Emotional Hostility Research Articles

Organizational Intolerance to Sexual Harassment in Sexualized Work Environments: Its Effect on Workers’ Emotions and Intentions to Display Active Responses

Previous research has shown that work environments that are sexualized harm employees’ wellbeing, attitudes, and behaviors. The paper examines employees’ affective reactions and behavioral intentions in such environments depending on the strictness of anti-harassment policies. Across two studies, we hypothesize that strict policies will lead to less hostile emotions and fewer intentions to actively react (considerate voice, whistleblowing, aggressive voice, and intention to quit) compared to loose policies. The second study also investigates whether these effects stem from the perception that sexualized work environments are not viewed as instances of sexual harassment. We discuss the implications for how managers should design anti-harassment policies in organizations.

HUMAN SECURITY PARADIGM: IMPLICATIONS OF THE US-CHINA STRATEGIC CONFLICT IN WESTERN PACIFIC

Western Pacific region is extremely important owing to its political, economic, and geo-strategic importance. For decades, the region has witnessed the hegemony of the USand its strong collaboration with multiple states of Far East. However, the recent rise of China regarding political influence, economic development, and military might have posed challenges to the US hegemonic designs increasing the prospects for a strategic conflict. The resulting surge in China’s assertiveness has also fuelled hostile emotions among states. This paper explores the ramifications of emerging strategic conflict between the US and China using the Human Security Paradigm (HSP). By employing qualitative research method paper articulates that the implications of strategic conflict in Far East can be a challenge to national interests of the US. Given the different nature of human security issues and their propensity to exacerbate the conflict, the paper advocates using preventive measures when dealing with human security problems.

Perceived social support attenuates increased hostile reactions to traumatic threat.

Extant literature has seldom examined the naturalistic role of reaction to threat on downstream emotional distress while also considering buffers, such as perceived social support, to acute negative mental health outcomes. The present study examined how trauma symptoms, in reaction to a global stressor, predicted increased psychological distress via elevated emotional hostility and whether perceived social support modified such effects. We predicted a priori that increased exposure to trauma would be associated with increased hostility and global psychological distress, but that this path would be attenuated by greater levels of perceived social support, as individuals who report greater support exhibit greater emotional coping. We recruited 408 adults from a large university in the Midwestern United States to participate in a survey assessing past-week trauma, hostility, distress, and perceived social support following the initial COVID-19 lockdown. The survey was conducted in March 2020, directly after strict shelter-in-place orders were locally mandated. To test our hypotheses, we employed a moderated mediation analysis approach. Results demonstrate that higher trauma predicted increased hostility, which in turn predicted increased distress, and trauma predicted distress via hostility (an indirect effect). As hypothesized, higher perceived social support attenuated the association between trauma and hostility. Results support a hostile emotional pathway that may increase distress in the context of increased traumatic impact; however, social support likely buffers these effects, particularly in the face of new or novel threats and stressors. Findings suggest broad application for understanding the relation between the introduction of stressors, psychological distress, and social support.

Hostile emotions and close relationships: Anger can be related to constructive responses

Anger is typically thought to be an emotion that is associated with negative outcomes, such as aggression; however, evidence shows that anger can be related to positive outcomes as well, such as making amends and reparations. Two studies examined the role of anger, contempt, and disgust on behavioural tendencies (i.e., reparative action, avoidance versus aggression) in two contexts: romantic relationships (Study 1) and friendships (Study 2). We also tested whether various individual differences may impact these relationships. It was found that anger was associated with reparative action in both contexts and disgust was related to less reparative action in friendships. All three emotions were positively connected to aggression in romantic relationships (Study 1), but only disgust was related to aggression in friendships (Study 2). Disgust was positively related to avoidance in both studies. The results suggest that anger is an approach emotion, being consistently associated with the positive outcome of reparative action, and disgust is more consistently related to behavioural tendencies in close relationships than contempt. Future research should endeavour to examine when and how the positive behavioural effects of anger can be fostered in close relationships.

