Differentiating and Resentment: Implications for and Psychological Distress

Author Stoertebecker, Rhonda Maria

Published 2016

Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate)

School School of Applied Psychology

DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2009

Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.

Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367798

Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Differentiating Anger and Resentment: Implications for Forgiveness and

Psychological Distress

Rhonda Maria Stoertebecker

BPsych(Hons)

School of Applied Psychology

Faculty of Health

Griffith University

Dissertation Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology

January 2016

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Abstract

In recent years, forgiveness interventions have been widely and effectively used to help people exposed to a diverse array of unpleasant, traumatic experiences.

Theoretical underpinnings of these interventions emphasise the distinction between anger and resentment and a primary goal of treatment is the relinquishing of long- lasting, lingering of resentment. Empirical evidence of distinctions between anger and resentment is sparse, however. The present research was designed to redress this situation by exploring the phenomenological characteristics of anger and resentment. Across a series of three studies, participants recalled autobiographical memories of personal, real-life anger and resentment experiences and the two were compared on several components; namely, eliciting situations, subjective feelings, emotivational goals, action tendencies or urges, sensations, cognitions, and behaviours.

Results revealed both commonalities and differences between anger and resentment. Both emotions are frequently elicited in situations of unfair or unjust treatment but anger is more likely to occur in situations involving moral transgressions, incompetence and goal obstructions, whereas resentment is more likely in situations involving and and overlooked or rejected.

Although anger and resentment frequently occur together, resentment is more often accompanied by anger than anger is accompanied by resentment. Furthermore, less anger than resentment is reported during a resentment experience and less resentment than anger during an anger experience, indicating that the two emotions can be distinguished. This is further supported by the finding that some 80% of participants iii report that they consider anger and resentment to be different emotions. Subjectively, anger and resentment are both accompanied by high levels of hurt, , and but feelings of envy and jealousy are significantly more intense during resentment experiences. Resentment is an intense negative emotion, even more intense in overall than anger both at the time the event happened and now, at the present time. This, together with the finding that feelings of resentment last substantially longer than feelings of anger highlights the particularly detrimental nature of resentment.

Anger appears to belong to the attack and coercion emotion family far more than does resentment. When angry, people are more likely to report sensations of trembling and urges to yell and throw things. Furthermore, they are more likely to blame others for the event and to act on the urge to yell and throw things. Anger is also more likely than resentment to involve goals that force change in an undesired outcome (coercion) for the purpose of reconciliation with the transgressor. In contrast, during resentment experiences people feel less in control and they also feel more diminished and more worthless than those describing anger events. Their urge is to disappear and they are actually more likely to reduce contact with the other person. Resentment can thus be seen as belonging to the exclusion-emotion family.

Interestingly, is also regarded as belonging to the exclusion-emotion family (Fischer & Roseman, 2007). In contempt, however, the goal is to exclude another person appraised as unworthy or inferior, whereas in resentment it is the self who is often appraised as unworthy and inferior. In resentment, the exclusion may thus be conceptualised as self- exclusion rather than exclusion of the other. iv

In brief, it is clear that anger and resentment as emotions share similarities but also have distinct features. The final question addressed in this research was whether anger and resentment have differential consequences for the well-being of individuals. To address this question, trait measures of anger and resentment were used. Results revealed that both anger and resentment had adverse effects on physical, social and psychological well-being, with resentment having somewhat greater detrimental effects than anger.

Clearly, an increased understanding of the prototypical features of resentment and anger, and the differences between them, is important, both for emotion science and for interventions designed to reduce the harmful effects of these two emotions.

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Declaration of Originality

For the thesis titled

Differentiating Anger and Resentment: Implications for Forgiveness and

Psychological Distress

This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.

Signed

Rhonda Stoertebecker

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Acknowledgements

Foremost, I would like to express my deepest to my principal supervisor, Dr Penelope Davis. Her genuine concern, for ideas and encouragement has contributed to the submission of this thesis. It has been a privilege to work under her supervision and experience her dedication to the art and science of research. I truly enjoyed the process through which the ideas presented in this thesis emerged. Namely, the dedication of her valuable time to fruitful supervision sessions discussing ideas and concepts that kept my for the topic alive. I would also like to thank my associate professor Dr Melanie Zimmer-Gembeck for her willingness to answer questions and her guidance in statistical matters. To Dr

Elizabeth Conlon, thank you for your emotional support during my candidature, in particular, the support you gave during the physical decline and loss of my mother early on, and more recently, my father.

To my partner Leisa, I would like to thank you for your patience and loving support. You have been by my side for 20 years, encouraging me, putting up with me, and growing with me. I could not have done it without you. I would also like to thank my friends Leanne, Kely, Julie, Angela, Jan, Robyn, Rebecca, Jill, Darrel, Molly,

Brad and Shannon. You were there to listen, encourage, and support; all in your own unique ways. Some of you I have known longer, and some not so long; nevertheless, your friendship, laughter and contributions to my life have been immense and valued.

Thanks also go out to all wine club members (you know who you are), some of whose passion for wine has inspired my in wine and a strong urge to learn more about this complex, exquisite ancient beverage. v ii

Thanks to Paul and Wendy Rushton for your understanding and willingness to support much needed time off for personal and academic reasons, especially during the past six stressful months.

I would also like to thank the participants of this study for their honesty and willingness to share their stories. Without them this research would not exist.

Finally, thank you to my mother and father for their belief in me. I am forever indebted to them for the sacrifices they made to educate me and provide me with opportunities they were not so fortunate to have. I dedicate this thesis to them. Rest in

Peace.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Declaration of Originality ...... v Acknowledgements ...... vi Table of Contents ...... viii List of Figures ...... xiv List of Tables ...... xv CHAPTER 1 ...... 1 1.1 Introduction ...... 1 1.2 Approaches to understanding emotions ...... 2 1.2.1 Biological Approaches...... 3 1.2.2 Prototype and Appraisal approaches for understanding emotion...... 9 1.3 The Gap ...... 14 1.4 Emotion Differentiation ...... 16 1.4.1 Why emotion differentiation is important...... 16 1.4.2 Emotion differentiation research...... 20 1.5 Anger and Resentment Differentiations ...... 29 1.6 Empirical Evidence for Distinction ...... 34 CHAPTER 2 ...... 41 2.1 Study 1 Introduction...... 41 2.2 Aims ...... 45 2.3 Hypotheses ...... 45 2.4 Method ...... 46 2.4.1 Participants...... 46 2.4.2 Materials...... 46 2.4.2.1 Questionnaire...... 46 2.4.3 Procedure...... 47 2.5 Results ...... 49 2.5.1 Multivariate analyses...... 49 2.5.1.1 Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) assumptions...... 49 2.5.1.2 MANOVA analyses...... 50 ix

2.5.1.3 Univariate repeated measure ANOVAs...... 51 2.5.2 Differences in negative affectivity and when the event happened...... 55 2.5.2.1 Assumptions of the dependent t-test...... 55 2.5.2.2 Dependent t-test analyses...... 55 2.6 Discussion ...... 56 CHAPTER 3 ...... 63 3.1 Study 2 Introduction...... 63 3.1.1 Review of Emotion Differentiation Research ...... 66 3.1.1.1 Anger and contempt...... 66 3.1.1.2 and ...... 68 3.1.1.3 Envy and jealousy...... 72 3.1.1.4 Benign envy, malicious envy, and resentment...... 73 3.1.1.5 , hate, anger and jealousy...... 75 3.1.2 The present research...... 78 3.2 Aims ...... 81 3.3 Hypotheses ...... 81 3.4 Method ...... 82 3.4.1 Participants...... 82 3.4.2 Procedure...... 84 3.4.3 Materials...... 85 3.4.3.1 Questionnaire...... 85 3.5 Results ...... 87 3.5.1 Data cleaning and screening...... 87 3.5.1.1 Missing data...... 88 3.5.1.2 Normality...... 88 3.5.1.3 MANOVA assumptions...... 89 3.5.1.4 Assumptions of the independent t-test...... 90 3.5.2 Differences in emotion patterns ...... 90 3.5.2.1 MANOVA...... 90 3.5.3 Length of emotion experience...... 95 3.5.4 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals and emotivational goals...... 96 x

3.5.4.1 Cognitive appraisals...... 96 3.5.4.2 Other appraisals and emotivational goals...... 97 3.5.5 Emotion components...... 99 3.5.5.1 Eliciting events...... 99 3.5.5.1.1 Chi square analysis...... 100 3.5.5.2 Sensations...... 103 3.5.5.2.1 Chi square analysis...... 103 3.5.5.3 Urges...... 105 3.5.5.3.1 Chi square analysis...... 106 3.5.5.4 Behaviour...... 108 3.5.5.4.1 Chi square analysis...... 108 3.6 Discussion ...... 110 3.6.1 Replication of findings from Study 1 and 2 and new findings...... 110 3.6.1.1 Patterns of emotions...... 111 3.6.1.2 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals, emotivational goals...... 114 3.6.1.3 Content analysis...... 116 3.6.1.3.1 Eliciting events...... 116 3.6.1.3.2 Sensations...... 118 3.6.1.3.3 Urges or action tendencies...... 119 3.6.1.3.4 Behaviours...... 120 3.6.1.3.5 Summary ...... 120 CHAPTER 4 ...... 122 4.1 Study 3 Introduction...... 122 4.1.1 Effects of anger...... 122 4.1.2 The present research...... 127 4.2 Aims ...... 128 4.3 Hypotheses ...... 129 4.4 Method ...... 130 4.4.1 Participants...... 130 4.4.2 Procedure...... 132 4.4.3 Materials...... 132 xi

4.4.3.1 Emotion questionnaire...... 132 4.4.3.2 The Aggression questionnaire – Anger subscale ...... 134 4.4.3.3 Buss-Durkee Inventory – Resentment subscale...... 135 4.4.3.4 Physical, social and mental health functioning...... 136 4.5 Results ...... 138 4.5.1 Data cleaning and screening...... 138 4.5.1.1 Missing data...... 138 4.5.1.2 Normality...... 139 4.5.1.3 MANOVA assumptions...... 139 4.5.1.4 Regression assumptions...... 140 4.5.1.5 Assumptions of the independent t-test...... 141 4.5.1.6 Factor analysis of the resentment subscale...... 141 4.5.2 Emotion patterns...... 142 4.5.2.1 MANOVA...... 142 4.5.3 Length of emotion experience...... 148 4.5.4 Eliciting events...... 148 4.5.4.1 Analysis...... 149 4.5.5 Cognitive appraisals, emotivational goals and other appraisals...... 152 4.5.5.1 Cognitive appraisals...... 152 4.5.5.2 Emotivational goals and other appraisals...... 152 4.5.6 Contribution of anger and resentment to well-being...... 156 4.5.6.1 Correlations...... 156 4.5.6.2 Regression...... 159 4.5.6.2.1 SF36v2...... 159 4.5.6.2.2 Physical functioning...... 159 4.5.6.2.3 Role physical...... 159 4.5.6.2.4 Bodily ...... 160 4.5.6.2.5 General health...... 160 4.5.6.2.6 Vitality...... 161 4.5.6.2.7 Social functioning...... 161 4.5.6.2.8 Role emotional...... 162 xii

4.5.6.2.9 Mental health...... 162 4.5.7 Meta-analysis...... 163 4.5.7.1 Inclusion if the results were consistent...... 165 4.5.7.2 Inclusion if the results were inconsistent...... 166 4.5.7.3 Meta-analyses of emotion ratings...... 167 4.5.7.4 Meta-analyses of cognitions and other appraisals...... 169 4.6 Discussion ...... 173 4.6.1 Consequences...... 174 4.6.2 Emotion patterns and overall negative ...... 175 4.6.3 Eliciting events...... 177 4.6.4 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals and emotivational goals...... 178 CHAPTER 5 ...... 180 5.1 General discussion...... 180 References ...... 197 Appendix A ...... 214 Information Sheet for Study 1 ...... 214 Instructions for Study 1 ...... 217 Response sheet for Study 1 ...... 220 Study 1 Emotion rating scales (One for each emotion condition) ...... 221 Study 1 Demographics page...... 224 Appendix B ...... 225 Information Sheet for Study 2 ...... 225 Online Questionnaire for Study 2...... 228 Appendix C ...... 233 Messages Sent to Group Administrators and Groups Approached...... 233 Appendix D ...... 238 Examples of Descriptions Excluded From Analysis in Study 2 ...... 238 Appendix E ...... 240 Participant Sign-up Message for Study 3 ...... 240 Information Sheet for Study 3 ...... 241 Online Questions for Study 3 (Resentment Example) ...... 244 xiii

