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Acta Psychologica Sinica ©2021 Chinese Psychological Society
2021, Vol. 53, No. 7, 847860 https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00847
Received Date: September 8, 2020
This work was funded by the Humanity and Social Science foundation of Ministry of Education of China (17YJA190007).
Corresponding author: HAO Ning, E-mail: nhao@psy.ecnu.edu.cn
The original article is in Chinese, translated by Lingocloud and proofread by the authors. The Chinese version shall always prevail in case of any discre-
pancy or inconsistency between the Chinese version and its English translation.
The effect of anger on malevolent creativity and strategies
for its emotion regulation
CHENG Rui, LU Kelong, HAO Ning
(Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and
Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China)
Abstract
The current study aimed to explore the effect of anger on malevolent creativity and its underlying mechanisms and to determine
whether such an effect could be modulated by strategies of emotional regulation. Experiment 1 compared the differences of malevo-
lent creativity between individuals in anger, sadness, and neutral emotions and found that individuals in anger produced more and
more novel malevolent ideas, emotional arousal, and implicit aggression mediate the effect of anger on the malevolent creative per-
formance. Experiment 2 explored how different emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, expressive inhibition) influenced
the malevolent creative performance of angry individuals. It was found that the cognitive reappraisal group and the expression inhibi-
tion group had lower levels of malevolent creativity than the control group. Emotional arousal and implicit aggression mediated the
effects of two kinds of emotion regulation strategies on malevolent creativity. These results suggest that anger promotes creativity by
enhancing implicit aggression and emotional arousal, and the cognitive reappraisal and expression inhibition strategies can be used as
effective strategies to weaken the malevolent creativity of the angry individuals.
Key words malevolent creativity, anger, emotional arousal, implicit aggression, emotion regulation
1 Introduction
Creativity usually refers to the ability of an individual to
produce novel (original, unexpected) and appropriate (not out
of context and useful) ideas and products in a given environ-
ment (Runco & Jaeger, 2012). Creativity has always seemed to
have a natural aura of being “Good for the individual, good for
society.” However, creativity can also have a negative impact
on individuals and society if it is used maliciously, that is, it has
a “Dark side” (A. J. Cropley, 2010). Malevolent creativity is a
classic expression of the “dark side” of creativity, which refers
to creativity that intentionally harms others, property, processes,
and symbols (D. H. Cropley et al., 2008; Plucker et al., 2004).
Malevolent creativity is closely related to general creativity,
both of which require individuals to generate novel and useful
ideas or solutions to problems. Previous research has found that
general creativity positively predicts malevolent creativity (Hao
et al., 2016; Hao et al., 2020; Perchtold-Stefan et al., 2020). In
this sense, general creativity may be the basis of malevolent
creativity. On the other hand, malevolent creativity requires the
individual’s motivation to deliberately harm other objects,
which is different from general creativity, and the relationship
between the two and some factors is different. For example, the
study found a positive correlation between malevolent creativ-
ity and aggression but no correlation between general creativity
and aggression (Hao et al., 2016; Hao et al., 2020).
The products of malevolent creativity are common, ranging
from new forms of fraud and money laundering to murder and
terrorist attacks. It is of great social significance to reveal the
influential factors of malevolent creativity and explore effective
regulation strategies to reduce the potential harm of malevolent
creativity to society. Malevolent creative performance may be
influenced by factors such as unfair situations, emotional intel-
ligence, and motivational tendencies (Gill et al., 2013; Gut-
worth et al., 2016; Hao et al., 2020; Harris et al., 2013), as well
as individual emotional states. In particular, anger is likely to
influence an individual’s creative malevolence. On the one
hand, malevolent creativity usually requires an individual to
intentionally harm another object, which is often triggered by
anger (Anderson & Bushman, 2002); on the other hand, past
research has shown that anger boosts general creative per-
formance (Russ & Kaugars, 2001; van Kleef et al., 2010).
These findings suggest that anger may be an important factor in
malevolent creativity, and it is an interesting and novel topic to
explore how anger affects malevolent creativity.
The pathway of the influence of anger on malevolent crea-
tivity can be analyzed from two aspects: emotional arousal and
implicit aggression (IA). First, a meta-analysis (Baas et al.,
2008) suggests that low arousal and approaching negative emo-
tions (such as sadness) had no significant effect on general
creative performance. High arousal and avoidant negative emo-
tions (such as fear and anxiety) decreased cognitive flexibility
and inhibited general creative performance. Anger as a highly
arousal and approaching negative emotional state (Baas et al.,
2008; Lang, 1995; Russell, 2003) promotes general creative
performance. The researchers believe that anger enhances the
individual’s cognitive state (arousal), enables the individual to
mobilize more cognitive resources to participate in the current
task, and thus promotes the individual’s general creative per-
formance. Based on the same logic, it can be inferred that dur-
ing the malevolent creativity task, when the individual’s anger
Acta Psychologica Sinica
is aroused, the increase of emotional arousal may cause the
individual to allocate more cognitive resources to participate in
the current task, which in turn increases the malevolent creative
performance. That is, emotional arousal may play an important
role in how anger affects the malevolent creative performance.
Second, anger is associated with high levels of aggression
(Anderson & Bushman, 2002) and predicts aggression prefer-
ence (Molho et al., 2017). Under the influence of the social
approval effect, individual aggression can be explicit and imp-
licit (Richetin & Richardson, 2008). Harris and Reiter-Palmon
(2015) have shown that high levels of IA can predict malevo-
lent creative performance. It can be inferred that the level of IA
may also play an important role in the process that anger affects
the malevolent creative performance.
