove to the manager that
he/she is wrong. In half of the scenarios managers imagined that they gave a fictional employee
(whose gender was not mentioned) a negative competence evaluation, and in the other half a
negative warmth evaluation:
Your performance is really below the standard of the department, you are incompetent
and unproductive [Your attitude in the department is very negative, you are cold and
disagreeable]. If your performance does not improve, we will have to fire you.
This was crossed with the employee‟s emotional reaction to the evaluation. Thus, in half of the
scenarios the employee expressed disagreement with sadness, and in the other half with anger:
I do not agree with you, and what you are telling me makes me feel very angry [sad]. If
you give me time, I will show you that I am neither incompetent [cold], nor unproductive
[disagreeable].
Dependent variables. We assessed managers‟ perceptions of the persuasiveness of the
employee‟s response with two items, “To what extent would the employee‟s reaction make you
doubt your initial evaluation?”, and “To what extent would you be convinced by the employee's
response?” (Cronbach's α=.74).
Next, employee‟s warmth and competence were assessed with 6 items each (e.g., “In a
situation like this, to what extent would you think that the employee is warm [competent]?”,
Cronbach's α's were respectively, 88 & .86). All items were administered with a horizontalslider
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 14
scale ranging from 0 ‟Not at all’ to 100 ‟Totally, in 1 point increments. Respondents simply
clicked or dragged the slider to indicate their preference pointi.
Procedure
Managers completed the test via an online survey. They were randomly presented with
one of the four scenarios and were instructed to read it carefully and imagine themselves in the
situation. We specifically asked how the employee‟s response would make them feel and think.
Managers were then asked to answer questions about the scenario by adopting a manager‟s
perspective.
Results
Effects on employee's persuasiveness
A one-way ANOVA with emotion congruency (congruent vs. incongruent) as the
independent variable, and persuasiveness as the dependent variable, revealed that in the
congruent condition employee disagreement was perceived as more persuasive (M = 49.10,
SE = 1.56) than in the incongruent condition (M = 43.68, SE = 1.47), F(1, 341) = 6. 38,
p = .012, ηp2 = .018. Adding gender and its interaction with emotion congruencyto the analysis
did not change this effect, F(1, 339) = 5.96, p = .015, ηp2 = .017. Gender had no main effect, nor
interaction effect with congruency, p's> .23.
Next, we teased apart the effects of emotion and evaluation content in a 2 emotional
reaction (angry vs. sad) × 2 evaluation content (warmth vs. competence) ANOVA. As expected,
a significant interaction-effect emerged, F(1, 339) = 5. 96, p = .015, ηp2 = . 017. None of the
other effects were significant, F‟s < 1. The interaction was in the expected direction. When the
evaluation was on warmth, sadness was considered more persuasive (M = 48. 96, SE = 2. 24)
than anger (M = 40. 80, SE = 2. 02), whereas when the evaluation was on competence, anger
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 15
was considered more persuasive (M = 49. 22, SE = 2. 16) than sadness (M = 46. 94, SE = 2. 14).
Pairwise comparisons showed that persuasiveness scores were significantly higher in the
warmth-sadness condition than in the warmth-anger condition, F(1, 339) = 7. 35, p = .007,
ηp2 = . 021. Moreover, in the competence-anger condition, persuasiveness scores were
significantly higher than in the warmth-anger condition, F(1, 339) = 8. 14, p = .005, ηp2 = .023.
See Figure 1.
