Citation

Owuamalam CK, Rubin M. Scand. J. Psychol. 2017; 58(5): 458-467.

Affiliation

The University of Newcastle, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Scandinavian Psychological Associations, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sjop.12388

PMID

28901575

Abstract

Owuamalam, Weerabangsa, Karunagharan and Rubin found that Malaysians associate people in low status groups with anger more than their higher status counterparts: the hunchback heuristic. But is this belief accurate? Here, we propose the alternative possibility that members of low-status groups might deliberately suppress anger to counter this stigma, while members of high-status groups might disinhibit their anger to assert their superiority. To test these propositions, we manipulated undergraduate students' relative group status by leading them to believe that provocative comments about their undergraduate social identity came from a professor (low-status condition) or a junior foundation year student (high-status condition). Using eye-tracking, we then measured their gaze durations on the comments, which we used as a physiological signal of anger: dwelling (Experiment 1).

RESULTS revealed that dwelling was significantly greater in the high-status condition than in the low-status condition. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated this pattern using a self-report method and found that the suppression-disinhibition effect occurred only when reputational concerns were strong.

© 2017 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Hunchback heuristic; anger; eye-tracking; social identity and reputational concerns; stereotypes