If anger promotes the malevolent creative performance, it is
of great social significance to regulate the anger so as to wea-
ken the individual’s malevolent creativity. Emotion regulation
is a series of cognitive processes that regulate or alter the ap-
pearance, intensity, and duration of emotional states (Eisenberg
et al., 2000; Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitive reappraisal
and expressive suppression are two of the most common and
effective emotion regulation strategies (Webb et al., 2012). The
former refers to changing the emotional state by giving new
meaning to the situation and reinterpreting the situation stimu-
lus from other perspectives (Gross & Thompson, 2007); the
latter refers to deliberately suppressing the forthcoming or on-
going emotional expression (Gross, 1998). Studies have shown
that both strategies are effective at regulating negative emotions
but with different effects (Goldin et al., 2008; Ray et al., 2008).
We believe that cognitive reappraisal and expressive inhibition
can also effectively regulate anger and influence the malevolent
creativity of angry individuals.
To sum up, this study focuses on the effect of anger on mal-
evolent creative performance and the moderating effect of emo-
tion regulation strategies on malevolent creative performance.
Specifically, the following two scientific questions were addre-
ssed: (1) what are the effects of anger on the malevolent crea-
tive performance and its underlying mechanism? (2) if anger
promotes the malevolent creative performance, can the emotion
regulation strategy weaken the malevolent creative perform-
ance of the angry individuals, and what is the underlying mech-
anism? In Experiment 1, participants in the anger and sadness
groups were asked to complete the 5-min autobiographical
memory task to induce corresponding emotions, and the parti-
cipants in the neutral emotion group were instructed to com-
plete a 5-min control task (record the schedule for the day in
detail). Sadness and anger are both emotions associated with an
unfulfilled state of purpose (or achievement), and closely rela-
ted to promotion-focus self-regulating strategies (focusing on
the pursuit or achievement of a goal), and thus reflects an app-
roaching motivation (Carver, 2006; Higgins, 1997, 2001, 2006).
That is to say, sadness is a negative emotion with low arousal
and approaching orientation, while anger is a negative emotion
with high arousal and approaching orientation. The three
groups completed the malevolent creativity task and the general
creativity Task, and completed the preference-phrase task and
the subjective emotion self-rating scale to measure the IA level
and the emotional arousal state. Experiment 1 compared the
differences of general creativity performance and malevolent
creative performance among individuals in anger, sadness, and
neutral emotion states and examined whether anger affected
malevolent creative performance through IA and emotional
arousal. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that: (I) anger can
promote the malevolent creative performance, and both IA and
emotional arousal may be the pathways by which anger influ-
ences the malevolent creative performance. In Experiment 2,
the participants were first asked to use the autobiographical
recall task to induce their anger, then the participants were
asked to use the cognitive reappraisal strategy and the expres-
sion inhibition strategy to regulate their emotion, and the control
group without emotion regulation was designed. The malevo-
lent creative performance of the three groups was compared in
the stage of emotion induction and the stage of emotion regula-
tion. It also examined whether the emotion regulation strategy
affected the malevolent creative performance of the angry indi-
viduals through emotional arousal and IA. In Experiment 2, we
hypothesized that (II) emotion regulation strategy could effec-
tively attenuate the malevolent creativity of the angry individu-
als, and this attenuating effect might be produced through two
pathways: emotional arousal and IA. In order to eliminate the
influence of general creative potential, malevolent creative
potential, and daily aggressive level on the experimental results,
the above variables were measured in both experiments. The
study has been approved by the East China Normal University
(Grant No. HR 084-2018; 281-2019).
2 Experiment 1: The effect of anger on general creativity
and malevolent creativity
2.1 Participants
A total of 102 participants were recruited, including 84 fem-
ales and 18 males (age: M = 20.51, SD = 2.21). Participants
were randomly assigned to the anger group, sadness group, and
neutral emotion group (control group) with a gender balance
(28 women and 6 men in each group).
2.2 Experimental tasks and tools
Alternative uses task (AUT) was used to assess an individual’s
general creative performance. The AUT requires participants to
report as many original uses for an everyday item as possible
(Runco et al., 2016). For example, “What are original uses for
candles?” The experiment evaluated general creativity per-
formance using fluency and originality (Runco et al., 2016;
Runco & Acar, 2012). Fluency refers to the number of valid
ideas generated by the participants. Originality refers to the
degree to which an idea is original. The raters rated the origi-
nality based on the frequency ratio of each idea in the experi-
mental sample. Specifically, values of 2,1 and 0 were assigned
for ideas with frequency ratios ≤1%, 1% to 5%, or more than
5%, respectively (Hao et al., 2017; Runco et al., 2016). The
final originality score was the sum of the originality scores of
all the ideas of each participant.
The malevolent creativity task (MCT) was used to assess an
individual’s creativity performance. MCT is adapted from a
realistic-presented problem that requires individuals to report as
many original and malevolent solutions as possible for an
open-ended, real-world problem (Hao et al., 2020). For exam-
ple, “Xiao Wang had a crush on a person for a long time, but
now a rival suddenly appeared. Please come up with an original
way to destroy the image of the rival.” The experiment evalu-
ated the malevolent creative performance by three indicators:
fluency, originality, and harmfulness. Fluency and originality
ratings were the same as AUT scoring procedures. Harmfulness
refers to the degree of harmfulness with which ideas are gener-
CHENG Rui et al.: The effect of anger on malevolent creativity and strategies for its emotion regulation
ated. Each of the five raters independently scored the harmful-
ness of each idea using a 5-point Likert scale (ICC = 0.84). The
harmfulness score for each viewpoint was the mean of the five
raters’ scores. The final harmfulness score was based on the
average harmfulness score of all the ideas of each participant.
The preference-phrase task was used to assess the level of
IA (Zhu et al., 2006). The task consists of 25 trials, each con-
sisting of a probe word and three target words. The target word
consists of a word that can form offensive words with the probe
word, a word that can form neutral words with the probe word
and a jamming word. In each test, if the participant chose the
target word that forms the offensive word with the probe word,
a score of 1 would be scored, and 0 would be scored for the
other choices. A higher total score indicated higher implicit
aggression.
