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ANGER ONLY HELPED WHEN THE TASK WAS HARD
You Have Probably Been Told To Calm Down Before Something Difficult
Anger Reads As The Thing That Ruins Performance
Researchers Tested Whether It Does Anything Useful
They Found A Gain That Shows Up Under One Condition
The Task Has To Be Hard Enough To Block The Goal
A Texas A&M Lab Designed The Experiments To Test That
The Same Effort Also Raised Cheating When The Chance Appeared
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OKAY BACK FROM THE RESEARCH LIBRARY 📚
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WHAT THE EXPERIMENTS DID 🔬
Heather Lench And Her Team Ran Seven Studies At Texas A&M
Each Study Set A Goal And Measured Whether People Reached It
Participants Saw Images Chosen To Produce One Emotion First
Those Images Came From A Set Used Across The Field
Some Anger Images Were Insults To The University Football Team
The Cover Story Called Them A Memory Task For Later
Participants Were Not Told The Experiment Was About Anger
Most Studies Compared The Angry Group To A Neutral Group
Sadness And Amusement And Desire Were Included For Contrast
Study 1 Gave People 20 Minutes To Unjumble Words
It Also Contained An Easy Set And An Impossible Set
Pilot Testing Had Fixed The Hard Set So Half Of Students Solved It
Study 2 Offered Prizes For Every Puzzle A Participant Solved
The Puzzles Could Not Be Finished In The Time Allowed
Participants Marked Their Own Score While The Experimenter Left
Study 3 Used Two Skiing Games On A Balance Board
One Game Punished Every Missed Flag And The Other Rewarded Distance
Study 4 Measured How Fast People Responded
Voters In Two Contentious Presidential Elections Came Next
Study 6 Closed With A Threat To People's Money
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WHAT THEY FOUND AND WHERE IT STOPS 🎯
Angry Participants Solved More Of The Difficult Anagrams
They Also Spent Longer On That Set
The Same Study Included Easy Anagrams Too
On The Easy Set The Groups Were Indistinguishable
That Contrast Is The Finding The Whole Paper Rests On
The Skiing Games Showed The Same Split
Anger Only Helped On The Harder Game
Performance On The Easier Game Did Not Move
Study 4 Found Angry Participants Responding Faster
They Were Also More Likely To Ask For Another Attempt
Far Fewer Wanted To Repeat The Blocks Where They Had Succeeded
Turnout Was Higher Among The Angrier Respondents
Anger Predicted Voting In Both Elections The Team Studied
The Gain Was Not Evident When The Goal Was Easy
Easy Goals Do Not Present The Obstacle Anger Responds To
The Authors Describe Anger As A Response To Blocked Goals
Effort Rises When An Obstacle Blocks The Goal
An Easy Task Puts No Obstacle There
The Result Held Against Sadness And Amusement And Desire
Some Comparisons Came Close Without Separating Cleanly
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WHAT IT COSTS 💔
Study 2 Set Up A Situation Where Cheating Was Possible
Participants Faced A Series Of 19 Puzzles They Could Not Finish
Every Correct Puzzle Earned A Piece Of University Memorabilia
The Average Participant Solved 36% Of Them
Performance On The Task Did Not Differ By Emotion Group
The Experimenter Then Left The Room And Asked For A Self Report
A Hidden Number On Each Sheet Let The Team Check The Claim Later
Overall 38% Of Participants Inflated Their Own Count
In The Angry Group That Figure Was 57%
The Neutral Group Came In At 27%
Sadness And Desire Both Came In Below The Angry Group
Amusement Reached 40% Without Separating From Anger Statistically
Self Reported Anger Predicted Cheating Across Every Condition
The Cheating Was Not A Failure To Perform The Task
What Changed Was Only What Participants Were Willing To Claim
Anger Raised Effort Toward The Goal Whatever The Goal Was
The Same Effort That Solved Hard Anagrams Also Took Unearned Prizes
Lench And Her Colleagues Measured Both Outcomes In One Study