Appendix F...... 254 Manipulation Check Study 3...... 254 Appendix G ...... 255 Factor Matrix for the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory Resentment 7-item Scale255 Appendix H ...... 256 Examples of Scenarios for Eliciting Event Categories ...... 256

xiv

List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Plutchik’s three-dimensional circumplex model describes the relations among emotion concepts, which are analogous to the colours on a colour wheel. The cone’s vertical dimension represents intensity, and the circle represents degrees of similarity among the emotions. The eight sectors are designed to indicate that there are eight primary emotion dimensions defined by the theory arranged as four pairs of opposites. In the exploded model, the emotions in the blank spaces are the primary dyads-emotions that are mixtures of two of the primary emotions. Adapted from “The

Nature of Emotions” by R. Plutchik, 2001, American Scientist, 89, p.349. Copyright

2001 by Sigma Xi...... 7

Figure 1.2. Two-dimensional MDS solution for the triad similarity scaling task using

21 anger terms presented in Study 1. Note that items with similar definitions appear close to each other in this plot (Alvarado & Jameson, 2002, p. 164)...... 35

xv

List of Tables

Table 1.1 A selection of “lists” of basic emotions ...... 8

Table 2.1 Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Cohen’s d and 95%

Confidence Intervals (CI) for Then Emotion Intensity Ratings for Anger and

Resentment Autobiographical Memories (N=145) ...... 53

Table 2.2 Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Cohen’s d and 95%

Confidence Intervals (CI) for Now Emotion Intensity Ratings for Anger and

Resentment Autobiographical Memories (N=145) ...... 54

Table 3.1 Appraisal Dimensions, Descriptions, Item Stems and Scale Anchors for

Items Measuring Appraisals ...... 71

Table 3.2 Demographic Variables N=226...... 83

Table 3.3 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, and 95% Confidence Intervals for

Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment (n=98) Groups at the Time the Event Happened ...... 93

Table 3.4 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, and 95% Confidence Intervals for

Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment (n=98) Groups,

NOW When They Think about the Event...... 94

Table 3.5 Table of Converted Scale Values ...... 95

Table 3.6 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Cognitive Appraisals According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment

(n=98) Groups ...... 98 xv i

Table 3.7 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Other Appraisals According to the Anger (n=100) and Resentment (n=82)

Groups ...... 99

Table 3.8 Number of Participants in Specific Categories According to Emotion

Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics...... 102

Table 3.9 Number of Participants in Physical Sensations Categories According to

Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics ...... 104

Table 3.10 Number of Participants in Urges Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics ...... 107

Table 3.11 Number of Participants in Behaviour Categories According to Emotion

Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics...... 109

Table 4.1 Table of Converted Scale Values ...... 134

Table 4.2 Description of SF-36v2 Domains ...... 137

Table 4.3 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals for

Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65) Groups at the

Time the Event Happened...... 146

Table 4.4 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals for

Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65) Groups NOW

When They Think about the Event...... 147

Table 4.5 Number of Participants in Specific Categories According to Emotion

Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics...... 151 xv ii

Table 4.6 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Cognitive Appraisals According to the Anger (n=69) and Resentment

(n=73) Groups ...... 154

Table 4.7 Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Other Appraisals According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65)

Groups ...... 155

Table 4.8 Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations(SD) and Cronbach Alphas

(α) of the Measures Used in Multiple Regression (N=142)...... 157

Table 4.9 Summary of Intercorrelations for Scores on Anger, Resentment and SF-

36v2 Health Survey Variables...... 158

Table 4.10 Hierarchical Regression of Anger and Resentment Predicting SF-36v2

Variables ...... 163

Table 4.11 Random Effects Model Meta-Analysis Results Across Studies for

Subjective Emotion Intensity Scores Including Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and Other Meta-Analysis Statistics...... 172

Table 4.12 Random Effects Model Meta-Analysis Results Across Studies for

Cognitive Appraisals and Other Related Appraisals Including Cohen’s d, 95%

Confidence Intervals and other Meta-Analysis Statistics ...... 173

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CHAPTER 1

1.1 Introduction

The tumultuous world of emotions has fascinated philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, poets, authors and scholars throughout some 5000 years of written history (Oatley, 2004). It is hard to imagine a day or a life without experiencing emotions (Gross, 1999). Imagine a life without the of a spectacular sunset, the excitement of new love, the in achieving a hard earned promotion, the of losing a loved one, the of speaking in public; or more simply, the when in the company of a close friend, the of smelling a rose, the delight in tasting a delicious meal. Emotions influence our interactions with others, how we perceive the world, how we evaluate our past, and the decisions we make. As prevalent and influential as emotions are, they are subjective, private experiences that are particularly difficult to describe and statistically quantify (Kragel & LaBar, 2014).

According to Fehr and Russell (1984), “Everyone knows what an emotion is until asked to give a definition” (p.464). Furthermore, despite this fascination with emotion, and its influence on human experience, the causes, functions, phenomenology and consequences of emotions are some of the least understood aspects of human experience (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000). In relation to emotion and its study,

Russell (2003) suggests, “Psychology and humanity can progress without considering emotion—about as fast as someone running on one leg” (p. 145).

The scientific study of emotions in psychology was largely neglected until research burgeoned in the 1980s. This trend has exponentially increased over the past 2 thirty years. A search of the citations in the database PsycINFO yields 110 references with the word “emotion” in the title during the 1960s, 882 during the 1980s, 2000 during the 90s and over 8890 for the period 2005 to 2015. Despite the explosion of interest in emotion research in the past few decades, many gaps still exist in our knowledge about emotion.

1.2 Approaches to understanding emotions

The current state of emotion research seems to include three broad approaches to understanding emotions and emotion concepts. These approaches are 1) biological approaches and 2) prototype approaches and 3) appraisal approaches. The prototype and appraisal approaches seem to have emerged as a consequence of decades of research that fails to support the identification of a discrete bodily, facial or neural basis for emotion categories such as fear, anger, sadness, disgust, or (LeDoux, 2012; Lindquist, 2013). LeDoux (2012) indicates the research is weak in support of dedicated neural circuits for the basic emotions as conventionally conceived. Instead, he proposes a series of survival circuits that ensure survival and thriving. These survival circuits are involved in defense, energy and nutrition management, fluid balance, thermoregulation, and procreation among others.

Survival circuits are the raw material out of which emotions are constructed. Thus an emotion occurs when consciousness observes an activated survival circuit and then appraises and labels the activated survival circuit drawing on a variety of information including situational and memory factors. The following sections will outline the basic tenets of the three main approaches used to understand emotions.

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1.2.1 Biological approaches.

Biological approaches are studied by researchers who are often called basic emotion theorists and researchers. Beginning with the seminal work of Darwin

(1872), a major focus of research has been the question of whether or not there are universal basic emotions, and if so, what are they (Arnold, 1960; Ekman, 1992;

Ekman & Cordaro, 2011; Frijda, 1986; Izard, 1977; Leary, Springer, Negel, Ansell,

& Evans, 1998; Plutchik, 1962, 1980; Tomkins, 1962, 1963, 1984)? There were six basic emotions identified in early research by Ekman and Friesen (1971; 1969) that have become generally accepted in the literature and are widely used in emotion research designs (Ellsworth, 2014; LeDoux, 2012). These basic emotions, also referred to as the “canonical six”, include the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust and surprise. The popular of these six emotions is supported by a 2009 review of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. The review found 551 studies between 1990 and 2008 used Ekman’s canonical six basic emotion faces to study activity in the brain related to emotion processing (Fusar-Poli et al., 2009).

Key basic emotion theorists postulate that basic emotions are usually associated with universal facial behaviour, despite differences among theorists as to the theoretical basis for this postulation (Darwin, 1872; Ekman & Friesen, 1971;

Tomkins, 1962, 1963). Theorists also postulate that basic emotions are discrete and can be distinguished from one another. In addition to universal facial behaviour, emotions contain information from vocal and physiological aspects and have evolutionary explanations, are universal across cultures, have universal distinctive 4 signals, a distinctive physiology and specific autonomic system responses. They are biologically prewired and are present in other primates (Ekman & Cordaro, 2011).

Darwin (1872) posited that an emotional state is encoded in behaviour that is automatic, and these behaviours display information to others. These specific emotion behaviours serve an evolutionary function and are passed down the generations.

Modern basic emotion theorists have proposed specific configurations of facial movements corresponding to different emotions on a one to one basis (Ekman &

Friesen, 1971; Ekman et al., 1969; Tomkins, 1962, 1963).

Tomkins is another key basic emotion theorist who postulated a biological theory of emotion (1962, 1963). Tomkins proposed and described nine innate affects.

These are 1) surprise-startle, 2) distress-, 3) anger-, 4) enjoyment-joy, 5) interest-excitement, 6) fear-terror, 7) -, 8) dismell, a term coined by

Tompkins to represent the innate disgust reaction to a bad smell that has prevented us from consuming “bad” foods and 9) disgust. He asserted that:

Affects are sets of muscle and glandular responses located in the face and also

widely distributed through the body, which generate sensory feedback which

is either inherently “acceptable or “unacceptable”. These organized sets of

responses are triggered at sub cortical centres where specific “programs” for

each distinct affect are stored. These programs are innately endowed and have

been genetically inherited. They are capable when activated of simultaneously

capturing such widely distributed organs as the face, the heart, and the

endocrines and imposing on them a specific pattern of correlated responses. 5

One does not learn to be afraid, or to cry, or to startle any more than one

learns to feel pain or to gasp for air. (Tomkins, 1962, p. 243)

Basic emotion theorists often propose a set of biological basic emotions and then hypothesise about how a wider range of human emotions emerge. The basic emotion theorist, Panksepp (1982), hypothesised that the mammalian brain contains at least four primitive executive brain circuits that initiate distinct subjective emotional states in both humans and animals. These distinct emotional states are rage, fear, expectancy, and . To account for the wide array of human emotions he posited that the rich tapestry of emotions may emerge from interactions among primitive emotion systems. For example, jealousy may arise from a mixture of panic, rage and expectancy.

Plutchik (1980) is also a basic emotion theorist who, in addition to 8 basic emotions (anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, , and joy), proposed the existence of non-basic emotions that emerge through a process of blending (see

Figure 1.1). These non-basic emotions are formed by the blending of elementary emotions. Blends of two basic emotions are called dyads. First-order dyads are blends of adjacent emotions, second-order emotions are blends of two basic emotions separated by one other emotion and tertiary-order emotions are blends of two basic emotions twice removed. According to Plutchik, love is an example of a first-order emotion resulting from blending joy and acceptance. , a second-order emotion, is a blend of joy and fear; and delight, a third-order emotion, is a blend of joy and surprise. This blending of emotion is a cognitive process that is more uniquely a 6 human process, whereby the elementary emotions are posited to be shared with animals.

It can be seen from the lists of basic emotions outlined by Tomkins, Panksepp and Plutchik, that it is unclear as to which emotions are basic. Table 1 outlines some discrepancies in the lists of basic emotions among emotion theorists.

In addition to contention concerning which emotions to include in the list of basic emotions, there are a number of emotion researchers who disagree that there is a biologically derived set of basic emotions (Barrett, 2006a; Barrett, Mesquita,

Ochsner, & Gross, 2007; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Posner, Russell, &

Peterson, 2005; Russell, 2003, 2009; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O'Connor, 1987). 7

Figure 1.1. Plutchik’s three-dimensional circumplex model describes the relations among emotion concepts, which are analogous to the colours on a colour wheel. The cone’s vertical dimension represents intensity, and the circle represents degrees of similarity among the emotions. The eight sectors are designed to indicate that there are eight primary emotion dimensions defined by the theory arranged as four pairs of opposites. In the exploded model, the emotions in the blank spaces are the primary dyads-emotions that are mixtures of two of the primary emotions. Adapted from “ The Nature of Emotions” by R. Plutchik, 2001, American Scientist, 89, p.349. Copyright 2001 by Sigma Xi.