The Self-Assessment scale (SAM) was used to assess the
level of valence and arousal (Bradley & Lang, 1994). Partici-
pants were asked to rate their emotional valence (1 for “very
sad,” 9 for “very happy”) and arousal (1 for “very calm,” 9 for
“very excited”) on a nine-point scale. Ten emotional states were
measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule
(PANAS) (Bradley & Lang, 1994; Watson et al., 1988). Par-
ticipants were asked to rate their emotional state (1 for “not at
all” and 9 for “very”) on a nine-point scale.
The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) was used
to evaluate the aggression of individuals in their daily life
(Buss & Perry, 1992). Participants were asked to rate 22 item
descriptions on a 5-point scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.84). The
higher the score, the more aggressive they were. The Runco
Ideal Behavior Scale (RIBS) was used to assess an individual’s
tendency to engage in creative behavior in daily life (Runco
et al.., 2001). Participants were asked to rate 19 item descrip-
tions on a 5-point scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.83). The higher the
score, the higher the general creative potential. Individual ten-
dency to engage in malevolent creative behavior was assessed
using the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale (MCBS) (Hao
et al., 2016). The participants were asked to rate 13 items on a
5-point scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.90). The higher the score, the
higher the malevolent creativity potential.
2.3 Experimental procedures
The participants completed the pretest SAM and PANAS.
Next, participants in the anger and sadness groups completed
autobiographical recall tasks (Brewer et al., 1980) that evoked
anger and sadness, respectively, while those in the neutral
mood group completed only a control task (detailing the day’s
schedule). The emotion induction lasted five minutes. After
emotion induction, the participants filled out the post-test SAM
and PANAS again. The participants then orally completed one
MCT and one AUT, which was recorded by a voice recorder
and then transcribed into texts for subsequent analysis. Based
on previous studies, the task duration of MCT was designed as
10 minutes and AUT as 5 minutes (Jiang et al., 2012; Lu et al.,
2019). Finally, the participants completed the preference-phrase
task, BPAQ, RIBS, and MCBS scales (see Figure 1).
2.4 Results
2.4.1 Validation of emotion induction
In order to validate emotion induction, paired-sample t-tests
were respectively conducted on the pre-tests and post-tests of
emotions for 3 groups (see Table 1). The results showed that, in
the anger group, emotional arousal and anger were significantly
higher in the post-test than in the pre-test, and emotional val-
ence was significantly lower in the post-test than in the pre-test.
In the sadness group, the emotional valence and arousal were
significantly lower in the post-test than in the pre-test, and
sadness was significantly higher in the post-test than in the
pre-test. There was no significant difference in the control
group. This indicated that emotion induction was successfully
manipulated.
2.4.2 The effect of emotions on malevolent creative per-
formance and general creative performance
A one-way MANOVA using EMOTION as the between-
group factor was conducted on MCT fluency, originality, and
harmfulness. Box’s M = 68.30, p < 0.001. The results showed
that the covariance matrices of these dependent variables were
not homogeneous, and the data did not fit MANOVA. Thus,
one-way ANOVAs using EMOTION as the between-group
factor were conducted on MCT fluency, originality, and harm-
fulness. Results showed that the main effect of EMOTION on
MCT fluency was significant, F (2, 99) = 14.80, p < 0.0001, η2
p =
0.23. Post hoc tests showed that MCT fluency was significantly
higher in the anger group (M = 8.94, SD = 4.77) than in the
sadness group (M = 6.32, SD = 2.40, p = 0.005, Cohen’s d =
0.69) and control group (M = 4.56, SD = 2.23, p < 0.001, Co-
hen’s d = 1.18). No significant difference was observed be-
tween the sadness group and control group (p = 0.096; see Fig-
ure 2A). The main effect of EMOTION on MCT originality
was significant, F (2, 99) = 15.83, p < 0.0001, η2
p = 0.24. Post
hoc tests showed that the anger group had significantly higher
MCT originality (M = 9.79, SD = 7.73) than the sadness group
(M = 4.68, SD = 4.08, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.83) and control
group (M = 2.91, SD = 2.43, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 1.20).
There was no significant difference between the sadness group
and control group (p = 0.504; see Figure 2B. The main effect of
EMOTION on MCT harmfulness was significant, F (2, 99) =
4.01, p = 0.021, η2
p = 0.08. Post hoc tests showed that the anger
group had significantly higher MCT harmfulness (M = 2.91, SD =
0.27) than the sadness group (M = 2.65, SD = 0.44, p = 0.051,
Cohen’s d = 0.71) and control group (M = 2.65, SD = 0.53, p =
0.044, Cohen’s d = 0.62). There was no significant difference bet-
ween the sadness group and control group (p = 1.00; Figure 2C).
Figure 1. Experimental procedure in experiment 1.
Acta Psychologica Sinica
Tab le 1
Experiment 1: descriptive statistics of emotions (M ± SD) and
paired-sample t-tests
Experimental conditions Pre-test Post-test t (33) p
Anger group
Valence 6.18 ± 1.22 3.74 ± 1.58 8.80 0.000***
Arousal 4.97 ± 1.57 5.91 ± 2.15 −2.26 0.030*
Anger 1.56 ± 0.93 5.18 ± 1.83 −10.80 0.000***
Sadness 2.74 ± 1.85 3.15 ± 1.86 −1.19 0.242
Sadness Group
Valence 5.65 ± 1.18 3.27 ± 1.40 8.41 0.000***
Arousal 4.82 ± 1.31 3.56 ± 1.71 4.07 0.000***
Anger 1.97 ± 1.64 2.62 ± 1.74 −1.55 0.131
Sadness 2.03 ± 1.19 5.00 ± 1.81 −7.70 0.000***
Control group
Valence 5.62 ± 1.30 5.38 ± 1.21 1.19 0.224
Arousal 4.71 ± 1.36 4.59 ± 1.64 0.37 0.711
Anger 1.88 ± 1.30 1.79 ± 1.18 0.46 0.646
Sadness 2.53 ± 1.85 2.62 ± 2.03 −0.26 0.795
Note. * p < 0.05, *** p < 0.001.