Effects on perceived employee warmth and competence
A 2 emotional reaction (angry vs. sad) × 2 employee perception (warmth and
competence, within-subjects variable) between-within mixed ANOVA, revealed a significant
main effect of emotional reaction, F (1, 341) = 14. 45, p < .001, ηp2 = .041. Overall, perceptions
of warmth and competence were higher for employees expressing sadness (M = 46.73,
SE = 0. 92), then for employees expressing anger (M = 41.90, SE = 0.88). Importantly, there
was also a significant emotional reaction × employee perception interaction effect, F
(1, 341) = 14.15, p < .001, ηp2 = .040. Simple comparison tests showed that perceptions of
competence (M = 43.13, SE = 0.95), were higher than perceptions of warmth (M = 40.66,
SE = 1.01) for employees expressing anger, F (1, 341) = 7. 87, p = .005, ηp2 = .023. Perceptions
of warmth (M = 47.89, SE = 1.06) on the other hand, were higher than perceptions of
competence (M = 45.56, SE = 0.99) for employees expressing sadness, F (1, 341) = 6.37, p =
.012, ηp2 = .018. Adding gender to the analysis did not meaningfully change these results; the
interaction effect was still significant, F (1, 339) = 13. 60, p < .001, ηp2 = .039, and in the same
direction. No main effect of gender, or interaction effects emerged, p's > .489. See Figure 2.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 16
Discussion
This study showed that managers‟ perceptions of the persuasiveness of the employee‟s
response, and their opinion about the employee‟s competence and warmth were both positively
affected by congruent anger and sadness expressions. This study confirmed our idea that anger is
more effective than sadness in response to a negative competence evaluation, while sadness is
more effective than anger in response to a negative warmth evaluation.
This first study assessed evaluators explicit appraisals of targets anger and sadness
expressions, and as such measured the effect of anger and sadness on relatively rational and
deliberative processes in social interactions. To extend our findings, in the next study we focused
on a more intuitive aspect of social interactions, and measured perceptions of interaction fluency
(Pearson & Dovidio, 2013) in a staged interaction between evaluators and targets. In doing this,
we also took into account the perceptions of targets to obtain a more comprehensive
understanding of the effects of sadness and anger expression in negative evaluation interactions.
Study 2
In this study we assessed mutual perceptions of processing fluency of the interaction
between evaluators and targets during a staged negative evaluation interview using a role playing
paradigm. Candidates in a job interview were rejected for a job, because they were evaluated by
recruiters as lacking warmth, or lacking competence. Candidates were instructed to enact an
angry or a sad plea of disagreement in response to the evaluation. We hypothesized that anger
would have a „smoothing‟ effect in interactions in which the evaluation content is competence
(compared to when it is warmth), whereas sadness would have this effect when the evaluation
content is warmth (compared to when it is competence).
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 17
Method
Participants and design
Ninety business students (45 women; Mage= 20.13 years, SDage= 1.30) participated. They
were randomly allocated to play the recruiter or the candidate role in one of four types of
negative evaluation role plays.
Materials
Role Play Scenarios. To manipulate emotion congruency we devised four role plays.In
all role plays the candidate always responded with disagreement to the negative evaluation, and
expressed the desire to prove to the recruiter the falseness of the test results. The role plays
varied according to two factors: the content of the recruiters‟ evaluation of the candidate (lack of
warmth vs. lack of competence) and the emotional tone of the candidate (sadvs. angry). This
resulted in two congruent and two incongruent role plays.
The role play started with the recruiter welcoming the candidate, and the candidate
introducing him/herself. Next, the recruiter rejects the candidate for the job and explains why:
What I will have to tell you is not easy. My final decision is not to hire you for this
position. According to the test results, you do not have the right attitude for a company in
which we value trust [competence] a lot. We are in a difficult sector and we need all our
employees to be as humane and trustworthy [competent] as possible. I know that it is
difficult for you to hear that, but we have several other candidates and we can only
choose one. Do you understand what I mean?
As a response, the candidate responded with either a sad or an angry plea of disagreement,
saying:
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 18
You are making a decision based on tests that do not say anything about who I am. I am
sad [angry]. You did not give me the opportunity to show who I am. I am a warm
[competent] person. If you gave me another chance, I would prove it to you. Would you
give me another chance?
Questions after the role play. After the roleplay, both candidates and recruiters
indicated the extent to which candidates expressed anger (4 items, e.g., “To what extent did the
candidate [you] express anger?”, Cronbach‟s α recruiters = .89; Cronbach‟s α candidates = .91)
and sad (4 items, e.g., “To what extent did the candidate [you] express sadness?”, Cronbach‟s α
recruiters = .96; Cronbach‟s α candidates = .97). These questions were asked to assess
subjectively perceived emotion congruency.