Bellek Özelliklerinde Duygu İçeriğinin Etkisi: Duygusal Değer, Duygusal Yoğunluk ve Tekil Duygular

The aim of the present study is to examine the relationships between the emotional valence and emotional intensity of autobiographical memories and the phenomenological characteristics of memories in the context of individual emotions and memory types. Seven hundred and sixty-four students (514 female, 250 male) from Dokuz Eylul University participated in the study. Participants were asked to recall an childhood memory, a self-defining memory, or a romantic relationship memory. After thinking about the memory they remember, they were requested to fill out the Autobiographical Memory Characteristics Questionnaire and a scale for intensity of individual emotions. Regression analyses showed that emotional intensity of the memories predicted the sensory details, rehearsal, and preoccupation with emotions. In moderated-mediation analyses, mediating effects for emotional intensity were detected between individual emotions and memory characteristics, except for the negative self-esteem emotions. Among these analyses, a moderating effect of memory types was detected only for the relationships between hostile emotions and anxiety-related emotions and the memory characteristics through the mediation of emotional intensity. While the intensity of singular emotions showed stronger relationship with emotional valence, the main variable that predicted memory characteristics overall was the emotional intensity.

Long-term effect of cybervictimization on displaced aggressive behavior across two years: Mutually predicting mediators of hostile emotion and moral disengagement

Although the negative effects of cybervictimization are attracting increasing attention, its long-term consequences among college students and the underlying mechanisms behind the effects are still unclear. We attempted to address these issues by testing the mutually predicting mediators of hostile emotion and moral disengagement in the potential longitudinal effect of cybervictimization on self-reported displaced aggressive behavior across two years. The victims’ subscale of the Cyberbullying Inventory for College Students, the hostile emotion subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form, the Civic Moral Disengagement Questionnaire, and the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire were completed by 1157 undergraduates in three waves, one year apart. The results of the longitudinal multiple mediating model and cross-lagged panel model analyses showed that, after controlling for displaced aggressive behavior at Wave 1, cybervictimization at Wave 1 predicted hostile emotion and moral disengagement at Wave 2, which in turn predicted displaced aggressive behavior at Wave 3. Moreover, hostile emotion and moral disengagement could longitudinally predict each other. A motivation perspective was developed to comprehensively interpret the multiple mediating model with two mutually predicting mediators. Our findings and ideas contribute to cyber psychology by enhancing the understanding on the negative consequences of negative social experiences derived from Internet use (e.g., cybervictimization) and give practical implications to maintain mental health in Internet use.

The Effects of Employment Status: Mediating Role of Relative Deprivation and Hostile Emotions

This study aims to understand why and when disadvantaged employment status relates to nonstandard employees’ interpersonal behavior. Drawing on relative deprivation theory, this study proposes a sequential moderated mediation model in which disadvantaged employment status activates relative deprivation and hostile emotions toward standard employees (i.e., resentment, anger, and envy), and thereby spur interpersonal deviance. Further, this study posits that in-group identification moderates the relationship between relative deprivation and hostile emotions. Using multi-wave and multi-source data from a sample of 311 nonstandard employees in China, results showed that relative deprivation and hostile emotions towards standard employees sequentially mediate the effects of disadvantaged employment status on interpersonal deviance, and in-group identification enhances the positive effects of relative deprivation on interpersonal deviance through hostile emotions towards standard employees. These findings provide implications for theory and practice.

When employees feel envy: The role of psychological capital

Researchers have demonstrated an increasing awareness of two factors that are vital to the health of an organization—employee emotions and the relationship quality between an organization’s leader and its members. What remains unclear, however, is the following: When employees perceive the relationship quality to be low, does this impact employees’ emotional responses and, if so, what mechanism underlies such impact. This study aims to shed light on this by exploring the relationships between LMXSC, malicious and benign envy, and psychological capital (PsyCap). Results of a scenario-based experiment with U.S. hoteliers found that employees who perceive a less intimate relationship with a leader than that experienced by their peers (LMXSC) may be subject to malicious envy and benign envy. Results further suggest PsyCap plays an important role as a psychological mechanism that can alleviate hostile emotions and induce constructive ones. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on the study findings.