A one-way MANOVA using EMOTION as the between-
group factor was conducted on AUT fluency, originality. Box’s
M = 24.05, p < 0.001. The results showed that the covariance
matrices of these dependent variables were not homogeneous,
and the data did not fit MANOVA. Thus, one-way ANOVAs
using EMOTION as the between-group factor were conducted
on AUT fluency, originality. Results showed a significant main
effect of EMOTION on AUT fluency, F (2, 99) = 6.43, p =
0.002, η2
p = 0.12. Post hoc tests showed that the anger group (M =
11.26, SD = 6.20) had significantly higher AUT fluency than
the control group (M = 7.26, SD = 3.44, p = 0.002, Cohen’s d =
0.80; see Figure 2D). The main effect of EMOTION on AUT ori-
ginality was also significant, F (2, 99) = 7.84, p < 0.001, η2
p =
0.14. Post hoc tests showed that the anger group (M = 15.29,
SD = 8.85) had significantly higher AUT originality than the
sadness group (M = 11.21, SD = 5.50, p = 0.042, Cohen’s d =
0.55) and control group (M = 8.91, SD = 5.23, p = 0.001, Co-
hen’s d = 0.88). No significant difference was observed bet-
ween the sadness group and control group (p = 0.489; see Fig-
ure 2E).
When the scores of BPAQ, RIBS and MCBS were entered
as covariants, the above main effects were still significant:
MCT fluency, F (2, 96) = 13.15, p < 0.001, η2
p = 0.22; MCT
originality, F (2, 96) = 13.52, p < 0.001, η2
p = 0.22; MCT harm-
fulness, F (2, 96) = 3.78, p = 0.026, η2
p = 0.07; AUT fluency, F
(2, 96) = 6.33, p = 0.003, η2
p = 0.12; AUT originality, F (2, 96) =
7.94, p = 0.001, η2
p = 0.14.
2.4.3 The mediation analyses of implicit aggression and
emotional arousal
To t est whet her E MOTION has an effect on IA, a one-way
ANOVA was conducted on IA. Results showed a significant
main effect of EMOTION on IA, F (2,101) = 3.32, p = 0.040.
Post hoc tests showed that anger group (M = 9.62, SD = 3.27)
had significantly higher IA than the sadness group (M = 7.91,
SD = 3.21, p = 0.045, Cohen’s d = 0.53) and control group (M =
7.62, SD = 3.85, p = 0.019, Cohen’s d = 0.56).
To further test whether the effect of anger on malevolent and
general creative performance was mediated by IA, the
PROCESS was used to perform Bootstrap-based mediation
effect analysis (Hayes, 2013; Hayes & Preacher, 2014), with IA
score as the mediator, the independent variables coded as
dummy variables (1 = anger group, 0 = control group), and
fluency, originality as well as harmfulness of the tasks as the
dependent variables. The sample size was 5000 and the confi-
dence interval was 95%. The results showed that anger had a
significant direct effect on MCT fluency, b = 3.84, p < 0.001,
CI = [2.01, 5.67], and a significant indirect effect on MCT flu-
ency through IA, b = 0.54, CI = [0.01, 2.07] (note: 2.00 × 0.27 =
0.54; see Figure 3A). Anger had a significant direct effect on
MCT originality, b = 5.83, p < 0.001, CI = [3.08, 8.57], and a
significant indirect effect on MCT originality through IA, b =
1.06, CI = [0.12, 3.62] (see Figure 3B). Anger had a significant
direct effect on MCT harmfulness, b = 0.37, p = 0.007, CI =
[0.10, 0.64], and a significant indirect effect on MCT harmful-
ness through IA, b = 0.08, CI = [0.004, 0.236] (see Figure 3C).
In addition, anger had a significant direct effect on AUT flu-
ency, b = 3.49, p = 0.009, CI = [0.91, 6.07], but no significant
indirect effect on AUT fluency through IA, b = 0.31, CI =
[−0.31, 1.71]. Anger had a significant direct effect on AUT
originality, b = 5.98, p = 0.002, CI = [2.27, 9.70], but no sig-
nificant indirect effect on AUT originality through IA, b = 0.40,
CI = [−0.46, 1.94]. The results indicated that IA partially medi-
ated the effects of anger on malevolent creative performance
but did not mediate the effects of anger on general creative
performance.
Figure 2. Malevolent and general creative performance in different emotion groups in Experiment 1.
Note. (A) MCT fluency; (B) MCT originality; (C) MCT harmfulness; (D) AUT fluency; (E) AUT originality. The error bars represent standard errors. *p < 0.05,
**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
CHENG Rui et al.: The effect of anger on malevolent creativity and strategies for its emotion regulation
Figure 3. Mediation analysis using IA as the mediator in Experiment 1.
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. The coefficient is non-standard coefficient, and the standard error is presented in ().
