The angry decision maker - Does anger elicited by video clips influence judgments?

Abstract

In the last 20 years, the research interest on emotions’ impact on judgments and reasoning has grown intensely (Lerner et. al, 2015). In particular, The Cognitive Appraisal Tendency Framework, Feelings as Information Theory, and The Carry-Over Effect suggest that we are distinctly impacted by our emotions in our daily judgments and decision-making processes, but we are unconscious of these impacts. This study was conducted to investigate how eliciting anger through video clips might influence risk and aggression judgments. We hypothesized that individuals in an angry emotional state will be more likely to engage in risky and aggressive behavior than individuals in a neutral emotional state. Our results suggest no significant effect between the anger emotional state and neutral emotional state. Further research is needed to understand if and if so under what circumstances anger and other discrete emotions are influencing our judgments.