Clear heads are cool heads: Emotional clarity and the down-regulation of antisocial affect

Abstract

Emotional clarity results in reduced anger, but it is important to better understand why this is true. Drawing upon existing cybernetic models of affect regulation, the authors propose that affect down-regulation operations are crucial to understanding the clarity/anger relationship. A two study, multi-method investigation provided support for these hypotheses. Study 1 used dispositional measures of emotional clarity, anger control, and trait anger, and found that anger control mediated the relationship between clarity and reduced anger. Study 2 found that individuals high in emotional clarity were successful in correcting for the influence of aggressive primes on subsequent evaluations. Importantly, though, disrupting these affect regulation operations through the imposition of cognitive load left emotionally clear individuals as susceptible to antisocial affect priming as emotionally unclear individuals. In total, the studies suggest that emotional clarity is closely associated with the effortful down-regulation of antisocial affect.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from NIMH (068241) and NSF/EPSCoR.

Notes

¹Aggressive words were: abandon, abduct, aggravate, antagonise, argue, assault, attack, betray, blackmail, bribe, choke, deceive, degrade, demean, harm, harass, hit, hurt, injure, kick, kill, lie, maim, maul, molest, murder, mutilate, oppress, persecute, provoke, pummel, punch, rape, rob, sabotage, shoot, shove, slander, slash, smash, stab, steal, strike, suffocate, terrify, terrorise, threaten, torment, torture, and vandalise. Neutral control words were: acknowledge, address, answer, ask, assign, call, clarify, comment, conduct, confer, consult, contact, converse, convey, convince, declare, delegate, disclose, emphasise, explain, express, inform, initiate, interact, interview, introduce, lecture, manage, notice, notify, observe, oversee, persuade, proclaim, propose, recite, recommend, reiterate, repeat, reply, respond, sell, show, speak, suggest, supervise, talk, tell, watch, and write.

²Letter strings used to impose high cognitive load were: APCFW, GEBQH, HCXJT, JFOGB, NMXFK, UQXTL, TRLTZ, VKQTP, YVJCW, and ZMWHD. Letter strings used to impose low cognitive load were: AAAAA, GGGGG, HHHHH, JJJJJ, NNNNN, UUUUU, TTTTT, VVVVV, YYYYY, and ZZZZZ.

³Such secondary analyses were consistent with the primary analyses, and indicated that clarity interacts with prime type in the low-load condition, F(1, 33) = 7.78, p<.01, but not in the high-load condition, F<1. Moreover, low-clarity participants exhibited an antisocial priming effect under low load, F(1, 33) = 21.61, p<.0001, but high-clarity participants did not show a priming effect under the same conditions, F<1.