The mediation analysis using emotional arousal as the medi-
ator showed that anger had a significant direct on MCT fluency,
b = 3.80, p < 0.001, CI = [1.99, 5.62], and a significant indirect
effect on MCT fluency through emotional arousal, b = 0.58, CI =
[0.08, 1.66] (see Figure 4A). Anger had a significant direct
effect on MCT originality, b = 6.08, p < 0.001, CI = [3.26,
8.89], and a significant indirect effect on MCT originality
through emotional arousal, b = 0.80, CI = [0.08, 2.41] (see
Figure 4B). Anger had a significant direct effect on MCT
harmfulness, b = 0.42, p = 0.004, CI = [0.14, 0.69], but no sig-
nificant indirect effect on MCT harmfulness through emotional
arousal, b = 0.03, CI = [−0.03, 0.18]. Anger had a significant
direct effect on AUT fluency, b = 2.58, p = 0.032, CI = [0.23,
4.92], and a significant indirect effect on AUT fluency through
emotional arousal, b = 1.22, CI = [0.27, 2.62] (see Figure 4C).
Anger had a significant direct effect on AUT originality, b =
4.60, p = 0.008, CI = [1.23, 7.96], and a significant indirect
effect on AUT originality through emotional arousal, b = 1.79,
CI = [0.42, 3.91] (see Figure 4D). These results suggested that
emotional arousal partially mediated the effects of anger on
fluency and originality of malevolent and general creative per-
formance, but did not mediate the effect of anger on MCT
harmfulness.
A similar mediating effect analysis was conducted for the
sadness group. The independent variables were coded as virtual
variables (1 = sadness, 0 = control), with fluency, originality,
and MCT harmfulness as the dependent variables, IA scores,
and emotional arousal as the mediating variables. Results
showed no significant mediating effect.
2.5 Interim discussion
The main findings of Experiment 1 were as follows: (1) anger
promoted not only general creative performance but also male-
volent creative performance; (2) both emotional arousal and IA
mediated the promotion effect of anger on malevolent creative
performance; (3) only emotion arousal mediates the promotion
effect of anger on general creative performance. The findings
answered question 1. These findings not only confirmed previous
findings that anger promotes general creative performance
(Baas et al., 2011; Russ & Kaugars, 2001) but also broadened the
understanding of the relationship between anger and malevolent
Figure 4. Mediation analysis using emotional arousal as the mediator in Experiment 1.
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. The coefficient is non-standard coefficient, and the standard error is in ().
Acta Psychologica Sinica
creativity. That is, anger can also promote malevolent creativity.
It should be noted that we found that the anger group had high-
er MCT fluency than the sadness and control group did, while its
AUT fluency was merely higher than the control group. Based
on the results of the mediating effect analysis, we speculated
that anger increased IA, which promoted malevolent creative
performance but has no effect on general creative performance.
This may further widen the performance gap between angry
and sad individuals on MCT. In addition, emotional arousal
mediated the effects of anger on malevolent and general crea-
tive performance (fluency and originality), whereas IA me-
diated the effects of anger on three indices of malevolent crea-
tivity: fluency, originality, and harmfulness. This indicated that
anger affected malevolent and general creative performance in
different ways, and IA is the specific pathway that anger affects
malevolent creative performance.
3 Experiment 2: the effect of anger regulation strategy
on malevolent creativity
3.1 Participants
A total of 120 participants were recruited, including 90 fem-
ales and 30 males (age: M = 20.40, SD = 2.02). The participants
were randomly assigned to three groups: cognitive reappraisal
group, expressive inhibition group, and control group. The sex
ratio was balanced among the groups (30 women and 10 men in
each group).
3.2 Experimental tasks and tools
Two MCTs were used to assess malevolent creative per-
formance before and after emotion regulation. A pilot study
showed that there was no significant difference between these
two MCTs concerning difficulty, familiarity, and malevolence (t
(29) = 1.56, p = 0.13; t (29) = 0.95, p = 0.35; t (29) = −0.11, p =
0.92). This guarantees the homogeneity of the two MCTs. Par-
ticipants were also required to complete the preference-phrase
task, SAM, PANAS, BPAQ (Cronbach’s α = 0.86), RIBS
(Cronbach’s α = 0.81), and MCBS (Cronbach’s α = 0.86).
3.3 Experimental procedures
As shown in Figure 5, participants first completed the
pre-tests (SAM and PANAS). Participants’ anger was induced
by using the autobiographical recall task. After emotion induc-
tion, participants completed post-tests (SAM and PANAS) and
one MCT (5 minutes). Then, during the emotion regulation
stage, the cognitive reappraisal group and expression inhibition
group respectively used the corresponding emotion regulation
strategy to regulate anger (3 minutes), while the control group
only completed one copying task (3 minutes). The contents of
the copying task were taken from the expository text “A fruitful
science: phenology.” After emotion regulation, participants
rated the difficulty of emotion regulation tasks, completed a
post-test of SAM and PANAS and another MCT (5 minutes).
Finally, participants completed the preference-phrase task, BPAQ,
RIBS, and MCBS.
3.4 Results
3.4.1 Validation of emotion induction and regulation
The one-way ANOVA using STRATEGY as the between-group
factor was conducted on difficulty scores of the emotion regu-
lation task. The results showed that the main effect of STRATEGY
was not significant, F (2, 117) = 0.61, p = 0.546. The results
showed that there was no significant difference in difficulty
scores among the cognitive reappraisal task (M = 3.48, SD =
1.69), expression inhibition task (M = 3.85, SD = 2.23), and
control task (M = 3.33, SD = 2.57).
The results of emotion induction showed that low-valence
and high-arousal anger was successfully induced in all three
groups. The results of emotion regulation showed that both
cognitive reappraisal and expression inhibition strategies incr-
eased the emotional valence, decreased emotional arousal, and
regulated anger effectively (see Table 2).
3.4.2 Effects of emotion regulation on malevolent creative
performance
Two-way mixed-design ANOVAs with STRATEGY as the
between-group factor and TEST (pre-test: the MCT after emo-
tion induction vs. Post-test: the MCT after emotion regulation)
as the within-group factor were performed on MCT fluency,
originality, and harmfulness.