“The right to voice your opinions”: A historical case study in audience members’ emotional hostility to radio journalists

A focus on political consensus in the United States in the early 1950s has created a false sense of a period of national unity and of the press in that period as a trusted institution. This article uses listener hate mail to radio reporters during a divisive moment—President Harry Truman’s removal of General Douglas MacArthur from his command in the Korean War in April 1951—to identify a politically rancorous discourse, aimed at the press. This period of high emotion for Americans provides a case study in audience members’ sometimes hostile relationship with journalists and does so at an early moment in the creation of a truly mass national news audience. I analyze hundreds of unpublished, archival letters, from a time when public opinion polling was relatively new and still problematic, to rethink what our baseline measurement is for media trust and better contextualize claims about its trajectory. I find three tropes that are especially resonant in the present day and became more visible parts of the public discourse with the presidency of Donald Trump: anti-press attitudes, isolationism, and antisemitism.

The Long-Term Effects of Solitary Confinement From the Perspective of Inmates

This qualitative study analyzes the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners and the strategies used by them to cope with its difficulties. The findings indicate that solitary confinement is perceived as unfair and as intensifying hostile emotions and physical aggression, and that it is related to a range of long-term physiological, mental, and behavioral disorders. Three strategies are used to cope with the difficulties of solitary confinement: keeping to a ritualistic routine, a religious lifestyle, and physical exercise. We conclude that solitary confinement exacerbates the difficulties of detention and affects prisoners’ health and well-being for short and long terms.

Enriching problem-solving followed by instruction with explanatory accounts of emotions

ABSTRACT Background Problem-solving followed by instruction (PS-I) is a powerful design shown to transform students’ conceptual understanding and transfer. Within PS-I, no research has examined how moment-by-moment determinants of affective states impact the problem-solving phase and posttest performance. Methods I develop a multimodal learning analytics pipeline to (a) infer affective states in PS-I via observable facial movements, (b) understand how the incidence and temporal dynamics of these states vary based on manipulating the problem-solving context with scaffolding strategies (failure-driven, success-driven, none) in an experimental study (N = 132), and (c) assess the extent to which affective states might explain learning. Findings Students exposed to failure-driven scaffolding show exclusive dynamics comprising shame, a self-conscious emotion associated with metacognitive and cognitive benefits. Failure-driven scaffolding also creates opportunities for relatively greater emotional displays of knowledge emotions (e.g., surprise, interest). Hostile emotions differentially impact learning in PS-I, with the incidence of anger and disgust showing positive associations and the incidence of contempt showing a negative association. Finally, pleasurable emotions (e.g., happiness) positively associate with isomorphic posttest performance but negatively associate with non-isomorphic and transfer posttests. Contribution Overt changes in facial movements reflective of students experiencing negative emotional states act as catalysts for learning.

Negative media portrayals of immigrants increase ingroup favoritism and hostile physiological and emotional reactions

Anti-immigration rhetoric in the mass media has intensified over the last two decades, potentially decreasing prosocial behavior and increasing outgroup hostility toward immigrants, and fostering ingroup favoritism toward natives. We aim to understand the effects of negative and positive discourses about immigration on prosociality at different levels of societal ethnic diversity. In two studies (student sample, nationally representative sample), we conduct a survey and a 3X3 between-subject experiment, including money-incentivized behavioral games measuring prosociality. We manipulate media representations of immigrants and the probability of interacting with immigrants (the latter measuring diversity). Results show that negative news affects prosociality as a function of the probability of interacting with immigrants. Negative portrayals increase altruism and trustworthiness in ethnically homogenous settings relative to unknown and ethnically-mixed contexts. These results are stronger for right-wing and high-prejudice respondents. Moreover, negative media portrayals of immigrants increase the testosterone-cortisol ratio, which is a proxy for proneness to social aggression. Negative news also increases outgroup-related perceived health risk, outgroup anxiety and outgroup threat less in ethnically-homogeneous contexts. Overall, negative portrayals of immigrants generate physiological and emotional hostility toward the outgroup, and ingroup favoritism in economic transactions, possibly determining efficiency losses in ethnically-diverse markets, relative to ethnically-homogeneous markets.