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Table 1.1 A selection of “lists” of basic emotions

Theorist Basic Emotions Basis for Inclusion Arnold Anger, aversion, , dejection, , despair, Relation to action fear, hate, , love, sadness tendencies Ekman, Friesen, and Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise Universal facial expressions Ellsworth

Frijda Desire, happiness, interest, surprise, , Forms of action readiness Gray Rage and terror, , joy Hardwired

Izard Anger, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, guilt, Hardwired interest, joy, shame, surprise James Fear, grief, love, rage Bodily involvement

McDougall Anger, disgust, elation, fear, subjection, tender- Relation to instincts emotion, wonder Mowrer Pain, Unlearned emotional states

Oatley and Do not require propositional Anger, disgust, anxiety, happiness, sadness Johnson-Laird content Panksepp Expectancy, fear, rage, panic Hardwired

Plutchik Acceptance, anger, anticipation, disgust, joy, fear, Relation to adaptive

sadness, surprise biological processes

Tomkins Anger, interest, contempt, disgust, distress, fear, Density of neural firing joy, shame, surprise Watson Fear, love, rage Hardwired

Weiner and Happiness, sadness Attribution independent Graham Note. Not all the theorists represented in this table are equally strong advocates of the idea of basic emotions. For some it is a crucial notion (e.g., Izard, Panksepp, Plutchik, Tomkins,), whereas for others it is of peripheral interest only, and their discussions of basic emotions are hedged (e.g., Mowrer, Weiner & Graham). Adapted from “ What’s Basic About Basic Emotions?” by A. Ortony and T. J. Turner, 1990, Psychological Review, 97, p. 316. Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association.

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More specifically, if an emotion is basic, patterns of neural activation should be consistent and specific to each discrete basic emotion (Barrett, 2012; Barrett &

Wager, 2006; Russell, 2003). Barrett and Wager argue that imaging studies show that the emotion-categorisation-brain localisation correspondences are both inconsistent and display evidence against their specificity.

In the past few decades, other approaches have emerged to explore layperson’s understanding and experience of emotion. Two key approaches include the prototype approach (Fehr & Russell, 1984; Rosch, 1973, 1975; Russell & Fehr,

1994; Shaver et al., 1987) and the appraisal approach (Ellsworth, 2013; Frijda &

Parrott, 2011; Izard, 2007; Moors, 2013; Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer, & Frijda, 2013;

Roseman, 2013; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994; Scherer, 2013).

1.2.2 Prototype and appraisal approaches for understanding emotion.

Prototype analysis is an approach used to study emotion knowledge and has been derived from work on prototypes by Rosch (1973, 1975). It emerged because many concepts do not fit into categories such that all members of a category are equally representative of that category. Instead, many concepts have fuzzy boundaries where some concepts are clearer cases of a concept than others. Emotion concepts are a specific example of how boundaries between category memberships are fuzzy (Fehr

& Russell, 1984; Russell & Fehr, 1994).

Prototype analysis identifies features that are related to a concept. Not all features have to be present in all examples , consequently some examples of the concept are more prototypical (those with many core features) than others. For example, it has been found that anger is a better example of an emotion than 10 helplessness (Fehr & Russell, 1984). A prototype comprises features that characterize a typical instance of that concept or category. For example, emotion prototypes include features that comprise specific emotion scripts such as subjective feelings, somatic experiences or sensations, eliciting events, emotivational goals, action tendencies, and behaviours (Barrett et al., 2007; Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Roseman et al., 1994; Shaver et al., 1987). Prototype analysis has been shown to be a fruitful approach in understanding emotion knowledge (Fehr & Russell, 1984; Fitness, 2000;

Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Russell & Fehr, 1994; Shaver et al., 1987). Thus prototype analysis of emotion concepts can yield rich information about the way in which emotions are experienced, perceived and labeled. Consequently, prototype analysis will be a key approach used in the present research.

Another important approach to analyzing emotion concepts is the elicitation of emotions by cognitive appraisals. Appraisal approaches and theories view appraisals as constructs that are distinct from emotions. They assume emotions include distinct steps: There is a stimulus event, this event is appraised, then a discrete emotion is caused that results in specific bodily changes and behavioural changes (Brosch, 2013). According to Moors et al. (2013), appraisal theories view emotion episodes as processes rather than states and these episodes consist of a number of components. These components include appraisal components (e.g., evaluations of the environment and person-environment interactions); motivational components (e.g., action tendencies and emotivational goals); somatic components

(e.g., peripheral physiological components); feeling components (e.g., subjective experience of feelings), actions and consequences. Emotion episodes are processes 11 involving changes in one component feeding back and forth to other components.

However, most appraisal theories assign the appraisal component as the core component.

More recently, a new approach to understanding emotions has emerged and include theories coined psychological constructionist theories (Barrett, 2013; Barrett,

Wilson-Mendenhall, & Barsalou, 2015; Lindquist, Siegel, Quigley, & Barrett, 2013;

Russell, 2015; Russell & Barrett, 1999). Both appraisal theorists and psychological constructionist theorists highlight the role of appraisals as a core aspect of emotion construction (Barrett, 2013; Barrett et al., 2015; Ellsworth, 2013; Moors et al., 2013;

Russell, 2015; Russell & Barrett, 1999).

Modern psychological constructionist approaches include two ingredients, core affect and conceptualisation (Lindquist, 2013). Russell (2003, 2015) describes core affect as a neurobiological state that is primitive, universal and irreducible on the cognitive level. He uses temperature as an analogy to explain core affect.

Temperature can be salient or more in the background. Felt temperature exists prior to the labels hot or cold, prior to the concept of temperature and prior to the attribution about what caused the temperature. Core affect can be experienced in a free floating form without any relation to a known stimulus. The experience of core affect is a blend of two dimensions, pleasure-displeasure (valence) and activation- sleepy (). Like temperature, it is always present yet it may not be present in consciousness. Core affect can be manipulated by drugs, objects, cognitive events and environmental impacts. We make attributions about the changes in core affect and we can seek to alter core affect (affect regulation) such as drink coffee or wine, exercise, 12 reappraise, change one’s environment to maximise pleasure and minimise displeasure.

Russell (2003, 2015) also describes conceptualisation, a process whereby core affect is made meaningful; it transforms core affect into discrete emotions. At the level of discrete emotion there must be a psychological object. A discrete emotion is not a biologically given category; there is no specific neural circuit, peptide or other biological marker unique to the discrete emotion. Instead, the emergence of a discrete emotion involves mental representations and mental scripts that can consist of psychological objects in the form of memories, metacognitive judgments, imaginings, hallucinations, appraisals and attributions. The object is whatever the person believes is causing the experience of the current core affect. It is a psychologically constructed event, prospect of a future event (hope and fear) or absence of an event (grief, loss, disappointment). Thus understanding the psychological construction of emotion is important component of emotion knowledge for both appraisal and psychological constructionist theorists.

Some psychological constructionists suggest that the use of folk psychology terms as scientific terms may be at the core of stagnation with respect to moving forward in developing a concise emotion theory (Russell, 1991, 2015; Zachar, 2006).

Somehow we have an intuition that if we have a word for something, then that word must name a clearly definable category. Thus, it is assumed that each emotion word must be a clearly definable category and have unique biological neural pathways. Yet research shows that emotion labels represent fuzzy concepts without clear boundaries between emotions (Russell, 1991; Russell & Fehr, 1994). Russell (2015) asserts that 13 despite the fuzziness of emotion concepts, emotion words such as anger, disgust, and fear, name folk concepts that must be studied because the language labels are part of the human understanding of emotional life.

Barrett (2012), another modern psychological constructionist, uses the analogy of plants, flowers and weeds to illustrate the psychological constructionist view of how emotions are created. She asserts that all would agree that a plant exists in the natural world and it exists in the absence of a human mind to perceive it.

However, when a plant is labeled a flower or a weed, meaning is placed onto the plant. For example, a rose is a weed in a vegetable garden and a dandelion is a weed in a patch of lawn. Yet in a bunch of flowers, a rose is no longer a weed but a flower and a dandelion a wildflower in a bunch of wildflowers. Thus a flower or a weed requires a human perceiver for its existence and is perceiver dependent. This labeling then communicates appropriate action, to cherish or discard, to water and fertilise or to pull out. The labels of flower or weed allow people to communicate with one another in a relational way and the act of labeling is not separate from the act of communicating about the phenomenon to others. Thus it serves as a social function with social influence. The realness of flowers and weeds depends on the minds of others in some way because other minds were initially required to transmit the categories of flower or weed. They also have common meaning in respective cultures.

The physical world is also inherent in the flower or weed since neither would exist without the initial plant. Barrett proposes that the science of how the human mind creates a flower or a weed from a plant….creating the subjective meaning from the object…is called psychology. She suggests that a similar question should be asked of 14 emotion - How does the human perceiver create different emotion labels from physiological experiences?

Regardless of whether one is an appraisal theorist or a psychological constructionist theorist, appraisals are regarded as core features of emotion scripts.

Prototype analysis and appraisal analysis will be the core approaches used in the present research to help understand the components of emotion scripts. To know for certain whether an emotion is basic or psychologically constructed is not necessary to gain benefit from research about the complexity of emotion knowledge related to specific emotion categories. Research on emotion differentiation shows that being able to perceive and distinguish the complexity of emotional experience has psychological value (Kashdan, Barrett, & McKnight, 2015; Kashdan et al., 2014;

Kashdan & Farmer, 2014; Kashdan, Ferssizidis, Collins, & Muraven, 2010; Pond et al., 2012). Consequently, more detailed knowledge about the experience of emotion is a necessary and understudied research area (Barrett et al., 2007).

1.3 The Gap

Barret and colleagues (Barrett, 2006a, 2006b; Barrett et al., 2007) have argued that research needs to focus on the richness and diversity of human emotional experience, thus redirecting researchers away from its current focus on a small number of basic or primary emotions. According to psychological constructionists, scientists need to ask questions about subjectively experienced content because emotions are subjective in that they only exist when experienced by a conscious agent and are dependent on the experiencer (Barrett et al., 2007; Russell, 2015). Barrett and colleagues (2007) argue that an affective state is about something; therefore, a 15 systematic account of an emotion experience needs to include phenomenological differences between emotions we see as psychologically distinct such as fear, anger, and sadness. A research agenda for understanding emotion knowledge also requires understanding a variety of aspects including what causes an emotion experience, bodily sensations associated with the emotions, action tendencies, behaviours, appraisals, emotivational goals, subjective feelings and concomitant emotions

(Barrett, Gross, Christensen, & Benvenuto, 2001; Barrett et al., 2007). Consequently, to learn about the subjective experience of emotion we must ask people about what they experience (Lindquist & Barrett, 2008). Similarly, Averill (1994) proposed that the study of emotions that are not considered basic or primary is potentially informative and important to the development of a general theory of emotion. One way to approach this idea is to investigate the finer among a wider range of emotions than is currently examined.

Most emotion research to date has focused on discrete emotions, and whether or not there are specific facial behaviours and neural pathways associated with a small number of supposed basic emotions, with little attention paid towards emotion variability and differentiating amongst a wider range of emotions (Ekman & Friesen,

1971; Ekman, Levenson, & Friesen, 1983; Ekman et al., 1969; Frijda & Parrott,

2011). Many gaps exist in the understanding of the subjective experience of emotions; specifically, the differences associated with a wide range of emotions

(Roseman et al., 1994). A number of researchers propose research on emotion as an important area of further research (Barrett et al., 2001; Barrett et al., 2007; Ortony et al., 1988; Roseman et al., 1994). Research on emotion 16 differentiation increases conceptual knowledge about different emotions, directs researchers to investigate a wider range of emotions and helps scientists understand the cause of emotions, their content rich phenomenology, and their consequences

(Barrett et al., 2007; Roseman et al., 1994; Shaver et al., 1987).

Despite disagreement between basic emotion theorists, appraisal theorists and psychological constructionist theorists, there is widespread agreement amongst most theorists and researchers that emotions either include or are associated with several features or elements such as eliciting events, subjective feelings, biological processes, cognitions, emotivational goals, action tendencies or urges, behaviours and consequences. Much research has been designed to investigate the features characteristic of various emotions and, in particular, the features that differentiate emotions, especially those that appear to be similar (such as shame and guilt, guilt and regret, disappointment and relief, jealousy and envy, anger and contempt).

Interest in research on emotion differentiation has become increasingly important in light of recent evidence that individual differences in the ability to differentiate emotions are related to individual differences in psychological health and well-being.

A brief overview of the research describing the effects of individual differences in the ability to differentiate emotions is provided in the section to follow.

1.4 Emotion Differentiation

1.4.1 Why emotion differentiation is important.

Recent research reveals that people who can verbally characterise their emotional experiences with fine grained distinctions are less likely to be overwhelmed and stressed in situations (Kashdan et al., 2015; Lindquist & Barrett, 17

2008). Indeed, those with better emotion differentiation skills have better overall psychological health and can regulate their emotions more effectively (Kashdan et al.,

2015). The ability to put feelings into words with high levels of complexity is referred to as emotion differentiation or emotion granularity (Barrett, 2004; Lindquist

& Barrett, 2008; Tugade, Fredrickson, & Barrett, 2004). Emotion granularity is often measured behaviourally via diaries that capture moment-to-moment reports of emotion experiences (Barrett et al., 2001; Kashdan et al., 2015; Kashdan & Farmer,

2014; Kashdan et al., 2010; Pond et al., 2012). People high in emotion differentiation are able to report a wider range of emotions, distinguish the presence and intensity of those emotions (e.g. distinguish the presence and intensity of , guilt, shame, anger, resentment etc.), and use more detail to describe emotion experiences.