Results showed a significant main effect of TEST on MCT
fluency, F (1, 117) = 5.89, p = 0.017, η2
p = 0.05. Post hoc tests
showed that MCT fluency was significantly lower in the
pre-test (M = 7.03, SD = 3.12) than in the post-test (M = 7.68,
SD = 2.84, p = 0.017, Cohen’s d = 0.22; Bonferroni corrected).
The main effect of STRATEGY was not significant, F (2, 117) =
1.11, p = 0.333. The interaction effect of STRATEGY × TEST
was not significant, F (2, 117) = 1.96, p = 0.145 (see Figure
6A). When scores of BPAQ, RIBS, and MCBS were entered as
covariates, the main effect of TEST became not significant. F
(1, 114) = 1.31, p = 0.26.
Results showed no significant main effect of TEST, F (1, 117) =
0.02, p = 0.885; or STRATEGY, F (2, 117) = 2.53, p = 0.084 on
MCT originality. The interaction effect of STRATEGY × TEST
was significant, F (2, 117) = 3.25, p = 0.042, η2
p = 0.05. The
Figure 5. Experimental procedure of Experiment 2.
CHENG Rui et al.: The effect of anger on malevolent creativity and strategies for its emotion regulation
Table 2
Experiment 2: descriptive statistics of emotion induction and regulation (M ± SD) and ANOVAs
Experimental conditions Pre-test PI PR F (2, 78) p Post hoc tests
Cognitive reappraisal group
Valence 6.25 ± 1.35 4.15 ± 1.33 5.93 ± 1.10 40.77 0.000*** Pre-test > PI***
PI < PR***
Arousal 4.65 ± 1.75 5.33 ± 2.07 4.40 ± 1.39 3.50 0.035* PI > PR*
Anger 1.63 ± 1.01 4.15 ± 1.72 1.98 ± 1.03 60.64 0.000*** Pretest < PI***
PI > PR***
Expression inhibition group
Valence 6.38 ± 1.31 4.25 ± 1.37 5.03 ± 1.39 42.54 0.000*** Pre-test > PI***
Pre-test > PR**
IR < PR***
Arousal 4.85 ± 1.31 5.93 ± 1.64 4.25 ± 1.50 12.23 0.000*** Pre-test < PI*
PI > PR***
Anger 1.70 ± 0.94 4.47 ± 1.75 2.88 ± 1.47 54.97 0.000*** Pretest < PI***
Pretest < PR**
PI > PR***
Control group
Valence 6.25 ± 1.71 4.33 ± 1.54 4.28 ± 1.78 25.17 0.000*** Pre-test > PI***
Pre-test > PR
Arousal 4.72 ± 1.31 5.50 ± 1.95 5.15 ± 1.96 2.02 0.14
Anger 1.79 ± 1.18 4.35 ± 2.34 4.00 ± 2.92 24.11 0.000*** Pretest < PI***
Pretest < PR***
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. ‘PI’ indicates post-tests after emotion induction; ‘PR’ indicates post-tests after emotion regulation.
Figure 6. The pre-test and post-test malevolent creative performance in different groups in Experiment 2.
Note. (a) MCT fluency; (b) MCT originality; (C) MCT harmfulness. The error bars represent standard errors. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. ‘Pre’ indicated
the pre-test and ‘post’ indicated the post-test.
simple effect analysis showed that there was no significant
difference among the three groups in the pre-test (ps > 0.1).
However, in the post-test, MCT originality was significantly
lower in the cognitive reappraisal group (M = 7.20, SD = 4.67,
p = 0.003, Cohen’s d = 0.66) and expression inhibition group
(M = 7.63, SD = 4.71, p = 0.010, Cohen’s d = 0.57) than in the
control group (M = 10.45, SD = 5.13). There was no other sig-
nificant difference (ps > 0.1) (see Figure 6B). Additionally, The
results showed that there was no significant difference between
the pre-test and post-test in the cognitive reappraisal group and
expression inhibition group (ps > 0.1), but there was marginal
difference between the pre-test (M = 8.48, SD = 4.27) and
post-test (M = 10.45, SD = 5.13; p = 0.05, Cohen’s d = 0.42)
(see Figure 6B). When scores of the above scales were entered
as covariates, the interaction effect remained significant, F (2,
114) = 3.96, p = 0.022, η2
p = 0.07.
Results showed a significant main effect of TEST on MCT
harmfulness, F (1, 117) = 27.79, p < 0.001, η2
p = 0.19. But the
main effect of STRATEGY was not significant, F (2, 117) =
2.35, p = 0.100. The interaction effect of STRATEGY × TEST
was significant, F (2, 117) = 3.91, p = 0.023, η2
p = 0.06. The
simple effect analysis showed that there was no significant
difference among the three groups in the pre-test (ps > 0.1).
However, in the post-test, the cognitive reappraisal group (M =
2.26, SD = 0.36, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.80) and expression
inhibition group (M = 2.26, SD = 0.31, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d =
0.85) were significantly lower than the control group (M = 2.57,
SD = 0.41). There was no other significant difference (ps > 0.1)
(see Figure 6C). Additionally, there was significant difference
between the pre-test (M = 2.63, SD = 0.59) and post-test (M =
2.26, SD = 0.36; p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.76) in the cognitive
reappraisal group. There was also significant difference be-
tween the pre-test (M = 2.72, SD = 0.52) and post-test (M =
2.26, SD = 0.31; p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 1.07) in the expression
inhibition group. There was no significant difference between
the pre-test and post-test (ps > 0.1) in the control group (see
Acta Psychologica Sinica
Figure 6C). When scores of the above scales were entered as
covariates, and the main effect (F (1, 114) = 8.61, p = 0.004,
η2
p = 0.07) and interaction effect of STRATEGY × TEST (F (2,
114) = 4.45, p = 0.014, η2
p = 0.07) remained significant.
