0.5

0.55

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0.65

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Emotion Conditions

Effect of Emotion on Accuracy

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Emotion Condition

Effect of Emotion on Confidence

We conducted a one-way ANOVA examining the effects of

emotion condition on accuracy, F(1, 64) = 0.002, p = .965

Does Anger Make You More Confident?

Jamie Ember, Nabilah Kabir, Pranab Karki, Angela Reiss, and Michael Greenstein

Psychology Department, Wesleyan University, Middletown CT

• Angry participants had higher confidence than neutral participants.

• There was an increase in confidence despite no differences in

accuracy between the two conditions.

• This finding supports the literature that emotional states lead to higher

levels of certainty even though memories are not enhanced.

• Future directions include:

• Assessing whether positive arousal states would similarly affect

memory and confidence.

• Examining the effect of longer delays between the three phases.

• Examining the effect of anger inductions at varying points in the

experimental design.

• An emotion check (i.e. self-report) at the start of the experiment to

control for pre-existing moods of participants.

References and Acknowledgements

Conclusions and Future Directions

Background

• Presenting misleading information following an event can cause reports

of that misinformation (Loftus & Hoffman, 1989).

• Negative emotional memories are remembered more confidently but not

necessarily more accurately than neutral memories (Talarico & Rubin,

2003).

• People in negative moods are less likely to show false memory than

people in positive or neutral moods (Storbeck & Clore, 2005).

• Corson & Verrier (2007) found that people experiencing anger or

happiness were more susceptible to false memory in the DRM paradigm.

• Participants can be highly confident even when being misled. In addition,

misinformation does not impair memory for original event information

(Tversky & Tuchin, 1989).

• Using a 3-phase misinformation paradigm (i.e. showed video clip, were

misinformed, took source test), Greenstein (2014) found that anger led

to increased misinformation acceptance and increased confidence (when

controlling for self efficacy).

Method

PARTICIPANTS

• 66 Wesleyan University students (18-25) were randomly assigned to one

of two emotion conditions.

DESIGN

• Two between-subject factors

• Emotional state (anger or neutral)

• Misinformation narrative version (collapsed across versions for

analysis)

• Within-subject variable

• Item type during test

• Misinformation, film information, or alternative information

PROCEDURE

• Presented with intro to film clip

• Shown short film clip from Defending Your Life

• Given 8 minute emotion inductions

• Anger or neutral

• Given misinformation narrative

• Version 1 or version 2

• Given second emotion induction

• Final test:

• Yes/No recognition of all three item types

Experiment Results

Hypotheses

• This experiment examined whether angry participants are more

susceptible to misinformation and whether this misinformation

overwrites access to original information.

• Expanding on Greenstein (2014), we hypothesized that anger leads to

higher acceptance of misinformation.

• Anger leads to an increase in participants’ confidence in their memory

regardless of accuracy.

• Anger leads to an inability to access original information.

Experiment Results

• We conducted ANOVAs examining the effects of emotion on

confidence and accuracy using an alpha level of .05

• We conducted an independent samples t-test examining the effects of

emotion on misinformation susceptibility using an alpha level of .05

• We found that there was no effect of emotion on memory accuracy.

Angry and neutral participants were equally accurate.

• We found that those in the anger condition had higher confidence in

their answers than those in the neutral condition.

• This was found when we controlled for self efficacy through the

General Self Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer et al., 1997), in order to

eliminate the negative effects of the emotion induction on

confidence.

• We found that there was no effect of emotion on misinformation

susceptibility.

Bless, H., Schwarz, N., Clore, G.L., Golisano, V., & Rabe, C. (1996). Mood and the use of

scripts: Does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 71 (4), 665- 679.

Corson, Y., & Verrier, N. (2007). Emotions and false memories – Valence or arousal?

Psychological Science, 18(3), 208-211.

Greenstein, M.J. (2014). The effect of anger on acceptance of false information. Eastern

Psychological Association 85th

Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts.

Loftus, E.F., & Hoffman, H.G. (1989). Misinformation and Memory: The Creation of New

Memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 1989, Vol. 188. No. 1, 100-

104.

Talarico, J.M, & Rubin, D.C. (2003). Confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb

memories. Psychological Science, 14(5), 455-461. doi 10.1111/1467-9280.02453

Tversky, B., & Tuchin, M. (1989). A reconciliation of the evidence on eyewitness testimony:

Comments on McCloskey and Zaragoza.

Schwarzer, R., Bäßler, J., Kwiatek, P., Schröder, K., & Zhang, J. X. (1997). The Assessment of

Optimistic Self-beliefs: Comparison of the German, Spanish, and Chinese Versions of

the General Self-efficacy Scale. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 46(1),

69-88. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01096.x

Storbeck, J., & Clore, G.L. (2005). With sadness comes accuracy; With happiness, false

memory – Mood and the false memory effect. Psychological Science, 16(10),

785-791.

• Wesleyan University provided support for this work.

We conducted an ANCOVA (controlling for self-efficacy)

examining the effects of emotion on confidence F(1, 64) =

6.578, p = .013

We conducted an independent samples t-test examining

misinformation susceptibility among participants in the

angry and neutral condition, t(64) = .38, p = .706

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

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0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

Angry: Neutral:

Mis

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Emotion Condition

Effect of Emotion on Misinformation Susceptibility