Virtual reality-based conflict resolution: The impact of immersive 360° video on changing view points and moral judgment in the context of violent intergroup conflict

We present an experimental study conducted in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that examined the effect of immersive 360° video on inducing a more critical perception of the ingroup’s actions in the conflict. An immersive experience of a simulated conflict scenario filmed from the outgroup’s point of view led to the judgment of the ingroup actors’ behavior as less moral and less justified compared to watching the same scenario as a two-dimensional video. This effect was not mediated through increased outgroup perspective-taking and empathy but through higher levels of hostile emotions toward the ingroup actors, which in turn were influenced by an increased sense of presence and engagement in the immersive experience. These findings provide initial evidence for the still widely unexplored potential of virtual reality as a new method for conflict resolution.

Is Anger a Hostile Emotion?

In this article I argue that characterizations of anger as a hostile emotion may be mistaken. My project is empirically informed and is partly descriptive, partly diagnostic. It is descriptive in that I am concerned with what anger is, and how it tends to manifest, rather than with what anger should be or how moral anger is manifested. The orthodox view on anger takes it to be, descriptively, an emotion that aims for retribution. This view fits well with anger being a hostile emotion, as retribution is punitive. I will argue that a different view of anger deserves our attention. On this alternative view, anger aims for recognition of harms done, rather than for the punishment of those who have committed them. I argue that we have reason to favour a strong view that excludes retribution from anger’s main aims. In addition, I offer a diagnosis of the reasons that led the retributive view of anger to become, and remain, orthodoxy. This diagnosis provides indirect reason to give my descriptive proposal serious consideration, for it highlights that the orthodox view has dominated folk and philosophical conceptions of anger for reasons that do not speak in favour of the view’s veracity. The view that anger is a hostile emotion will therefore emerge as in need of serious scrutiny.

Hostile emotions: An exploratory study of far-right online commenters and their emotional connection to traditional and alternative news media

In this article, we explore media use through the perspective of emotions. We specifically focus on a contested group of media users, namely those who engage in uncivil online behaviour and have had one or several comments deleted by moderators due to xenophobic and racist content. Our point of departure is that the informants represent a particularly engaged yet controversial audience. Based on theoretical perspectives on ‘hostile emotions’ like anger and fear and how the news media function as ‘emotional regimes’, we explore how the informants talk about their worldview and how it affects their media choices. We argue that political fear constitutes a powerful part of the informants’ narratives, which again influences their media use. Even though they are highly sceptical and suspicious, the participants in the study seek information from a wide selection of traditional and alternative sources where their worldview is both contested and confirmed. Furthermore, the strong fear expressed by informants constitute an important element of the anger they feel towards the established news media. This particular anger is structured around the notion of objective reporting that they consider highly provocative, both factually and emotionally, as it does not match how they experience the world around them.

Pleasant hostility: Disidentified consumers' emotional and behavioral reactions to a brand crisis

AbstractThis research explores how consumers react in a crisis situation that happens to a brand with which they disidentify. Consumer–brand disidentification (CBD) is a state of self‐categorization regarding the separation from and rejection of a brand. It predestines individuals to move away from and go against the misbehaving company because the failure of the object of disidentification provides a perfect opportunity for them to validate their identity. We argue that disidentification is closely related not only to a person's propensity to behave but also to feel in a specific way. Surveys data were collected in the United States and Germany to answer the research question regarding the role of emotions in the relationship between CBD and consumers' intention to demonstrate brand‐opposition behavior. Volkswagen, which experienced a crisis related to its manipulation of emission tests, served as the brand stimulus. The results show that CBD can stimulate hostile emotions and schadenfreude, which can function as mediators of the influence of disidentification on brand opposition (negative word‐of‐mouth, brand avoidance, punishing the brand). This research contributes to the growing body of research on the “dark side” of consumer‐brand relationships and its perils for brands. It also enhances understanding of the role of emotions in (dis)identification and social identity research and widens the scholarship on emotions in crises. Managerial implications include to thoroughly consider trade‐offs of creating a strong and unique brand that may give rise to disidentification; monitoring negative voices, especially online; and differentiating disidentified consumers from other types of opposing stakeholders.

