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Being angry for different reasons: the role of personality in distributive justice
Author(s) -
Stouten Jeroen,
Kuppens Peter,
Decoster Stijn
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12005
Subject(s) - psychology , agreeableness , anger , social psychology , distributive justice , feeling , neuroticism , personality , economic justice , perception , big five personality traits , political science , neuroscience , law , extraversion and introversion
The present research examines personality predictors of anger in response to unfavorable and favorable outcomes with regard to violations of the distributive justice principle of equality. Two studies showed that feelings of anger in response to equality violations were related to neuroticism and agreeableness, albeit for different reasons. Depending on whether the equality violation was favorable or not, anger could be predicted by either feelings of threat or guilt for neuroticism and perceptions of responsibility for agreeableness. These findings add to the literature on boundary conditions of justice and reveal how core personality dimensions contribute to emotional reactions in distributively unjust situations, even if the outcome is personally favorable.