In contrast, those low in emotion differentiation use a smaller range of emotions representing fewer emotion states such as scared, angry, and sad or just describe feeling good or bad (Kashdan et al., 2015).

Several studies have linked higher levels of emotion differentiation to positive psychological functioning and emotional regulation. People who report more differentiated negative emotions consume 40% less alcohol than those lower in negative emotion differentiation when stressed prior to an upcoming drinking episode

(Kashdan et al., 2010). Another study found that people who were better at negative emotion differentiation were 20% to 50% less likely to retaliate with verbal or physical aggression against someone who has hurt them (Pond et al., 2012). A study by Barrett et al. (2001) found greater negative emotion differentiation was associated with greater emotion regulation, especially when emotion intensity increased. Those 18 proficient at differentiating negative emotions utilised 30% more strategies to reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions than those exhibiting low proficiency. Moreover, a fMRI brain imaging study found people who were better at emotion differentiation showed less activity in the anterior insular and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex when rejected by a stranger during a computer-simulated game

(Kashdan et al., 2014). These two brain regions have been previously shown to index social distress. It seems those with higher emotion granularity show greater equanimity when faced with rejection.

Emotion differentiation has also been shown to differ between those with and without mental disorder diagnoses. One study found people with major depressive disorder experienced higher distress and showed lower negative emotion differentiation than healthy adults (Demiralp et al., 2012). Another study found that people diagnosed with social anxiety disorder described their negative emotion experiences during social interactions in a less specific and more undifferentiated manner than healthy individuals (Kashdan & Farmer, 2014).

There also appear to be differential effects for low emotion granularity related to the range of positive emotions compared to the range of negative emotions. One study found low positive emotion differentiation predicted increased vomiting, laxative use, exercising, weighing, checking for fat and food restriction in a sample of women who met criteria for anorexia nervosa (Selby et al., 2013). In this same study low negative emotion differentiation was associated only with increased exercising and decreased weighing. Thus positive emotion differentiation may be a more important skill, at least for those with anorexia. 19

Alexithymia is a similar construct to low emotion differentiation. Alexithymia literally means “lacking words for emotions” and was originally conceptualised as a construct by Nemiah, Freyberger, and Sifneos (1976). It involves difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings to others, externally oriented thinking and limited ability to engage in fantasy.

Brain research has found that alexithymia is associated with difficulties in emotion processing. For example, evidence from brain imaging studies has found that alexithymic people have reduced brain activity in the cingulate cortex during emotional imagery or emotion induction (Kano et al., 2003; Mantani, Okamato,

Shirao, Okada, & Yamawaki, 2005). Evidence from other brain research found people high in alexithymia had reduced automatic reactivity of the amygdala and visual occipital-temporal areas which could affect the encoding of emotional stimuli

(Reker et al., 2010). These researchers also found those high in alexithymia had low spontaneous insular and amygdala responsivity which may contribute to problems in identifying and differentiating one's feelings.

Studies have found elevated levels of alexithymia among patients with a range of medical and psychological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, cardiac disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, chronic pain, kidney failure, stroke, fibromyalgia, eating disorders, pathological gambling, PTSD, anxiety, , and substance dependence (Lumley, Neely, & Burger, 2007; Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997).

The association of alexithymia with addictive or compulsive behaviours such as eating disorders, gambling and substance use disorders suggests alexithymia is 20 associated with maladaptive emotion regulation. A recent study by Roberton (2014) found results consistent with this. Alexithymia was associated with maladaptive emotion regulation and aggressive behaviour in adult offenders (Roberton, 2014).

Such findings are similar to research that has found better emotion differentiation or granularity was associated with more adaptive emotion regulation (Kashdan et al.,

2015).

In brief, the ability to differentiate emotions appears to be important and this knowledge provides further impetus for conducting research to better understand the finer discriminations between a much wider range of emotions within broad emotion categories such as anger, fear and sadness in terms of their eliciting events, subjective feelings, physiological characteristics, behaviours and consequences (Wilson-

Mendenhall, Barrett, & Barsalou, 2015).

1.4.2 Emotion differentiation research.

Although much of the emotion research has focused on a small number of basic emotions, some researchers have focused on the finer discriminations among emotions outside of the canonical six basic emotions. Examples of such research include the differentiation of emotions such as hurt and anger (Lemay, Overall, &

Clark, 2012) , shame and guilt (Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1992; Tangney,

Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996; Tracy & Robins, 2006; Wicker, Payne, & Morgan,

1983); shame, guilt, and embarrassment (Tangney et al., 1996); envy and jealousy

(Parrott & Smith, 1993); benign envy, malicious envy, admiration and resentment

(van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009, 2012); envy, resentment, and (Feather & Nairn, 2005; Feather & Sherman, 2002); regret and 21 disappointment (van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2002); regret and guilt (Zeelenberg &

Breugelmans, 2008); anger and contempt (Fischer & Roseman, 2007); and love, hate, anger, and jealousy (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993).

In addition to the studies that have discriminated between two to four emotions, other studies have discriminated amongst a wider range of emotions than those outlined above. For example, Frijda, Kuipers, and Ter Schure (1989) discriminated between 42 emotions across two studies. The researchers differentiated between emotions according to differences in appraisals and action tendencies. Smith and Ellsworth (1985) discriminated between 15 emotions according to 6 cognitive appraisal dimensions, pleasantness, anticipated effort, certainty, attentional activity, self-other responsibility/control, and situational control. Roseman et al. (1994) differentiated among 10 emotions according to distinctive emotivational goals (e.g., want to get to safety), action tendencies/ behaviours (e.g., crying), thoughts (e.g., it’s unfair) and physiological states (e.g., feeling nauseous, shaky).

The research listed above is by no means exhaustive but the list includes some early seminal studies and other key emotion differentiation studies. The methodology in all these studies required participants to recall and describe autobiographical emotion memories. The descriptions were mostly written but some were recorded through verbal interviews.

The aim of the present research is to differentiate between the two emotions anger and resentment. To date very little research has explored this differentiation.

Anger is one of the most studied of all emotions. Hence there is a large literature dedicated to theory and empirical research on anger (Alvarado & Jameson, 2002; 22

Averill, 1982, 1983; Barber, Maltby, & Macaskill, 2005; Berkowitz, 1990; Berkowitz

& Harmon-Jones, 2004; Carson et al., 2007; Lemay et al., 2012; Pond et al., 2012).

Although there are some points of divergence within this literature, there is also substantial commonality about the determinants of anger, agreeing that anger is generally elicited by events involving perceptions of goal obstruction where people are kept from obtaining an important goal and events of being treated unfairly or illegitimately, especially when these events are contrary to how a perceiver thinks things “ought to be” (Berkowitz & Harmon-Jones, 2004; Carver & Harmon-Jones,

2009; Ortony et al., 1988; Roseman, 1991; Russell & Fehr, 1994; Shaver et al., 1987;

Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993; Smith & Kirby, 2004).

There is also much evidence that anger is associated with increases in physiological arousal, particularly related to the sympathetic nervous system. For instance, increases in heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension are frequently found in episodes of anger (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Russell & Giner-Sorolla, 2013).

Anger is also generally associated with a desire for , the urge to approach and attack the source of the anger. These urges are then often converted into confronting behaviour, aggression and other destructive behaviours (Roseman et al.,

1994; Tafrate, Kassinove, & Dundin, 2002).

Despite the confronting behaviour often associated with anger, there is some debate about the consequences of anger, with some arguing that anger is rarely, if ever beneficial (Laurent & Menzies, 2013) and others arguing that anger can serve some positive function (Hutcherson & Gross, 2011). For example, Laurent and

Menzies (2013) argue that except for a few extremely rare instances, the right time, 23 place and degree to show anger is “never and nowhere and nil” (“Our aim is not to instill…” para, 1). They outline a number of instances where anger is commonly accepted as a justified response or feeling and eloquently dispute these. Others such as Smith and Lazarus (1990) propose that anger and other emotions serve an adaptive function. For instance, anger motivates people to “remove (the) source of harm from the environment and undo harm” (p. 619).

In contrast to the large body of literature dedicated to anger, there is little psychological research specific to resentment. A search of the database PsycINFO listed over 4800 articles between 1940 and December 2015 with the word anger in the title. Resentment, on the other hand, regarded as a related but different emotion

(Enright, 2001) has not been studied widely in psychology (Oatley, 2009). A

PsycINFO search with the word resentment in the title revealed 112 articles for the same period. In this literature, many papers were predominantly addressing political and racial resentment with little attention to psychological research on resentment. In two psychological studies that did investigate resentment, resentment was combined with several emotions such as anger, indignation, and feelings of injustice to represent an aggregate of emotions the authors referred to as resentment (Feather &

Nairn, 2005; Feather & Sherman, 2002). In other words, the authors failed to consider anger and resentment as discrete emotions in their studies. Two other psychologically based research studies that included resentment involved studying caregiver resentment, using the caregiver resentment scale to measure resentment (Martin-

Cook, Remakel-Davis, Svetlik, Hynan, & Weiner, 2003; Williamson et al., 2005).

Thus resentment specifically related to the task of caring for a person with dementia 24 or with cardiac problems was measured, and resentment as a more general emotion was not examined. There are a few studies that have investigated anger and resentment along with a number of other emotions and these studies will be described in more detail in a later section. However, their specific purpose was not to differentiate resentment and anger according to the major components of emotion such as causes, subjective feelings, somatic responses, cognitions, emotivational goals, action tendencies, behaviours and consequences (Alvarado & Jameson, 2002;

Russell & Fehr, 1994). Their specific purpose was to investigate perceptions of similarity among anger terms.

In brief, much research attention has been directed toward understanding anger with little research explicitly and specifically concerned with understanding resentment. Of particular importance, remarkably little research has been dedicated to the differentiation of anger and resentment which, as noted earlier, is the focus of the present research.

Why might differentiating between anger and resentment be important?

Recent years have seen the emergence and rapid growth of a therapeutic intervention known as forgiveness therapy which differentiates between anger and resentment and directly targets ongoing resentment (Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000). According to forgiveness therapy researchers Reed and Enright (2006), “anger is a justifiable initial problem-solving response to severe wrongdoing, as is the case in emotional , lingering resentment can compromise a person’s emotional health and decision making” (p. 921). 25

To date, many outcome studies of forgiveness therapy have been conducted with a diverse range of participants who have experienced such adverse events as spousal emotional abuse, divorce, murder of a family member, assault, and substance abuse. A recent meta analysis of 53 studies revealed that forgiveness therapy was associated with greater forgiveness and hope and reduced depression and anxiety compared to either no treatment or a range of alternative treatments (Wade, Hoyt,

Kidwell, & Worthington, 2014). Wade et al concluded that “forgiveness interventions are helpful for many people and many different kinds of hurts” (p.167).

Therapeutic interventions used to promote forgiveness are based on several different theoretical models, including the so-called Enright model (Enright, 2001;

Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015) which explicitly highlights the importance of abandoning resentment. According to Enright and his colleagues, the experience of anger and the validation of anger about wrongdoing and adverse events can be helpful but, in the absence of forgiveness, can “contribute to the debilitating resentment that maintains and likely even increases the negative psychological outcomes of the abuse” (Reed & Enright, 2006, p.921). Relinquishing resentment is therefore extremely important and the primary focus of the Enright model of forgiveness therapy (Enright, 2001; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000; Enright &

Fitzgibbons, 2015).

Unfortunately, there is some conceptual in the forgiveness literature with the predominant confusion occurring between the terms anger and resentment.

When describing forgiveness, researchers often indicate that forgiveness is a process of resolving anger and resentment (Enright, 2001) and that the acknowledgement of 26 anger, resentment and sadness are endemic to the forgiveness process (Malcom &

Greenberg, 2000). The use of separate labels for the emotions anger and resentment has the implicit inference that they are indeed different emotions. In addition, forgiveness researchers conceptualise anger and resentment as different emotions, although related. For example, Enright (2001) differentiates anger and resentment and states that “anger is like a flame, resentment like a hot coal” (p. 33) whereby resentment involves a re-feeling of the original anger facilitated by human memory thus keeping the injury alive for long periods of time. This metaphor implies that daily events or small hassles and goal obstructions may ignite the enduring hot coals into an anger flame whereas extinguishing the coals through forgiveness may reduce or eliminate the subsequent occurrence of anger.