Dependent variables. Next, perceived fluency of the role play was assessed with 3
items, “To what extent was the interview easy?”, “To what extent was the interview natural?”
and “To what extent was the interview in accordance with social norms?” (Cronbach‟s α
recruiters = .65; Cronbach‟s α candidates = .65). All questions after the role play were
administered to both candidates and recruiters with a paper-and-pencil horizontal continuous
scale of 8 cm wide, ranging from “Not at all” to “Very strongly”.Participants were simply asked
to put a small vertical line crossing the horizontal line to indicate their opinion. We then
measured the distance in cm between the left extreme of the scale and the line drawn by the
participant.
Procedure
The study was conducted during a course about management. Students were told that
they would participate in a role play and were randomly assigned to play the role of the recruiter,
or the role of the candidate. Each student received a written text that he/she memorized and then
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 19
enacted. Dyads had to perform the role play in one of the four corners of the classroom. Three to
four dyads were acting at the same time in the same classroom. Recruiters were instructed to
convey the message in a professional manner, while candidates were instructed to imagine
themselves in a real situation and enact the emotion (i.e., sadness or anger) in a convincing
manner. Recruiters and candidates did not know the text of the other actor in advance. After the
role play, participants filled in the questionnaire with dependent measures. The whole procedure
lasted about 20 minutes.
Results
Preliminary analyses
Because targets‟ responses were assessed in dyads, their responses are statistically nested
within the dyads in which the experiment took place (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). We checked
for the existence of between-group variance with the SPSS Mixed procedure (version 17). This
procedure tests the so-called null-model an intercept-only model with no predictors specified
and allows the total variance to be partitioned into between- and within-group variance for the
dependent variable. The results of this analysis showed that the between-group variance for our
main dependent variable was .07, and non-significant (p = .34). Since the outcomes of a multi-
level analysis would be in this case the same as the outcomes of a standard analysis of variance
(Heck, Thomas, & Tabata, 2010), we conducted all analyses using standard regression and
variance analysis in SPSS 17.
Effects of instructed congruency
A 2 emotion congruency (congruent vs. incongruent) × 2 role (candidate vs. recruiter)
ANOVA, with fluency scores as the dependent variable, yielded a main effect of congruency,
F(1, 86) = 4.62, p = . 034, ηp2 = .051. As expected, emotion congruency (M = 1.88, SE = 0.10)
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 20
led to higher processing fluency of the interaction, than emotion incongruency (M = 1.57,
SE = 0.10). None of the other effects were significant, F‟s < 1. Adding gender and its
interactions with the other independent variables to the analysis, did not change these results
meaningfully; the main effect was still significant, F(1, 82) = 5.43, p = . 022, ηp2 = .062.ii
Next, we further decomposed the effect of emotion congruency, with a 2 emotional
reaction (sadness vs. anger) × 2 evaluation content (warmth vs. anger) × 2 role (candidate vs.
recruiter) ANOVA, with fluency scores as the dependent variable. This analysis yielded a
significant emotional reaction × evaluation content interaction effect, F(1, 82) = 4.43, p = . 038,
ηp2 = .051. It appeared that processing fluency was higher in competence-anger role plays
(M = 1. 98, SE = 0. 14), then in warmth-anger role plays (M = 1. 50, SE = 0. 15). Moreover,
processing fluency was higher in warmth-sadness role plays (M = 1.78, SE = 0. 15) than in
competence-sadness role plays (M = 1.65, SE = 0. 15). Simple comparison tests revealed that the
difference between the competence-anger and warmth-anger conditions was significant, F(1, 82)
= 5.33, p = . 021, ηp2 = .063. See Figure 3.
Effects of perceived congruency
To further confirm above findings, we also conducted analyses to test the effects of
subjectively perceived emotion congruency. Subjectively perceived emotion congruency was
calculated by subtracting recruiters‟ and candidates perceptions of anger from perceptions of
sadness in the warmth condition, and by subtracting perceptions of sadness from perceptions of
anger in the competence condition. Higher scores thus indicated higher perceived congruency.