To sum up, in comparison with the control group, MCT ori-
ginality and harmfulness decreased after emotion regulation.
3.4.3 The mediation analyses of implicit aggression
To test whether STRATEGY has an effect on IA, a one-way
ANOVA was conducted on IA. Results showed a significant
main effect of STRATEGY on IA, F (2, 119) = 6.75, p = 0.002.
Post hoc tests showed that the control group (M = 10.65, SD =
3.22) had significantly higher IA than the cognitive reappraisal
group (M = 8.88, SD = 2.45, p = 0.005, Cohen’s d = 0.62) and
expression inhibition group(M = 8.55, SD = 2.51, p = 0.001,
Cohen’s d = 0.73). There was no significant difference between
the cognitive reappraisal group and expression inhibition group
(p = 0.598).
To further test whether the effect of emotion regulation
strategies on malevolent creative performance is mediated by
IA, the bootstrap method was used to perform the mediation
effect analysis. IA score was set as the mediator, the between-group
factor coded as the dummy variable (1 = anger group, 0 = control
group), and MCT fluency, MCT originality as well as MCT
harmfulness as the dependent variables. The sample size was
5000, and the confidence interval was 95%. The control group
was taken as the reference. The bootstrap-based nonparametric
percentile method was performed using the MEDIATE plug-in
(Hayes & Preacher, 2014). The sample size was 5000, and the
confidence interval was 95%. The results showed that cognitive
reappraisal had no significant direct effect on MCT fluency, b =
–0.61, p = 0.390, but a significant indirect effect on MCT flu-
ency though IA, b = −0.49, CI = [−1.16, −0.06] (see Figure 7A).
Expression inhibition had no significant direct effect on MCT
fluency, b = −1.02, p = 0.157, but a significant indirect effect
on MCT fluency though IA, b = −0.58, CI = [−1.32, −0.10] (see
Figure 7B). Cognitive reappraisal had a significant direct effect
on MCT originality, b = −2.34, p = 0.032, and a significant
indirect effect on MCT originality through IA, b = −0.91, CI =
[−1.98, −0.19] (see Figure 7C). Expression inhibition had no
significant direct effect on MCT originality, b = −1.75, p =
0.111, but a significant indirect effect on MCT originality
through IA, b = −1.07, CI = [−2.27, −0.28] (see Figure 7D).
Cognitive reappraisal had a significant direct effect on MCT
harmfulness, b = −0.22, p = 0.006, a significant indirect effect
on MCT harmfulness through IA, b = −0.08, CI = [−0.15,
−0.02] (see Figure 7E); Expression inhibition had a significant
direct effect on MCT harmfulness, b = −0.21, p = 0.010, and a
significant indirect effect on MCT harmfulness through IA, b =
−0.10, CI = [−0.18, −0.03] (see Figure 7F). These results indi-
cated that IA mediated the effects of cognitive reappraisal
strategy and expression inhibition strategy on malevolent crea-
tive performance.
3.4.4 The mediation analyses of emotional arousal
The mediation analysis using emotional arousal as the medi-
ator showed that cognitive reappraisal had no significant direct
effect on MCT fluency, b = −0.52, p = 0.431, but a significant
indirect effect on MCT fluency through emotional arousal, b =
−0.58, CI = [−1.13, −0.01] (see Figure 8A). Expression inhibi-
tion had no significant direct effect on MCT fluency, b = −0.90,
p = 0.174, but a significant indirect effect on MCT fluency
through emotional arousal, b = −0.70, CI = [−1.27, −0.13] (see
Figure 8B). Cognitive reappraisal had no significant direct
Figure 7. Mediation analysis using IA as the mediator in Experiment 2.
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. The coefficient is non-standard coefficient, and the standard error is presented in ().
CHENG Rui et al.: The effect of anger on malevolent creativity and strategies for its emotion regulation
Figure 8. Mediation analysis using emotional arousal as the mediator in Experiment 2.
Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. The coefficient is non-standard coefficient, and the standard error is presented in ().
effect on MCT originality, b = −2.21, p = 0.026, and a signifi-
cant indirect effect on MCT originality through emotional
arousal, b = −1.04, CI = [−1.97, −0.02] (see Figure 8C). Expr-
ession inhibition had no significant direct effect on MCT origi-
nality, b = −1.57, p = 0.113, but a significant indirect effect on
MCT originality through emotional arousal, b = −1.25, CI =
[−2.24, −0.21] (see Figure 8D). Cognitive reappraisal had a
significant direct effect on MCT harmfulness, b = −0.28, p =
0.001, but no significant indirect effect on MCT harmfulness
through emotional arousal, b = −0.03, CI = [−0.08, 0.003].
Expression inhibition had a significant direct effect on MCT
harmfulness, b = −0.28, p = 0.001, but no significant indirect
effect on MCT harmfulness through emotional arousal, b =
−0.03, CI = [−0.09, 0.01]. These results suggest that emotional
arousal only mediated the effects of cognitive reappraisal strat-
egy and expression inhibition strategy on MCT fluency and
MCT originality.
3.5 Interim discussion
The main findings of Experiment 2 were as follows: (1) both
cognitive reappraisal and expression inhibition strategies could
effectively reduce individual emotional arousal and IA; (2) both
of the two emotion regulation strategies effectively weakened
the malevolent creative performance of the angry individuals
(originality and harmfulness); (3) both emotional arousal and
IA mediated the effects of emotion regulation strategies on
malevolent creative performance of angry individuals. These
findings answered Question 2. That is, emotion regulation
strategies could successfully impair the malevolent creative
performance of angry individuals. It should be noted that this
study only observed the effect of emotion regulation strategies
on the malevolent creative performance of angry individuals in
idea originality and harmfulness, but not in idea fluency. This
might suggest that the moderating effect of emotion regulation
strategies on the malevolent creative performance of angry
individuals is more qualitative than quantitative. In other words,
reducing an individual’s anger could not decrease the number
of malevolent ideas, but it could reduce the harmfulness and
originality of the generated ideas. In addition, these findings
further indicated that emotional arousal and IA played important
roles in the relationship between anger and malevolent creativity.