Worthington and Wade (1999) are key forgiveness researchers who also differentiate between anger and resentment. Worthington and Wade employ the term resentment in their definition of unforgiveness which they define, “as a ‘cold’ emotion involving resentment, bitterness, and perhaps , along with the motivated avoidance of or retaliation against a transgressor” (p. 386). They view unforgiveness as distinct from the immediate “hot” emotional responses such as anger and fear. Instead, “through rumination, the hot emotions of anger and fear, like forged steel, cool and harden into unforgiveness” (p. 392).

Even though forgiveness researchers infer that resentment and anger are different emotions, they often use the terms anger and resentment interchangeably

(Freedman & Enright, 1996; Lin, Mack, Enright, Krahn, & Baskin, 2004). For example, Freedman and Enright (1996) defined interpersonal forgiveness as “an 27 unjustly hurt person’s act of deliberately giving up resentment toward an offender…”(p.983), yet the psychological variables outlined as a target in the forgiveness intervention include anger rather than resentment. For instance, the second psychological variable addressed in the table of psychological variables outlined state that anger is confronted, the point of which is to release, not harbor the anger. Resentment is not targeted according to the table of variables outlined.

Consequently, it is unclear as to what the distinction is between anger and resentment and if forgiveness is about giving up resentment, why is it not mentioned in the table of targeted variables?

Similarly, Enright and colleagues (Lin et al., 2004) justified their forgiveness intervention for substance abuse by citing much research on the relationship between anger and substance abuse, not resentment specifically, although they state that the resolution of resentment and anger are both pivotal emotions in substance misuse problems. They acknowledge that resentment and anger are related emotions but it is not made clear as to how they are related and how they are different.

Part of the problem is that to date, resentment has had very little research attention and there is no research directly differentiating anger from resentment. It is thus difficult to cite research associated with resentment and its impact on psychological distress for there is little research to cite. Essentially, the definition of anger indicates that anger is a “hot” transient state whereby the definition of resentment and unforgiveness (including resentment) appear to be “cool” and long standing. However, similar to the state of research on the distinction between anger and hostility, very little research has attempted to distinguish these constructs, thus 28 the term resentment tends to be given little airspace and after its initial use in introductory sections is generally abandoned in preference for anger.

An exception to this is evident in a more recent study of the effect of forgiveness therapy on spousal emotional abuse (Reed & Enright, 2006). Here the authors devote more time to discussing resentment and its impact on psychological distress and again distinguish between anger and resentment by proposing that anger is a justifiable initial emotional response, whereas resentment is a lingering of emotion that compromises a person’s emotional health. Again, these distinctions between anger and resentment are not backed up by empirical evidence and future research needs to address this.

Another reason differentiating between anger and resentment may be important comes from anger intervention theory and research. Whenever anger is addressed in interventions, it is typically targeted via anger management interventions. These interventions predominantly adopt cognitive behavioural models of anger treatment with scarce empirical research utilising alternative theoretical orientations (Glancy & Saini, 2005). Cognitive strategies (e.g., restructuring) and behavioural strategies (e.g., distraction, counting, , stress inoculation) are the predominant techniques used to prevent or stop the individual from inappropriately expressing intense transient felt anger. A review of psychological treatments for anger and aggression conceptualised the targeted anger as “behaviours that lead to the damage or destruction of a target identity” (Glancy & Saini, 2005, p.

229). Essentially, these interventions target anger as related more to “anger attacks” and aggression (Deffenbacher, 1999; DiGiuseppe & Tafrate, 2001, 2003; Glancy & 29

Saini, 2005) rather than to the long held resentment that may underlie these anger attacks. DiGiuseppe and Tafrate (2001) do, however, suggest that:

…reviewing aspects of anger that differentiate it from other emotions may be

helpful. This may provide insights into features of anger that therapists can

incorporate into interventions not already included in the existing anger-

outcome literature. (p. 265)

DiGiuseppe and Tafrate (2001) propose that forgiveness is a critical treatment goal and comment that most mental health professionals have ignored this dimension of anger treatment. Since forgiveness therapy is said to target resentment (Reed &

Enright, 2006), then differentiating anger from resentment may contribute to a model of treatment that leads to the development of broader treatment protocols that aim to help individuals control “anger attacks” and resolve long standing, underlying resentment.

Points raised in anger management research and forgiveness research indicates there is a need to understand the differences between anger and resentment.

The following section will outline a number of key theoretical propositions differentiating between anger and resentment. It is important to note here that these proposals are theoretical since no research has directly investigated the differences between these two emotions.

1.5 Anger and Resentment Differentiations

As previously mentioned, researchers other than forgiveness researchers have also attempted to theoretically and conceptually distinguish between anger and resentment (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000; Murphy & Hampton, 1988; Ortony et al., 1988; Potter- 30

Efron, 2005). For example, Ben-Ze’ev (2000) states that anger is momentary, whereas resentment is more long term, thus resentment may be considered a more negative emotion; resentment is directed towards repeated actions, whereas anger is directed to never before occurring actions; fear is a significant component of anger but not resentment; resentment is characterised as an emotional protest against perceived moral injustice whereas anger refers to immediate personal harm that need not include moral protest.

Ortony et al. (1988) propose that anger belongs to a group of emotions called agent based, anger emotions (e.g., anger, , fury, indignation, irritation, rage) that involve displeasure and disapproval of another’s blameworthy behaviour and the related undesirable event. Resentment, on the other hand, belongs to a group of emotions called event based, resentment emotions (e.g., envy, jealousy, resentment) that involve displeasure about an event that is perceived to be desirable for someone else. Furthermore, they suggest that undeservingness is a core concern of envy and they see envy as an example of resentment whereby resentment involves a concern for the undeservingness of the other enjoying the benefits of the thing, person, situation or job. Ben-Ze'ev (2000), on the other hand, suggests that resentment may be directed at the superiority of another, but it is based more on some injustice rather than solely on superiority. As a result, he suggests that resentment is more related to anger because it is more about an emotional protest about something that is morally unjust. Hence Ben-Ze'ev (2000) suggests that resentment may include both concerns about others’ deservingness and moral injustice. This means that 31 resentment may be a broader emotion than anger. Ben-Ze'ev (2000) alludes to this idea in the following extract:

Resentment is more general than anger, as it refers not merely to blameworthy

actions, as anger does, but also expresses a negative attitude toward the

fortunes of other agents, as in envy and . Hence resentment is associated

with both groups of emotions (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000, p.396).

In contrast, other authors have clearly differentiated between envy and resentment, arguing that envy is not a moral feeling; whereas resentment is a moral feeling or protest (Rawls, 1999), although Rawls posits that resentment may be a mask for underlying envy. Envy has been defined as desiring the personal attributes, possessions or position of another that we lack (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000). The more tolerable emotion of resentment may in fact be a mask for underlying envy since envy is viewed as unacceptable, is painful (Smith & Kim, 2007), and has been found to involve social comparisons and resultant feelings of inferiority (Parrott & Smith,

1993; Smith, Parrott, Ozer, & Moniz, 1994) that predict depressive feelings (Smith et al., 1994). Furthermore, if in some circumstances resentment is a mask for envy, then it may be that in these instances, resentment is a secondary emotion, and envy the primary emotion. According to Greenberg (2003), secondary emotions are defenses against more vulnerable emotions that obscure the original primary emotions (e.g., sadness, envy or jealousy). Primary emotions are people’s very first feeling in response to a stimulus and may be either adaptive or maladaptive.

Murphy and Hampton (1988) distinguish between what they call primitive defensive anger and resentment. Primitive anger occurs when an individual feels a 32

“kind of attacking rage – a kind of ‘bite back’ response towards one who has bitten her when he has mistreated her” (p.54). This defensive anger need not result in any injury to one’s self worth. Resentment, on the other hand, would always involve injury to one’s self-worth as it is a protest against demeaning actions by someone who should and could have known better. Resentment is an emotion that makes an attempt at a personal defense against an experience of feeling diminished. They liken resentment more to righteous anger and righteous hatred than defensive anger.

Potter-Effron (2005) distinguishes between anger and resentment and offers a description of the resentment process. He states that resentment is “a process in which anger is stored, usually accompanied by a belief that the individual has been injured by others” (p.2), whereas anger usually occurs following a predictable sequence in discrete episodes. Resentment develops when individuals cannot work through appropriate strategies for anger release. He says that the resentment process is progressive and expansive over time. Individuals can begin forming resentments over small that compound over time. Resentment can also form after sudden, unexpected betrayals and after a deep sense of personal wounding is felt.

In line with other theorists (e.g., Rawls, 1999), Potter-Efron (2005) indicates that resentment involves a sense of moral injustice where individuals believe some fundamental social rule, vital to the person’s sense of order, has been violated. This transgression can refer to social rules that appear either trivial (e.g., “people should not push in”) or important (e.g., “people should not commit adultery”). He asserts that resentment interferes with normal life by consuming time and energy. Individuals will spend inordinate amounts of energy ignoring resented people, avoiding functions 33 the offenders attend (sometimes this is necessary for personal safety), ruminating over the event, and engaging in passive aggressive revenge activities. The transgressed become stuck in the past as if they have taken a photograph of the event and look at it once or twice daily, essentially re-traumatising themselves over and over again, remaining locked in ongoing protest.

Potter-Efron (2005) also states that the resentment process involves a splitting pattern whereby resenters see the offender as all bad and themselves as all good, thus further intensifying the resentment. Once splitting has occurred vengeful fantasies may occupy much of the resenters’ thinking time, rationalising this by the idea that will be served. In addition, vengeful actions may be undertaken in the form of verbal and physical aggression. Once splitting occurs, the resenter may also engage in an active search for allies. This is most evident among divorced parents where children are required to take sides and sometimes renounce the other bad parent.

Clearly, the way in which resentment and anger are distinguished varies from author to author. However, most seem to agree that resentment is the emotion that is held for longer and underpins many maladaptive behaviours and negative psychological effects. It is also important to reiterate here that most of the anger- resentment distinctions outlined above derive from theoretical writings and anecdotal observations and there is currently little in the way of empirical, experimental evidence to differentiate between anger and resentment. The following section will outline the scant research that does exist in this area.

34

1.6 Empirical Evidence for Distinction

Even though the differences between anger and resentment have been discussed from theoretical perspectives with no direct empirical comparisons, some evidence does exist to support the proposition that differences exist between anger and resentment. One study investigating basic emotion theory found indirect evidence for the idea that anger and resentment are less alike than anger and a number of other anger-related terms such as hostility, rage, hate, , and aggravation

(Alvarado & Jameson, 2002). Alvarado and Jameson (2002) asked participants to select the word that was most different among a triad of words presented based on

“meaning” (e.g. rage, hostility, annoyance). They used multidimensional scaling to identify words that are considered to be most similar in meaning. Multidimensional scaling is a statistical method that provides a visual display of the similarity of individual cases in a dataset (Bush, 1973). This technique produces a two dimensional plot that allows for the observation of clusters of like items (see

Figure 1.2).Words that appear closer to each other in the diagram may be considered rough synonyms. For example, from the diagram it appears that aggravation and frustration are rough synonyms. Jealousy and envy also appear to be rough synonyms with resentment positioned close to jealousy. Thus envy, jealousy and resentment also appear to be rough synonyms according to this study.

Their two dimensional solution showed that resentment was three times more distal to anger than hostility was to anger. This is interesting since anger and hostility are seen as distinct emotions (Eckhardt, Norlander, & Deffenbacher, 2004). The 35 diagram does not indicate anger and resentment are synonyms; rather they are almost at opposite ends of the diagram, indicating they are quite different.

Other research that supports the hypothesis that anger and resentment may be distal rather than similar constructs comes from a series of studies by Russell and

Fehr (1994) who attempted to address the continuing and unresolved debate on basic emotions (Ekman, 1992; Izard, 1992; Ortony & Turner, 1990; Posner et al., 2005;

Turner & Ortony, 1992).

Figure 1.2. Two-dimensional MDS solution for the triad similarity scaling task using 21 anger terms presented in Study 1. Note that items with similar definitions appear close to each other in this plot (Alvarado & Jameson, 2002, p. 164).

36

The overall specific aim of the Russell and Fehr research was to investigate the degree of membership (prototypicality) of a number of anger terms. They conducted seven studies to investigate this, four of which specifically included resentment as an emotion.

In the first study, participants were asked to freely list subcategories of anger.