In a Linear Regression analysis, processing fluency scores were regressed on the variable
Perceived congruency (continuous, mean centered), Evaluation content (dummy coded: 0 =
warmth, 1= competence), and their interaction. This analysis revealed only a positive relation
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 21
between perceived congruency and processing fluency B = 0. 247, SE = 0. 112, p = .030. The
interaction effect was not significant. This means that, the more candidates were perceived (and
felt themselves) as acting emotionally congruent, the higher processing fluency of the interaction
was. The analysis with gender included, did not change this effect (B = 0. 245, SE = 0. 114,
p = .035), and no main effect of gender, or interaction-effects emerged (p's > .15).
Discussion
When sadness was expressed in response to a negative warmth evaluation, the interaction
was perceived by both interaction partners as more natural, easier and more conform social
norms, than when it was expressed in response to a negative competence evaluation. For anger,
the opposite was the case. These results suggest that recruiters and candidates intuitively felt that
emotion congruency is more socially effective, than emotion incongruency.
General discussion
In the present paper we investigated the potentially adaptive use of anger and sadness
expressions by targets of a negative evaluation, in order to increase one‟s chances of being
respected and valued again (De Cremer, 2002). Previous literature suggested that anger and
sadness may be necessary to restore social bonds in the face of immediate relationship threat
(Campos, Campos, & Barrett, 1989; Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994; Mikulincer,
1998). The question that we asked was, whether in addressing a negative evaluation, expressing
anger, or sadness, would be the most effective.
Because previous research suggested that the functional properties of anger and sadness
expressions are congruent with managing the competence and warmth aspects of social
relationships (Çelik et al., 2013), we had hypothesized that a congruent emotional response that
fits the specific concern voiced in the evaluation i.e., anger in response to a concern about the
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 22
targets competence, and sadness in response to a concern about the target‟s warmth would be
more effective than an incongruent emotional response. In line with literature on the social
functionality of emotions (Ekman, 1992; Frijda, 2000; Tooby & Cosmides, 2008; Van Kleef,
2010), our results showed that anger is more effective than sadness in response to a negative
evaluation of competence, while sadness is more effective than anger in response to a negative
evaluation of warmth.
Our findings are particularly compelling due to the different levels of analysis on which
they were found. Not only were managers‟ perceptions of employees‟ competence and warmth
positively affected by respectively anger and sadness expression, they also estimated that they
would doubt their (initial) negative perception of an employee more, when the employee would
engage in congruent (vs. incongruent) emotional responding (Study 1). Furthermore, congruent
emotional responding 'just felt right' for both evaluators and targets when targets were instructed
to enact congruent emotions in a staged negative evaluation interview (Study 2).
Our results extend previous findings that stressed the importance of congruency between
the valence of message content and non-verbal expression. In a study conducted by Newcombe
and Ashkanasy (2002) participants viewed videotapes of leaders giving positive and negative
feedback, with facial expressions of affect that were either congruent or incongruent with the
valence of the verbal message that they were delivering. Results indicated that message
congruent leaders were rated most positively. In our current studies we moved beyond intra-
individual valence congruency between emotion expression and verbal content, to an inter-
individual congruency between discrete emotion expressions and interpersonal evaluations.
Our study follows a relatively new trend in emotion literature that views the functionality
of emotions not only at the intrapersonal level of analysis the key question being how
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 23
individuals are affected by the emotions they experience but also at the interpersonal level.
With our research we contribute to the literature on how emotions can influence other people‟s
cognitions and perceptions (Côte & Hideg, 2011; Van Kleef et al., 2011), and we add to it that it
is important that the emotions that individuals express are in harmony with specific interpersonal
expectations related to core interpersonal dimensions of competence and warmth.
Implications
The current results have several theoretical and practical implications. First, from a
theoretical perspective, our results imply that anger and sadness are not solely associated with
respectively hostility or power display, and weakness or passivity (Izard & Ackerman, 2004;
Rucker & Petty, 2004; Tiedens, 2001). If anger were only associated with hostility, we would
have found that sadness, overall, has more positive effects than anger, but this was not the case.
