@article{258e01bfb0d549f38959c106b8f8b8da,
title = "Women and African Americans are less influential when they express anger during group decision making",
abstract = "Expressing anger can signal that someone is certain and competent, thereby increasing their social influence—but does this strategy work for everyone? After assessing gender- and race-based emotion stereotypes (Study 1), we assessed the effect of expressing anger on social influence during group decision making as a function of gender (Studies 2–3) and race (Study 3). Participants took part in a computerized mock jury decision-making task, during which they read scripted comments ostensibly from other jurors. A “holdout” juror always disagreed with the participant and four other confederate group members. We predicted that the contextual factor of who expressed emotion would trump what was expressed in determining whether anger is a useful persuasion strategy. People perceived all holdouts expressing anger as more emotional than holdouts who expressed identical arguments without anger. Yet holdouts who expressed anger (versus no anger) were less effective and influential when they were female (but not male, Study 2) or Black (but not White, Study 3)—despite having expressed identical arguments and anger. Although anger expression made participants perceive the holdouts as more emotional regardless of race and gender, being perceived as more emotional was selectively used to discredit women and African Americans. These diverging consequences of anger expression have implications for societally important group decisions, including life-and-death decisions made by juries.",
keywords = "anger, discrimination, emotion, gender, jury decision making, minority influence, persuasion, race, social influence, stereotyping",
author = "Salerno, {Jessica M.} and Peter-Hagene, {Liana C.} and Jay, {Alexander C.V.}",
note = "Funding Information: The authors wish to thank Bette Bottoms, Linda Skitka, Shari Diamond, Mary Murphy, and Samuel Sommers for their helpful feedback as committee members on the first author{\textquoteright}s dissertation. The authors would also like to thank Michael Slepian and Katherine Greenaway for helpful feedback on an earlier draft. The authors also wish to thank Jared Martin, Kyle Anderson, and Alicia DeVault for their helpful research assistance. They would also like to thank Brad Lytle for his invaluable programming assistance. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, a Psi Chi Graduate Research Grant, a Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Grant-in-Aid, an American Psychology-Law Society Grant-in-Aid, and a UIC Provost Award for Graduate Research. Funding Information: Our prediction is also supported by the emotion stereotypes literature. A considerable body of research has investigated how emotion stereotypes affect emotion detection (e.g., Hess, Adams, Grammer, & Kleck, 2009; Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2007; Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003; Philippot, Yabar, & Bourgeois, 2007). We extend this research by investigating how emotion stereotypes shape reactions to unambiguous anger expression during group decision making. Specifically, women expressing anger might confirm the stereotype that they are highly emotional in general (e.g., Fabes & Martin, 1991; Johnson & Shulman, 1988), suggesting that their emotion is internally caused (Barrett & Bliss-Moreau, 2009). Similarly, African American men expressing anger might confirm stereotypes that they are hostile and aggressive (Devine, 1989). Although we are unaware of psychological research assessing emotion stereotypes related to African American women specifically, media depictions of the “angry Black woman” are frequent (e.g., Landsman, 2016; Pittman, 2016). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2017.",
year = "2019",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1177/1368430217702967",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "22",
pages = "57--79",
journal = "Group Processes and Intergroup Relations",
issn = "1368-4302",
publisher = "SAGE Publications Ltd",
number = "1",
}