Results indicated that terms such as frustration (144), hate (129) and mad (104) were listed more frequently as subcategories of anger than terms such as resentment (12), disgust (12), envy (13) and fear (19). Interestingly, fear and disgust, which are quite often considered distinct basic emotions by prominent basic emotion theorists

(Ekman, 1994; Izard, 1977; Plutchik, 1980; Tomkins, 1984) were listed at least as frequently as resentment as a subcategory of anger.

In the second study, participants were asked to rate 32 items selected from the free listed items from Study 1 as to how good an example of anger they were.

Findings were that fury, rage and mad were listed as 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively, whereas resentment was listed 20th out of the 32 items. Jealousy was listed 16th, hate

8th and humiliation 22nd. These results suggest that resentment may be considered less typical of the anger category than other terms such as hate that has been found to have distinctive prototypical features from anger (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993) and has been listed as a basic emotion by some (Arnold, 1960).

In the third study, Russell and Fehr (1994) used reaction times to verify category membership. This task is based on the premise that prototypical cases are verified more quickly than peripheral cases. For example, the sentence “a robin is a bird” is verified more quickly than “A penguin is a bird”. Similarly, “Anger is an 37 emotion” is verified more quickly than “Pride is an emotion”. Thirty-eight subjects were asked to respond true or false to 60 statements in the form of “X is a type of Y”.

Included in these statements were true statements (fury is a type of anger) and false statements (aggravation is a type of building). Reaction times were recorded. Mean reaction times measured in milliseconds (ms ) indicated that the mean reaction time for resentment (1613) was closer to the mean reaction time of other less prototypical emotions such as disgust(1645), humiliation (1657) and discontent (1656) than more prototypical anger emotions such as rage (1245), fury (1401), hate (1422) and hostility (1398).

In the fourth study, Russell and Fehr (1994) conducted a substitution experiment. This experiment was based on the premise that the less prototypical a word, the more peculiar the word will sound in a sentence about the respective category. For example, Rosch (1977) showed that the substitution for the word fruit in a sentence (e.g., “A bowl of fruit makes a nice centrepiece for the table”) with a prototypical fruit such as apples was more natural than the substitution of the less prototypical fruit watermelon. First, Russell and Fehr asked participants to generate

21 frame sentences containing the category word anger. Then they asked a new sample of participants to rate the substitution of 20 words on a scale ranging from very peculiar (1) to extremely natural sounding (6). Out of the 20 substitution words, resentment was ranked 11th as a natural substitution for anger. Interestingly, disgust and discontent were rated as more natural substitutions for anger than resentment. On the basis of their findings, Russell and Fehr (1994) concluded that fury, rage, hostility and mad are true subcategories of anger, although they were by no means mutually 38 exclusive. They also questioned where emotion terms such as hate, , and resentment fit since they were not clear subcategories of anger and were less likely to be subcategories of fear, disgust, happiness and surprise. Taken together, the Russell and Fehr results indicate that there is some support for the idea that resentment may be a more distal rather than proximal relation of anger, although not mutually exclusive.

A study by Storm and Storm (1987) on the taxonomy of 525 predominantly emotion words found anger and resentment to be related but not substitutable with each other. Anger was most substitutable and similar to words like mad, fury, rage and wrath. Resentment was most substitutable and similar to words such as bitterness and to a lesser extent but still substitutable with words such as envy, jealousy, hatred, dislike and detest. Resentment belonged to the group of words most related to hatred and hostility.

Another study also indirectly provides evidence for the distinctiveness of anger and resentment. A study by Morgan and Heise (1988) that investigated the dimensional structure of emotions found that resentment and anger were both similar and different depending on the dimension being measured. Participants were asked to rate 112 framed emotion modifiers (e.g., “being afraid feels…”) on the following three scales; 1) Bad/Awful versus Good/Nice; 2) Little/Powerless versus

Big/Powerful; 3) Slow/Quiet/Old versus Fast/Lively/Young. The scales were named

Evaluation, Potency and Activity respectively. Each scale consisted of nine points, with points anchored by the labels extending in both directions: “infinitely” ( 4),

“extremely” ( 3), “quite” ( 2), and “slightly” ( 1), with neutral (0) in the middle. 39

The following results were based on median ratings. Anger and resentment were both evaluated to be “quite bad”. Anger was rated as “slightly powerful” (i.e., potent), whereas resentment was rated as “slightly powerless” (i.e., impotent). Anger was rated as “quite active”, whereas resentment was rated between “neutral” and

“slightly” active. Unfortunately, the study did not specifically test whether the differences in scores between anger and resentment on the three dimensions were statistically significant. However, descriptively, they do seem to indicate that resentment may involve more powerlessness or feelings of impotency and be less active compared with anger.

As previously mentioned, even though some researchers argue that anger and resentment are distinct constructs, there is very little empirical research that differentiates between anger and resentment. Of the research that does exist, it appears that anger and resentment do differ in some aspects. However, a full understanding of emotion involves understanding a number of components associated with emotion. These components include eliciting events, subjective feelings, somatic responses, appraisals, emotivational goals, action tendencies, behaviours and consequences of specific emotions (Barrett, 2012; Frijda et al., 1989; Roseman et al.,

1994). The purpose of the present study is to further investigate the relationship between anger and resentment. Study 1 will investigate whether anger and resentment differ in the pattern of emotions associated with anger and resentment scenarios.

Study 2 will explore several components of the emotional experiences associated with resentment on the one hand, and anger on the other, to see if, and to what extent, these two emotional states can be differentiated. Finally, Study 3 will explore whether 40 differences between the emotions matter. This will be addressed by exploring how anger and resentment similarly and differentially affect psychological and physical well-being.

41

CHAPTER 2

2.1 Study 1 Introduction

To date, remarkably little research has differentiated between anger and resentment, despite the focus on an increased understanding of emotion differentiation in emotion research in general and the importance of anger versus resentment in forgiveness theory and therapy more specifically. The broad goal of the present program of research is to enhance current understanding of the differences and similarities between anger and resentment. This program of research began with a study of the subjective feelings associated with both anger and resentment. The subjective, phenomenological experience of emotion is a fundamental component of emotion. The question of whether or not anger and resentment differ subjectively is therefore important.

It is well recognised that emotional events evoke a complex pattern of emotions rather than a simple, dominant emotion (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000; Hansen &

Hansen, 1988; Izard, 1977). For instance, when asked to recall anger experiences from their lives, participants report not only high intensities of angry feelings, but also moderately high intensities of sadness, contempt and surprise. Similarly, fear experiences are associated with high levels of fear together with moderately high levels of anxiety, surprise and self-consciousness (Davis, 1999). Clearly, different kinds of negative events can evoke different and complex patterns of emotions. The specific question of interest in Study 1 is whether or not personal real-life experiences of anger and resentment can be differentiated in terms of the subjective feelings associated with the experiences. 42

The methodology in Study 1 followed the methodology originally used by

Hansen and Hansen (1988). This methodology is based on autobiographical memories, which have been studied extensively by researchers in emotion and emotional disorder research (Dalgleish & Yiend, 2006; Davis, 1999; Drummond,

Dritschel, Astell, O'Carroll, & Dalgleish, 2006; Hermans, Defranc, Raes, Williams, &

Eelen, 2005; Lyubomirsky, Caldwell, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998; Miranda &

Kihlstrom, 2005; Raes, Hermans, de Decker, Eelen, & Williams, 2003; Raes,

Hermans, Mark, et al., 2006; Raes, Hermans, Williams, & Eelen, 2006; Williams et al., 2007).

Hansen and Hansen (1988) were interested in investigating whether repressors compared to nonrepressors showed different patterns of emotions associated with recalling a negative emotionally tagged event. This research was stimulated by the findings that repressors recall fewer memories than nonrepressors (Davis, 1987;

Davis & Schwartz, 1987). Hansen and Hansen asked participants to recall angry, sad, fearful and embarrassing memories and then rate the intensity of 10 emotions they had felt at the time each event occurred. Their methodology was based on the premise that emotional experiences evoke complex patterns of emotions, rather than a single dominant emotion (Clark & Isen, 1982; Izard, 1977). More specifically it has been stated that “individual emotions co-assemble with other emotions to form emotion patterns that stabilize over repetitions and time” (Izard, Ackerman, Schoff, & Fine,

2000, p. 15). Furthermore, Hansen and Hansen suggested that their methodology and the patterns of emotional complexity they found may be of interest to emotion researchers. 43

Hansen and Hansen (1988) found that for anger, sadness, fear and embarrassment, four different patterns of emotional complexity emerged. The dominant emotions were clearly evoked (e.g., fear memories evoked high levels of fear), but the various memories were tagged with different patterns of intensity for nondominant emotions. For example, anger was also tagged with high levels of disgust, anxiety, depression, and sadness, whereas sadness was tagged with high levels of depression, anger, and fear. Furthermore, both repressors and nonrepressors rated the intensity of the dominant emotions similarly, but the repressors rated more nondominant emotions as less intense than the nonrepressors. This suggests that repressors’ memories of negative events are less emotionally complex than those of nonrepressors. Containing fewer emotion nodes to facilitate recall, the negative experiences of repressors are thus more difficult to remember.

Davis (1999) utilised Hansen and Hansen’s (1988) methodology to examine whether women would exhibit more complex patterns of emotion than men. Davis found that the patterns of emotions for dominant and nondominant emotions were similar for men and women. In addition, she found that different kinds of emotional memories were associated with distinct complex patterns of emotion. This supported

Hansen and Hansen’s finding that different emotion memories are tagged with complex and different configurations of emotions.

Proponents of dimensional models of emotion (Posner et al., 2005; Russell,

2003; Russell & Barrett, 1999) argue that emotions are ambiguous and overlapping experiences and lack clear boundaries between them. Posner et al. (2005) posit that cognitive interpretations and labeling of patterns of activation of the neurophysiologic 44 systems of valence and arousal give rise to specific emotions. Given the lack of clear boundaries between emotions, they suggest that more than one emotion can be experienced and interpreted at the same time. For example, someone who feels angry can also feel afraid, sad and guilty. The combination of overlap and differences on the arousal and valence dimensions should give rise to distinguishable and distinct overall patterns of emotion. For example, both anger and resentment experiences may involve similar intensities of some emotions, but show differences in the intensities of other emotions.

The methodology used by Hansen and Hansen (1988) and Davis (1999) clearly differentiated among experiences, situations and events characterised by different dominant or target emotions. If anger and resentment are indeed distinct constructs, then the complex pattern of emotions associated with anger experiences on the one hand, and resentment on the other, should be different.

In the present research, participants were asked to recall a personal real-life experience in which they had felt sad, fearful, angry, resentful and happy. They then rated the intensity of various emotions, both at the time of the experience itself, and now, when they thought of the experience at the present time. Though anger and resentment are of primary interest in this research, sad and fear memories were also included to avoid a specific focus of attention on anger and resentment experiences.

The last memory recalled in each session was of a happy experience to ensure that this session ended on a positive note. Based on the few studies that have found anger and resentment to be somewhat distally related (Alvarado & Jameson, 2002; Russell

& Fehr, 1994), it is predicted that the pattern of emotions associated with anger 45 autobiographical memories will differ, at least in some respects, from that associated with autobiographical memories recalled in response to instructions to remember experiences in which one felt resentment.

According to the psychological constructionist theory of emotion proposed by

Russell (2003, 2009), emotions differ on dimensions of arousal and valence. The present study also evaluated whether there were overall differences between anger and resentment autobiographical memories on the valence dimension. To do this, an overall negative affectivity score was computed for both anger and resentment experiences. Emotion intensity ratings at the time the event happened and now at the present time were calculated by adding negative emotion ratings for each of the anger and resentment experiences at each time point.

2.2 Aims

Study 1 had 3 aims. The first was to investigate the different patterns of emotions associated with anger and resentment autobiographical memories, the second was to compare anger and resentment overall negative affectivity scores for then and now time points, and the third was to investigate differences in how long ago the event happened.

2.3 Hypotheses

1) That anger and resentment autographical memories will show different patterns of emotion intensity ratings.

2) As previously mentioned, several theorists infer that resentment is a more negative emotion than anger (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000; Potter-Efron, 2005). It is therefore predicted that the overall negative affectivity score of the resentment autobiographical 46 experiences will be greater than that of the anger autobiographical experiences both at the time the event occurred and now when they think about the event in the present time.

3) That resentment experiences occurred a longer time ago than anger experiences.

