Emotional intractability: gender, anger, aggression and rumination in conflict

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how people's gender‐role identities (self‐identified masculinity and femininity) affect their perceptions of the emotional role of the humiliated victim in conflicts (and the norms surrounding the role), and how these perceptions affect the negativity and aggressiveness of their responses and the degree to which they ruminate over conflict and remain hostile over time.Design/methodology/approach – This paper builds on literature on humiliation, aggression, gender, and rumination and presents a correlational scenario study with 96 male graduate students from a large Northeastern University.Findings – Males with high‐masculine gender‐role identities are more likely to perceive the social norms surrounding a humiliating conflictual encounter as privileging aggression, and to report intentions to act accordingly, than males with high‐feminine gender‐role identities. Furthermore, participants are more likely to ruminate about the conflict, and therefore mai...

[1]  R. Harré.  The Social Construction of Mind , 1986 .

[2]  A. Hochschild.  Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure , 1979, American Journal of Sociology.

[3]  E. Lindner.  Healing the Cycles of Humiliation: How to Attend to the Emotional Aspects of "Unsolvable" Conflicts and the Use of "Humiliation Entrepreneurship" , 2002 .

[4]  Emotionality across Cultures : Self-Reported Emotional Experiences as Conceptualizations of Self , 2002 .

[5]  Ira J. Roseman,et al.  Phenomenology , Behaviors , and Goals Differentiate Discrete Emotions , 2004 .

[6]  Avishai Margalit,et al.  The Ethics of Memory , 2002 .

[7]  Michael E. McCullough,et al.  Vengefulness: Relationships with Forgiveness, Rumination, Well-Being, and the Big Five , 2001 .

[8]  K. Deaux.  Sex and Gender , 2002 .

[9]  E. Lindner.  Humiliation and human rights: Mapping a minefield , 2001 .

[10]  J. Yuille,et al.  A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. , 1986, The Journal of applied psychology.

[11]  V. Konečni.  Self-Arousal, Dissipation of Anger, and Aggression , 1974 .

[12]  Brian F. Bowdle,et al.  Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: an "experimental ethnography". , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  Elizabeth F. Loftus,et al.  Remembering emotional events: the fate of detailed information , 1991 .

[14]  J. Averill.  The Emotions: An Integrative Approach , 1997 .

[15]  D. Bar-Tal,et al.  The dominance of fear over hope in the life of individuals and collectives , 2006 .

[16]  E. Lindner.  Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict , 2006 .

[17]  Inger Skjelsbæk.  The Role of Gender in South Asian Conflict Zones , 2003 .

[18]  Rom Harré,et al.  The Social construction of emotions , 1986 .

[19]  Mark Snyder,et al.  Personality and social behavior , 1985 .

[20]  Dov Cohen,et al.  Self-Protection and the Culture of Honor: Explaining Southern Violence , 1994 .

[21]  P. Thoits.  Emotion Norms, Emotion Work, and Social Order , 2004 .

[22]  L. Hartling,et al.  Humiliation: Assessing the Impact of Derision, Degradation, and Debasement , 1999, Journal of Primary Prevention.

[23]  Shinobu Kitayama,et al.  The cultural construction of self and emotion: Implications for social behavior. , 1994 .

[24]  Roy F. Baumeister,et al.  Self-esteem and responses to success and failure: Subsequent performance and intrinsic motivation , 1985 .

[25]  S. Bem.  The measurement of psychological androgyny. , 1974, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[26]  Elizabeth F. Loftus,et al.  Some characteristics of people’s traumatic memories , 1990 .

[27]  S. Christianson.  The relationship between induced emotional arousal and amnesia. , 1984, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[28]  J. H. van Wyk,et al.  Long Walk to Freedom. The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. , 1995 .

[29]  William C. Pedersen,et al.  Chewing on it can chew you up: effects of rumination on triggered displaced aggression. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[30]  J. D. Brown,et al.  The thrill of victory, the complexity of defeat: self-esteem and people's emotional reactions to success and failure. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[31]  John P. Robinson,et al.  Measures Of Personality And Social Psychological Attitudes , 1991 .

[32]  Elizabeth F. Loftus,et al.  Memory for traumatic events , 1987 .

[33]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  R. Bell,et al.  Personality and aggression: The Dissipation–Rumination Scale. , 1997 .

[35]  Barbara Bray,et al.  In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong , 1998 .

[36]  S. Lyubomirsky,et al.  Effects of self-focused rumination on negative thinking and interpersonal problem solving. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[37]  S. Nolen-Hoeksema,et al.  Regulating responses to anger: effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[38]  J. Tangney,et al.  Shame and Guilt , 2002 .

[39]  J. Singer,et al.  The Integrative Function of Narrative Processing: Autobiographical Memory, Self-Defining Memories, and the Life Story of Identity , 2004 .

[40]  Katharina G. Kugler,et al.  The Privilege of Humiliation: The Effects of Social Roles and Norms on Immediate and Prolonged Aggression in Conflict , 2007 .

[41]  Geoffrey R. Loftus,et al.  Eye fixations and memory for emotional events. , 1991 .

[42]  R. Eisler,et al.  Masculine Gender Role Stress , 1996 .

[43]  H. Lewis.  Shame and guilt in neurosis. , 1971, Psychoanalytic review.

[44]  J. Yuille,et al.  Analysis of the statements of victims, witnesses and suspects. , 1989 .

[45]  W. Barnett Pearce,et al.  Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide , 1997 .

[46]  Gian Vittorio Caprara,et al.  Indicators of aggression: The dissipation-rumination scale , 1986 .

[47]  E. Lenney,et al.  CHAPTER 11 – Sex Roles: The Measurement of Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny , 1991 .

[48]  B. Bushman.  Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding , 2002 .

[49]  R. Eisler,et al.  Masculine Gender-Role Stress, Anger, and Male Intimate Abusiveness: Implications for Men's Relationships , 2000 .

[50]  J. Averill,et al.  Studies on anger and aggression. Implications for theories of emotion. , 1983, The American psychologist.

[51]  D. C. Klein.  The humiliation dynamic: An overview , 1991, Journal of Primary Prevention.