Determining our destiny: Do restrictions to collective autonomy fuel collective action?

Groups experience collective autonomy restriction whenever they perceive that other groups attempt to limit the freedom of their group to determine and express its own identity. We argue that collective autonomy restriction motivates groups (both structurally advantaged and disadvantaged) to improve their power position within the social hierarchy. Four studies spanning real-world (Studies 1 and 2) and lab-based (Studies 3 and 4) intergroup contexts supported these ideas. In Study 1 (N = 311), Black Americans' (a relatively disadvantaged group) experience of collective autonomy restriction was associated with greater support for collective action, and less system justification. In Study 2, we replicated these findings with another sample of Black Americans (N = 292). We also found that collective autonomy restriction was positively associated with White Americans' (a relatively advantaged group, N = 294) support for collective action and ideologies that bolster White's dominant position. In Study 3 (N = 387, 97 groups), groups that were susceptible to being controlled by a high-power group (i.e., were of low structural power) desired group power more when their collective autonomy was restricted (vs. supported). In Study 4 (N = 803, 257 groups) experiencing collective autonomy restriction (vs. support) increased low-power group members' support of collective action, decreased system justification, and evoked hostile emotions, both when groups were and were not materially exploited (by being tasked with more than their fair share of work). Across studies, we differentiate collective autonomy restriction from structural group power, other forms of injustice, group agency, and group identification. These findings indicate that collective autonomy restriction uniquely motivates collective behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Hostile Emotions in News Comments: A Cross-National Analysis of Facebook Discussions

Recent work demonstrates that hostile emotions can contribute to a strong polarization of political discussion on social media. However, little is known regarding the extent to which media organizations and media systems trigger hostile emotions. We content-analyzed comments on Facebook pages from six news organizations ( N = 1,800) based in the United States and Germany. Our results indicate that German news organizations’ Facebook comments are more balanced, containing lower levels of hostile emotions. Such emotions are particularly prevalent in the polarized information environment of the United States—in both news posts and comments. Moreover, alternative right-wing media outlets in both countries provoke significantly higher levels of hostile emotions, thus limiting deliberative discussions. Our results demonstrate that the application of technology—such as the use of comment sections—has different implications depending on cultural and social contexts.

Hostile emotions and the problem of their collectivity

The paper discusses the nature of negative (hostile) emotions and their role in the cultural, i.e. the ethical world of life. A distinction is made between positive and negative emotions on the basis of their orientation towards the outside world and towards the bearer of emotional states. It is claimed that the bearer of negative emotions, unlike positive ones, becomes, in fact, their hostage over time, and that he is intentionally turned towards himself as an object instead of towards other people. I also claimed that this kind of intentionality is ?empty?, because the object of intention exists only in the memory of the subject of intention. In the end, I presented arguments in favor of the existence of collective hostile emotions that can have a positive meaning in a certain social context, which is characterized by obvious social inequality and injustice.

Historycy piszą o współczesności. Rok niebezpiecznego zwrotu (2010) w ujęciu Georges’a Minka i Timothy’ego Snydera

The author analyses the ways of depicting contemporary times in two monographs written by renown scholars: La Pologne au coeur de l’Europe. De 1914 à aujourd’hui, histoire politique et conflits de mémoire (Poland at the heart of Europe. From 1914 to the present day. Political history and conflicts of memory) and The Road to Unfreedom. Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder. A particularly important date here is 2010, the year of the Smolensk air disaster, which in Poland gave rise to many false myths and manipulations of facts (described by both authors). Snyder chooses this year as a symbolic turning point within the global process of shifting from the mindset of “inevitability” towards the mindset of “eternity”. The second main characteristic of this way of thinking and acting is that truth and facts are replaced in the public discourse with fake news, fabrications, creating social divisions and stirring hostile emotions.