4 Discussion
This study mainly showed that anger could promote indivi-
dual malevolent creative performance, while emotion regula-
tion strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and expression
inhibition could weaken individual malevolent creative per-
formance. Both emotional arousal and IA mediated the positive
effect of anger on malevolent creative performance and the
passive effect of emotion regulation strategies on malevolent
creative performance of angry individuals. In addition, effect
size analysis showed a moderate or higher level of the effect
size of the main findings in this study, which meant that the
results of this study had high reliability.
Both experiments showed that IA and emotional arousal
were two important pathways through which anger affected
individual malevolent creative performance. Emotional arousal
was a common pathway that anger affected individual malevo-
lent creativity and general creativity. There are two possible
reasons for this. On the one hand, in order to maintain
goal-related attention and effort during creation, individuals
need to maintain a certain level of cognitive activation to enha-
nce the involvement of the cognitive system (Byron et al., 2010;
Gilet & Jallais, 2011). Anger is a kind of emotional state with
high arousal, which can enhance the level of individual cogni-
tive activation, allocate more cognitive resources to participate
in the current task, and eventually enhance individual creative
performance. On the other hand, studies have found that anger
(high arousal) activates a broader semantic network (Gilet &
Jallais, 2011), while sadness (low arousal) inhibits the activa-
tion of semantic networks (Bless et al., 1992; Bolte et al., 2003).
A broader semantic activation helps individuals find new con-
nections between different categories and concepts, thus facili-
tating the generation of novel ideas and enhancing creative
performance (Friedman & Förster, 2010). These two may exp-
lain why emotional arousal is a common pathway through which
anger affects both general creativity and malevolent creativity.
IA may be a specific way through which anger affects indi-
vidual malevolent creative performance. In Experiment 1, we
found that although IA could not mediate the effect of anger on
general creative performance, it could mediate the effect of
anger on malevolent creative performance. In both experiments,
Acta Psychologica Sinica
only IA was observed to mediate the effect of anger on idea
harmfulness. Studies have shown a strong link between anger
and aggression (Anderson et al., 1996; Berkowitz, 1990;
Roseman et al., 1994). On the one hand, anger interferes with
high-level cognitive processing, including moral reasoning and
judgment (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). On the other hand,
anger may provide justifications for aggressive behaviors and
cause emotional misattribution, which in turn increases aggres-
sion (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). That is, anger may interfere
with individuals’ moral judgments and emotional attributions of
aggressive behaviors, which in turn stimulate a high level of IA,
making them more inclined to seek harmful ideas. In order to
successfully achieve the goal of harm others, individuals tend
to generate more and more novel (unexpected) harmful ideas.
The results showed that both cognitive reappraisal and expr-
ession inhibition strategies could effectively reduce the level of
emotional arousal and IA. Mediation effect analysis showed
that the decreases of emotional arousal and IA, which were
caused by emotion regulation strategies, could effectively reduce
MCT fluency and originality. Moreover, the decrease of IA
could effectively reduce idea harmfulness. These findings not
only proved that cognitive reappraisal and expression inhibition
strategies could effectively attenuate the malevolent creative
performance of angry individuals but also further reveal the
underlying mechanism, namely, the malevolent creativity of
angry individuals can be attenuated by reducing individual
emotional arousal and IA.
This study has a certain significance, theoretically and prac-
tically. Theoretically, it enriches the researches on the influenc-
ing factors of malevolent creativity and provides evidences and
explanations for the effect of anger on malevolent creativity
and its underlying mechanism. Practically, it proves that cogni-
tive reappraisal and expression inhibition strategies can effec-
tively attenuate the malevolent creativity of angry individuals.
Meanwhile, this study emphasizes the necessity of regulating
anger to avoid or reduce potential social harm caused by the
negative side of creativity (malevolent creativity).
There were several limitations that should be noted in this
study. First, in order to make the conditions consistent in terms
of task sequences and thus facilitate the comparison of task
performance among different conditions, sequences of tasks
were not balanced in Experiment 1. The potential effects of task
sequence on findings need to be further examined by future
studies. Secondly, considering the accuracy and ecological
validity of emotion induction, this study only used autobio-
graphical recall tasks to induce emotion. Future studies can use
other emotion induction strategies such as a combination of
visual, auditory, and other sensory materials or embodied indu-
ction such as facial expressions and postures. Thirdly, this
study only selected the two most commonly used and effective
emotion regulation strategies. Future studies can apply other
types of emotion regulation strategies such as avoidance, dis-
tracting attention and etc., to compare the effects of different
emotion regulation strategies. Finally, a larger proportion of
female participants were recruited in this study. The potential
effect of gender on the effects of anger on individual malevo-
lent creative performance and its underlying mechanism rem-
ains to be further explored in the future.
5 Conclusion
(1) Anger not only promotes general creativity, but also mal-
evolent creativity.
(2) Implicit aggression and emotional arousal are two imp-
ortant pathways through which anger affects individual male-
volent creative performance. Meanwhile, the implicit aggress-
ion pathway is specific to the effect of anger on individual mal-
evolent creative performance (compared with general creativity).
(3) The cognitive reappraisal strategy and the expressive inhi-
bition strategy can effectively regulate individual anger and
attenuate the malevolent creative performance of the angry
individuals. Implicit aggression and emotional arousal play an
important mediating role in the attenuating effect of emotional
regulation on malevolent creativity.
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