Likewise, if sadness were only associated with weakness or passivity, we would have found that
anger overall has more positive effects than sadness, but this was also not the case. Sadness
appeared to be equally persuasive as anger, provided that it was expressed in response to a
negative warmth evaluation. This is interesting, because in the literature it is often anger that is
associated with persuasiveness, not sadness (Frank, 1988). Our results suggest that anger and
sadness expression that is congruent with the content of interpersonal evaluations can be
considered a form of social competence (Schneider, Ackerman, & Kanfer, 1996). In other words,
anger and sadness can be functional tools that support one‟s verbal messages of relationship
intentions, and are ultimately tools for social influence (Van Kleef et al., 2011).
This is of course not to say that other factors are not in play, and should not be taken in to
account when determining the social effectiveness of sadness and anger expression in social
interactions. For example, differences in relative status between interaction partners (Aquino,
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 24
Tripp, & Bies, 2001), gendered expectations (Timmers et al., 1998), the specific social context in
which a negative evaluation takes place, and many more factors, can all jointly affect to what
extent anger and sadness will have desired social outcomes. Nevertheless, with our studies we
demonstrated the importance of a factor that has not been considered before: the congruency
between the expressed emotion and the evaluation content.
From a practical point of view, one may wonder whether social display rules that
discourage and prevent individuals from expressing negative emotions (Kramer & Hess, 2002),
should not be more flexible. Anger indeed has an overly negative image in research (Tavris,
1989), as well as in society (Averill, 1983), and one wonders whether the negative implications
of anger expression and inappropriate expressions of it, perhaps stem from the very inacceptance
surrounding it. It may be possible that in adopting an open attitude towards receiving negative
emotions in response to giving a negative evaluation, the outcome of a negative evaluation
conversation could be surprisingly reassuring (see also, Taylor & Bright, 2011). We say
„surprisingly‟ and „reassuring‟, because the results of Study 1 perfectly demonstrate the duality,
and social delicacy, surrounding anger expressions; on the one hand, anger emerged as a socially
undesirable emotion as evidenced by managers assigning higher warmth and competence to
employees expressing sadness but on the other hand, when the evaluation concerned
employees competence, angry employees were considered as more persuasive than sad
employees. Thus, it seems that even though at some level managers may denounce anger, anger
can sometimes be more persuasive than sadness in making one reconsider an initially negative
opinion about the anger expresser.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 25
Limitations
One limitation of our studies is that we did not include experimental conditions in which
targets responded with positive emotions or, with a neutral emotional tone. Therefore, we cannot
make any claims about whether expressing negative emotions is particularly more persuasive
than, for example, remaining emotionally neutral or positive. In our studies we stripped down the
response to the evaluation to focusing only on the negative emotions. We recognize that in
reality human conversations are much richer, both verbally and non-verbally (i.e., emotionally).
However, we would suspect that an exclusively positive and reassuring attitude on the side of the
target of the evaluation could appear as somewhat arrogant, and give the impression of disregard
for the evaluator‟s opinion, if it is not also accompanied by some sign of being worried by the
negative evaluation. Note, that here we do not assert that a positive and reassuring attitude needs
to be avoided all together. On the contrary, being positive at some moment in the conversation is
probably essential as well, but it is perhaps not enough to achieve the desired goal i.e., to be
seen as competent and/or warm.We would even argue that showing no trace of emotion in
response to a bad evaluation is often impossible in real life situations; emotions often seep
through in one's non-verbal behavior (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Needless to say, if our emotions
are going to seep through, we might as well benefit from them by expressing them in a controlled
and strategic manner. In our view, an effective response is a response that communicates that the
message is taken at heart, which necessitates a response of social pain (Eisenberger &
Lieberman, 2004), but nonetheless carefully regulated and chosen to address the content of the
evaluation.
Another potential limitation is that we relied on hypothetical scenarios and roleplay. We
acknowledge that these methods suffer from ecological validity and replications in more realistic
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 26
settings are certainly very important. Nevertheless, a strength of, for example, Study 1 is that our
participants were real life managers. Moreover, using hypothetical scenario's it was possible to
strip down the context of interest to the core concepts that we were interested in, ridding it from
potentially confounding factors. The strength of Study 2 is that it assessed perceptions of
fluency, which can be considered a relatively intuitive perception, and in combination with our
between-subjects design, this should have minimize socially desirable responding. Nevertheless,
we encourage future research to replicate our findings in more realistic and socially richer
settings that allow taking into account other potentially moderating variables mentioned above.