2.4 Method

2.4.1 Participants.

Participants were 145 undergraduate (97 female and 48 male) students from

Griffith University Gold Coast and Mt Gravatt campuses who volunteered to participate in the study in exchange for experimental credit. Ages ranged from 16 to

46 years with a mean age of 20.34 years (SD = 4.88). Participants rated their English fluency on a rating scale from 1(not at all) to 10(extremely). Twenty percent reported

English was their second language. All except six scored their fluency at >7. These six rated their fluency at a level of 4 to 6. Scenarios and answers were inspected to see if they responded with adequate understanding of the questions. From the inspection of their responses it appeared they understood the questions and their data were retained.

2.4.2 Materials.

2.4.2.1 Questionnaire. Two packets were given to participants. One included an information sheet, the other included instructions, response sheets with space provided to describe autobiographical memories related to 5 emotions, emotion intensity rating sheets and demographic questions. See Appendix A for a copy of the information sheet, instructions, response sheet, emotion intensity scales and demographic questions. 47

2.4.3 Procedure.

After ethical approval was received, participants were recruited via sign-up sheets placed in allocated areas for experimental participation at the Griffith

University Mt Gravatt and Gold Coast campuses. Students were informed of the studies during lectures and were provided a brief description of the study via power point slides. This description was the same as that used in Study 3 and can be found in appendix E. The sign-up sheets included a brief title “Emotion and

Autobiographical Memories”. Sheets allowed for 25 to 30 participants per group; consequently, they were tested in groups of 25 to 30. Prior to taking part in the research, participants were provided with an information sheet and a questionnaire packet that they were told not to open yet. After reading the separate information sheet, participants were told that those who did not wish to participate were free to leave without penalty. They were also told that handing in a completed questionnaire to the researcher indicated their consent to participate.

Participants were given verbal instructions about how to proceed in the study.

They were then asked to remove the questionnaires from the packet and turn the sheets face down on the table. Following this they were asked to turn over the first page. Next, they were asked to recall the first of five situations or experiences in which they felt the specific emotion. Experiences involving the four emotions (anger, resentment, fear, sadness) were recalled on the first four trials and the order of presentation was counterbalanced according to a Latin Square design. All participants ended by recalling a happy emotion in order to allow participants to leave the experimental situation in a happy . Participants recalled one emotional memory 48 per trial and they were told prior to each trial which particular emotion was involved.

The instructions were as follows:

What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself. When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank space associated with trial 1. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 1.

Participants were given as long as they needed to recall and describe the experience. When all participants had stopped writing (generally within a few minutes), participants were asked to turn over the next sheet in their packet. The next page was an emotion intensity rating sheet and they were asked to write the relevant emotion term on top of the sheet. Following this they rated the intensity of how they felt a) during this experience, and b) when they think of the experience, now, at the present time, for each of 15 emotions. A 10-point rating scale was used (1=not at all to 10=extremely). The 15 emotions to be rated were angry, fearful, sad, happy, resentful, guilty, ashamed, anxious, surprised, envy, jealousy, contempt, disgust, hurt, embarrassed. This procedure was repeated for each of the five trials.

The participants were then asked to turn over to the final sheet and complete the demographic questions about age, gender and English language status. They were also asked whether the anger and resentment event they recalled were the same, related or different events. Finally, they were asked a question about when the event happened. The scale ranged from 1 to 6, where 1=within the past week, 2=within the past month, 3=within the last few months, 4=within the last year, 5=more than a year 49 ago and 6=before the age of fifteen. Prior to leaving the experimental situation, participants were debriefed about the purpose of the research.

2.5 Results

Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 20. Analyses were set at an alpha level of 0.05. Assumptions were investigated and although variables showed skewed distributions, 145 cases per cell meant that the analysis was robust to violations of normality (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013) . Cohen’s d was calculated as an effect size based on the combined standard deviation corrected for the correlation between groups. The formulas used were:

Cohen’s d1= Mdiff / SDav (2.1)

2 2 SDav = sqrt [(SD 1 + SD 2)/2] (2.2)

Cohen’s d = d1/sqrt (1-r) (2.3)

Mdiff is the difference between anger and resentment means according to variable of interest; SDav is an average of anger and resentment standard deviations according to variable of interest; r is the correlation between the paired groups;

Cohen’s d1 is Cohen’s d without correction for the correlation between paired groups.

Confidence intervals were calculated using an excel spreadsheet specifically designed to calculate Cohen’s d for repeated measures (Wilderdom.com, 2016).

2.5.1 Multivariate analyses.

2.5.1.1 Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) assumptions. Since participants completed their own questionnaire in groups without consultation with other participants it is assumed that the assumption of independence of observations was met. No univariate outliers, Cook’s distance or leverage points were found. 50

However, four multivariate outliers were identified using Mahalanobis distance scores. MANOVAs were conducted with and without these cases and there was no difference in the outcome of the analyses; consequently, these cases were retained for the final analyses. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant, indicating there were significant correlations amongst DVs; therefore MANOVA was an appropriate procedure. MANOVA was also an appropriate statistical procedure because the dependent variables were theoretically related (Stevens, 2002). The assumption of linearity among dependent variables (DVs) was met. The residual Sums of Squares and Cross Products (SSCP) matrix revealed there was one correlation of .826 between DVs, all the rest were <.8; consequently, multicollinearity was not a major issue. Since there were only two groups analysed, sphericity assumed significance tests were interpreted.

2.5.1.2 MANOVA analyses. To investigate whether anger and resentment memories were associated with different patterns of emotions, two, one-way repeated measures MANOVAs were conducted. For the first MANOVA (then ratings) there were 15 dependent variables; the intensity of: angry, fearful, sad, happy, resentful, guilty, ashamed, anxious, surprised, envy, jealousy, contempt, disgust, hurt, embarrassed, felt at the time of the event. The 15 dependent variables for the second

MANOVA (now ratings) were the intensity of: angry, fearful, sad, happy, resentful, guilty, ashamed, anxious, surprised, envy, jealousy, contempt, disgust, hurt, embarrassed, felt now. The independent variable for both MANOVAs was the kind of emotion memory recalled (anger and resentment). There was a significant multivariate effect for both the then, =.564, F(15,130) = 6.69, p < .001, 2 =.44 and 51 now =.730, F(15,130) = 3.20, p < .001, 2=.27 ratings. Follow-up univariate repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) analyses of the effects of recall condition on emotion ratings were conducted to investigate where the anger and resentment autobiographical memories differed on emotion intensity ratings both at the time of the recalled event and now.

2.5.1.3 Univariate repeated measure ANOVAs. Two sets (then ratings and now ratings) of 15 one-way repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted. Then rating analyses revealed that recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories had significantly different emotional intensity ratings for angry, F(1,144) =

19.10, p < .001, Cohen’s d =0.53 [0.30, 0.90]; fear, F(1,144) = 4.78, p = .030,

Cohen’s d = 0.26 [-0.26, 0.73]; resentful, F(1,144) = 41.54, p < .001, Cohen’s d =

0.80 [0.49, 1.30]; anxious, F(1,144) = 4.56, p = .034, Cohen’s d = 0.25 [-0.27, 0.75]; envy, F(1,144) = 21.09; p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.55 [0.03, 0.94]; jealousy, F(1,144) =

13.62; p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.44 [-0.12, 0.90] and embarrassed F(1,144) = 4.21; p =

.042, Cohen’s d = 0.24 [-0.30,0.75]. There were no significant differences found on any other dependent variable at the time of the emotional experiences themselves. At the time of the event, resentment memories had higher resentful, envy, jealousy and embarrassed intensity ratings and lower angry, fearful and anxious intensity ratings compared to anger memories. See Table 2.1 for Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals of the then emotion intensity ratings.

The now results showed that for recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories, the emotional intensity ratings were significantly different on resentful, F(1,144) = 21.24, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.54 [0.06, 1.01]; 52 surprised, F(1,144) = 7.40, p = .007, Cohen’s d = 0.32 [-0.12, 0.72]; envy F(1,144) =

12.19; p = .001, Cohen’s d = 0.43 [0.07, 0.66]; jealousy F(1,144) = 9.75; p = .002

Cohen’s d = 0.39 [0.03, 0.61] and contempt, F(1,144) = 5.18; p = .024 Cohen’s d =

0.27 [-0.20, 0.69]. There were no significant differences found on any other dependent variable. Resentment memories had higher resentful, surprised, envy, jealousy and contempt ratings at the present time than did anger memories.

Interestingly, differences in angry intensity ratings were no longer present. See Table

2.2 for Means, Standard Deviations and 95% Confidence Intervals of the now emotion intensity ratings. 53

Table 2.1 Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) for Then Emotion Intensity Ratings for Anger and Resentment Autobiographical Memories (N=145)

Emotion Anger M (SD) Resentment M (SD) p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] [95% CI] [95% CI] Angry Then 8.94(1.45) 8.09(2.24) <.001 0.53 [0.30, 0.90] [8.70, 9.18] [7.72, 8.46]

Fearful Then 4.09(3.16) 3.43(2.91) =.030 0.26 [-0.26, 0.73] [3.57, 4.61] [2.96, 3.91]

Sad Then 6.35(3.28) 6.59(2.84) =.404 0.10 [-0.36, 0.63] [5.81, 6.89] [6.13, 7.06]

Resentful 6.96(3.08) 8.63(1.87) <.001 0.80 [0.49, 1.30] Then [6.45, 7.46] [8.32, 8.93]

Happy Then 1.29(0.78) 1.47(1.21) =.125 0.19 [-0.01, 0.32] [1.16, 1.42] [1.27, 1.67]

Guilty Then 2.37(2.19) 2.41(2.41) =.879 0.02 [-0.37, 0.38] [2.01, 2.73] [2.01, 2.80]

Ashamed 3.17(2.89) 3.14(2.98) =.940 0.01 [-0.46, 0.50] Then [2.69, 3.64] [2.66, 3.63]

Anxious 5.06(3.19) 4.48(3.10) =.034 0.25 [-0.27, 0.75] Then [4.53, 5.56] [3.97, 4.99]

Surprised 5.70(3.42) 5.63(3.11) =.845 0.03 [-0.53, 0.53] Then [5.14, 6.26] [5.12, 6.15]

Envy Then 2.13(2.40) 3.38(3.21) <.001 0.55 [0.03, 0.94] [1.74, 2.52] [2.85, 3.91]

Jealousy 2.49(2.81) 3.58(3.43) <.001 0.44 [-0.12, 0.90] Then [2.03, 2.95] [3.01, 4.14]

Contempt 5.16(3.43) 5.23(3.35) =.773 0.03 [-0.51, 0.59] Then [4.59, 5.72] [4.68, 5.78]

Disgust Then 6.62(3.20) 6.07(3.31) =.076 0.21 [-0.31, 0.75] [6.10, 7.15] [5.53, 6.61]

Hurt Then 7.23(2.97) 7.41(2.78) =.559 0.07 [-0.38, 0.55] [6.75, 7.72] [6.96, 7.87]

Embarrassed 3.39(3.08) 4.06(3.32) =.042 0.24 [-0.30, 0.75] Then [2.89, 3.90] [3.51, 4.60]

Negative 69.66(21.60) 72.13(20.54) =.169 0.16 [-0.07, 0.39] Affect Then [66.12, 73.21] [68.76, 75.50]

54

Table 2.2

Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) for Now Emotion Intensity Ratings for Anger and Resentment Autobiographical Memories (N=145)

Emotion Anger M(SD) Resentment M(SD) p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] [95% CI] [95% CI] Angry Now 4.86(2.95) 5.12(2.85) =.340 0.11 [-0.36, 0.59] [4.37, 5.34] [4.66, 5.59]

Fearful Now 2.27(2.18) 2.14(2.07) =.489 0.09 [-0.27, 0.42] [1.91, 2.63] [1.81, 2.49]

Sad Now 3.57(2.95) 3.69(2.74) =.644 0.05 [-0.39, 0.53] [3.08, 4.05] [3.24, 4.14]

Resentful Now 4.21(2.85) 5.45(2.96) <.001 0.54 [0.06, 1.01] [3.75, 4.68] [4.96, 5.94]

Happy Now 3.11(2.63) 3.52(3.05) =.112 0.19 [-0.31, 0.62] [2.68, 3.54] [3.02, 4.03]

Guilty Now 2.03(1.82) 2.30(2.17) =.123 0.18 [-0.17, 0.48] [1.73, 2.33] [1.95, 2.66]

Ashamed Now 2.3(2.11) 2.60(2.44) =.223 0.16 [-0.24, 0.50] [1.98, 2.67] [2.20, 3.00]

Anxious Now 2.48(2.23) 2.40(2.07) =.709 0.05 [-0.32, 0.38] [2.10, 2.85] [2.06, 2.74]

