Anger and Self-Control: How the Need to Dominate Can Lead to Better Choices

Abstract

Prior research has shown that anger can predispose consumers to exert poor self-control by making them want to feel better (i.e., increasing a hedonic need for mood repair), less likely to consider risks of gratifying, and more likely to seek rewards (i.e., increasing approach motivation). However, anger also activates a need to be dominant. Consequently, across five experiments, the authors show that policy makers can motivate angry consumers to exert more self-control by emphasizing the dominance benefits of the more virtuous option in a self-control dilemma. For instance, angry consumers are more likely to exercise or eat healthily when these behaviors are associated with becoming physically stronger rather than preventing illness. The authors test these effects across various domains of self-control, such as eating healthily, exercising, saving money, and studying, and with both binary choices between virtuous and gratifying options and choices on a spectrum in which consumers choose virtuous and gratifying options in varying proportions. However, the authors find these effects occur only when angry consumers expect dominance benefits to accrue in the near but not distant future.