Finally, in our approach we used two different dependent variables that are conceptually
related, to assess the social effectiveness of anger and sadness expression. More direct
replications with both dependent variables are thus necessary to be able to make a stronger claim.
However, a strength of this approach is that it extends findings to a wider range of social
outcomes, and we show that the effect of emotion congruency does not only take place on a
relatively rational level (i.e., perceived persuasiveness), but also on the more intuitive level of
perceived interaction fluency.
Future directions
Tamir and Ford (2012) showed that people sometimes prefer to be angry if they believe it
will bring them benefits. In another study,they showed that people who are willing to feel anger
strategically are more emotionally intelligent (Ford & Tamir, 2012). Follow-up studies could
investigate whether congruent sadness and anger expression are also related to emotional
intelligence, and perhaps could even have long-term consequences on other indicators of well-
being, like for example feelings of social and/or personal self-efficacy, as self-efficacy has been
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 27
found to be associated with emotional intelligence (Gundlach, Martinko, & Douglas, 2003;
Heuven, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Huisman, 2006).
Another interesting venue for future research could be to investigate whether
interventions that increase awareness of the social functions of anger and sadness could increase
tolerance for expressing these emotions in delicate (i.e., formal) social interactions. Indeed,
previous research has indicated a general reluctance surrounding negative evaluation
conversations, with individuals often fearing a defensive response, and/or retaliation from targets
of the evaluation (Bond Jr. & Anderson, 1987; Folger & Skarlicki, 1998; Tesser & Rosen, 1975).
These fears ironically enough may fuel hostile responses when one is confronted with an
emotional response. Moreover, research shows that excessive inhibition of negative emotions at
for example work can lead to burnout (Zapf & Holz, 2006). Seeing that evaluations are part of
almost every domain in life, it is important to investigate how negative emotion expression could
gain in social acceptance, and importantly, also how people can be thought to express their
negative emotions more constructively and strategically.
EMOTION EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE EVALUATION 28
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i In neither study observations were excluded, and we report all administered
measures/items and experimental conditions. Sample size was not determined a priory, and
sampling was stopped after no more data could be required.
ii A third analysis in which we added dyad type (same-sex vs. cross-sex) and its
interactions with the other independent variables did not change the direction of the effect either,
F(1, 82) = 3.63, p = . 060, ηp2 = . 042. The lower significance level could be due to low statistical
power, and/or to the possibility thatcross-sex dyads (M = 1.57, SE = 0.10) are perhapsless fluent,
than same-sex dyads (M = 1.84, SE = 0.10), F(1, 82) = 3.11, p = . 081, ηp2 = .037.
... However, emotional expression creates complex social impressions where neither negative (e.g., sadness, anger, and disgust) nor positive emotions (e.g., happiness, pride, and enthusiasm) play uniformly beneficial or detrimental roles in the fundraising process (Tiedens 2001;Baron 2008). For instance, although anger and depression are both negative, they motivate the recipient to react to the sender in very different ways; this is because they indicate different intentions and qualities when expressed and activate different cognitive reactions within the recipient (Celik et al. 2016). Each emotion has unique features: signal, physiology, and antecedent events (Ekman 1992). ...
... People always express sadness when they are in the stages of loss and long-term adverse behavior (Ekman 1992;Garg and Lerner 2013). Expressing sadness can evoke a feeling of warm glow and sympathy and thus can encourage backers to donate (Andreoni 1990;Celik et al. 2016). People often use an angry tone to narrate when a negative evaluation results in (or is caused by) injustice or when discussing the severity of the trouble being addressed (Celik et al. 2016). ...
... Expressing sadness can evoke a feeling of warm glow and sympathy and thus can encourage backers to donate (Andreoni 1990;Celik et al. 2016). People often use an angry tone to narrate when a negative evaluation results in (or is caused by) injustice or when discussing the severity of the trouble being addressed (Celik et al. 2016). Expressing anger signals one's traits related to overcoming a problem, such as strength, power, and competence, which are valued by potential backers and in turn increase their interest and admiration (Alsos and Ljunggren 2017;Fisher et al. 2021). ...
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