Surprised Now 2.72(2.45) 3.46(2.72) =.007 0.32 [-0.12, 0.72] [2.32, 3.12] [3.02, 3.91]

Envy Now 1.48(1.38) 2.12(2.22) =.001 0.43 [0.07, 0.66] [1.26, 1.71] [1.75, 2.48]

Jealousy Now 1.53(1.36) 2.08(2.21) =.002 0.39 [0.03, 0.61] [1.31, 1.75] [1.72, 2.45]

Contempt Now 3.51(2.63) 4.06(2.84) =.024 0.27 [-0.20, 0.69] [3.08, 3.94] [3.60, 4.53]

Disgust Now 4.09(3.20) 4.19(3.08) =.725 0.04 [-0.46, 0.56] [3.57, 4.62] [3.69, 4.70]

Hurt Now 3.94(2.89) 4.32(2.97) =.145 0.17 [-0.31, 0.64] [3.46, 4.41] [3.84, 4.81]

Embarrassed 2.28(1.99) 2.57(2.33) =.182 0.16 [-0.22, 0.48] Now [1.95, 2.60] [2.18, 2.94]

Negative Affect 41.28(21.12) 46.52(21.16) =.003 0.36 [0.13, 0.59] Now** [37.81, 44.74] [43.04, 49.99]

55

2.5.2 Differences in negative affectivity and when the event happened.

Negative affectivity scores were computed to assess whether there were differences in overall negative affect associated with resentment and anger experiences both then at the time the event occurred, and now when they think about the event in the present time. All 13 negative emotions were included, together with surprise. Surprise is frequently conceptualised as serving an orienting function that is initially experienced as phenomenologically neutral but subsequently is experienced as positive or negative, depending on the predominant valence of the experience eliciting the feeling of surprise (Izard, 1977; Plutchik, 1980; Tomkins, 1962). For this reason, surprise was included as a negative emotion. Therefore, the 14 negative affect emotion intensity ratings for each condition at each time point were summed to create four negative affectivity scores; overall negative affect for the resentment then condition, overall negative affect for the anger then condition, overall negative affect for the resentment now condition, and overall negative affect for the anger now condition.

A question asking participants to rate how long ago the anger and resentment event happened was asked to see if resentment events occurred a longer time ago.

2.5.2.1 Assumptions of the dependent t-test. There are two main assumptions for dependent t-tests. The first is normal distribution and the second is that data is measured at least on an interval level (Field, 2005). These two assumptions were met for all analyses.

2.5.2.2 Dependent t-test analyses. Two dependent t-tests were conducted to test whether or not anger and resentment experiences had different levels of overall 56 negative affect both then and now. Results indicated that there was no significant difference (t(144) = 1.371, p = .17, Cohen’s d = 0.16 [-0.07, 0.39]) between overall negative affect between anger experiences (M = 69.66, SD = 21.60) and resentment experiences (M = 72.13, SD = 20.54) at the time the event happened. However, there was a significant difference between anger and resentment experiences in overall negative affect for the now time point (t(144) = -3.07, p = .003, Cohen’s d =

0.36[0.13, 0.59]). Resentment experiences had higher overall negative affect scores now when they think about the experience in the present moment (M = 46.52, SD =

21.16) than anger experiences in the present moment (M = 41.28, SD = 21.12).

To test the hypothesis that the resentment event occurred a longer time ago than the anger event, an independent t-test was conducted. The hypothesis was not supported, there was no significant difference (t(144) = .996, p = .32, Cohen’s d =

0.12 [-0.10, 0.38]) between when the anger (M= 4.05, SD = 1.56) and resentment (M=

4.21, SD = 1.35) event happened.

2.6 Discussion

The present study explored the prototypical features of subjective feelings to examine the proposition that anger and resentment are, at least to some extent, distinct emotions. It utilised one-way repeated measures MANOVAs to investigate the hypothesis that anger and resentment autobiographical memories will show different patterns of emotions both at the time of the event (then) and now when participants think about it in the present time.

The hypothesis was supported by the data. Anger and resentment experiences showed significant differences in intensities of various emotions although emotion 57 intensity ratings for both resentment and anger experiences at the time they occurred were clearly intense negative experiences. They had in common many specific emotions; some had similar intensity ratings and some had different intensity ratings.

Specifically, during a resentment experience, individuals reported higher levels of embarrassment, envy, jealousy and resentment than individuals during an anger experience. On the other hand, at the time of the anger experience, individuals reported higher levels of anger, fear and anxiety. For the other negative emotions

(sad, guilty, ashamed, surprise, contempt, disgust, and hurt) anger and resentment experiences did not differ at the time they occurred.

Looking at the intensity of emotions associated with anger and resentment experiences recalled now, at the present time, differences between anger and resentment experiences were still apparent. The intensity of resentment, envy and jealousy was still higher for the resentment experience than the anger experience.

Anger, embarrassment, fear and anxiety no longer differed between the two emotions.

Moreover, surprise and contempt were now higher for the resentment experience when participants thought about how they felt now about the autobiographical memory.

As expected, there were higher intensity ratings of the emotion related to the specific event at the time the event happened, so anger was higher in the anger experience and resentment higher in the resentment experience. However, now at the present time, anger was not significantly higher for the anger condition, but resentment was still higher for the resentment condition. Furthermore, envy and jealousy remained higher for the resentment experience than the anger experience. 58

This finding supports the propositions made by Ortony et al. (1988), that resentment is associated more with envy and jealousy than anger. Ortony et al. (1988) proposed that resentment belongs to a group of emotions called event based, resentment emotions (e.g., envy, jealousy, resentment). They involve displeasure about an event that is perceived to be desirable for someone else. Anger, on the other hand belongs to a group of emotions called agent based, anger emotions (e.g., anger, annoyance, fury, indignation, irritation, rage) that involve displeasure and disapproval of another’s blameworthy behaviour and the related undesirable event. They also assert that envy is a particular example of resentment because undeservingness is a key concern of envy, and resentment involves concern for others’ undeserved benefits.

Ben-Ze'ev (2000), however, suggests that resentment is concerned with the undeservingness of another because it may be morally unjust. Hence, resentment may be associated with both envy and anger. The present results seem to support the idea that both anger and envy are a significant part of a resentment experience.

The higher rating for fear and anxiousness associated with the anger experience supports those theories that state anger is associated more with fear than resentment (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000; Worthington & Wade, 1999).

In addition to showing differences in the intensity of a number of different emotions, both anger and resentment experiences had high levels of other emotions that occurred at a similar intensity for both anger and resentment experiences. At the time of the event, participants in the anger and resentment experiences felt similar levels of sadness (>6), surprise (>5), contempt (>5), disgust (>6), and hurt (>7).

Emotion intensities were rated on a scale ranging from 1(not at all) to 10(extremely). 59

Ratings higher than 5 suggest the intensity of these emotions was strong at the time the event happened and these intensities decreased over time.

Clearly, prototypical instances of anger and resentment can be differentiated on the basis of the intensity of negative emotions associated with anger and resentment experiences. Interestingly, there is also similarity in the type of subjective feelings reported. Specifically, the top 5 emotions are the same for both anger and resentment experiences (anger, resentment, hurt, sadness and disgust), only their order varies. Furthermore, for both experiences, participants rated happiness as the least intense emotion. It appears the critical difference between a prototypical anger and resentment experience is the intensity of the prototypical feature of accompanying emotions.

Resentment’s greater association with resentment, envy and jealousy and anger’s greater association with anger, fear and anxiousness do not provide the whole picture. It appears that both experiences have a complex pattern of emotions that occur in relation to the events. Results show that prototypical resentment experiences also had higher levels of embarrassment than prototypical anger experiences at the time the event happened. Moreover, now at the present time, the resentment experience had higher levels of surprise and contempt as well as envy, jealousy and resentment itself. This could suggest that prototypical resentment is a broader emotion that includes a larger variety of emotions occurring in greater amounts. The result of which may be an overall greater negative experience lasting for a longer time. To shed more light on this, the present study investigated differences in overall negative affect associated with each of the emotion experiences. 60

The second hypothesis stated that resentment would have greater overall negative affectivity scores both at the time the event happened and now at the present time. This hypothesis was partially supported. The results comparing the overall negative affectivity scores indicated that anger and resentment experiences had similar levels of overall negativity at the time the event happened, but now at the present time, resentment experiences had greater overall negative affectivity scores than anger experiences. Furthermore, intensity ratings for resentment were still higher for the resentment experience when the participants thought about the event in the present moment, but anger was no longer greater for the anger experience, now at the present time. These two findings support the proposition by Ben-Ze'ev (2000) and

Potter-Efron (2005) that prototypical resentment experiences linger longer than prototypical anger experiences and are more negative experiences, at least in the long term.

Finally, the hypothesis that resentment events would have occurred a longer time ago was not supported. There were no significant differences between anger and resentment experiences on how long ago the event happened. This could have occurred because the average age of the participants was 20. This resulted in a lack of variability in how long ago the experience happened. This problem was addressed in

Study 2 where a community sample representing a greater number of participants in older age groups was recruited.

In summary, it appears that a prototypical resentment experience is more negative, lingers longer and involves a broader range of emotions experienced more intensely than a prototypical subjective anger experience. Furthermore, the two 61 emotions can be distinguished according to patterns of accompanying emotions. This is just one of the prototypical features that was explored in the present research. More features were explored in Study 2 and Study 3.

There were several limitations inherent in this research. Firstly, the autobiographical memories and information relating to them was gathered from retrospective accounts. The accuracy of this information may be questionable; however, most emotion research utilises this methodology. Secondly, any recall problems affecting anger experiences also affected the resentment experiences given the design was a within groups design.

An additional limitation could have been the repeated measures design. As much as this increases power by removing the effects of individual variability, it could have had limitations in finding differences between anger and resentment experiences due to priming effects. Although the order of emotions recalled were counterbalanced according to a Latin s quare design, recalling anger or a resentment event subsequent to the earlier recalled anger or resentment event could mean the same or related event was recalled for the second event recalled. A question at the end of the questionnaire attempted to investigate this by asking if the anger and resentment event recalled was either the same, related or different. Nine indicated they were the same, eight indicated they were related and the remaining 128 reported they were different. If anything, the responses of these participants would have attenuated the overall differences between the anger and resentment experiences because they should have rated the intensity of emotions associated with them more 62 similarly than if the events were different. In other words, the effect sizes may be smaller due to this limitation.

The final key limitation involved the subjective nature of emotional experience. Recall of a relevant autobiographical memory relied on the participants’ understanding of what each emotion label meant. Despite this limitation, it is hard, if not impossible to be objective when studying emotion. Importantly, it is the differences in the subjective experience of emotions that researchers are calling us to study (Barrett et al., 2007; Russell, 2015). This call for the understanding of people’s subjective experience of emotion is important because emotions are pervasive human experiences and emotion labels are used universally to communicate important information between people (Russell, 2015).

The present research clearly indicated that prototypical anger and resentment are to some extent similar and to some extent different. The next step in this research was to explore in what way a prototypical example of these emotions differ. This required a phenomenological approach that uncovered specifics about prototypical features such as eliciting events, sensations, appraisals, emotivational goals, urges or action tendencies, and behaviours. In brief, it is clear that anger and resentment experiences were both negative and they differed in the pattern of specific negative emotions that contributed to the overall negativity of the experience. However, we do not know how prototypical anger and resentment differ according to the commonly studied prototype components of emotion episodes. Study 2 investigated the phenomenological and prototypical features that differed between anger and resentment according to the components outlined earlier. 63

CHAPTER 3

3.1 Study 2 Introduction

To date, emotion research has focused predominantly on a small number of emotions with little attention paid towards differentiating amongst a wider range of emotions. Barret and colleagues (Barrett, 2006a, 2006b; Barrett et al., 2007) argued that research needs to focus on the richness and diversity of human emotional experience. They argue that the study of emotion also requires descriptions of subjective emotion experience and content that are both common and that differentiate emotion experiences from one another (Barrett et al., 2007). Research investigating emotion differentiation increases conceptual knowledge about different emotions, it directs researchers to investigate more emotions and helps scientists understand the cause of emotions as well as their content rich phenomenology and consequences. Thus a program of research investigating the richness of subjective emotional experiences requires an understanding of subjective feelings, somatic experiences or sensations, eliciting events, appraisals, emotivational goals, urges or action tendencies, behaviours and consequences (Barrett et al., 2007; Fitness &

Fletcher, 1993; Roseman et al., 1994; Shaver et al., 1987).

Barret, Mesquita, Oschner and Gross, (2007) assert that one of the causes of our impoverished knowledge base about emotion experience is that the predominant emotion research paradigm eschews phenomenology and qualitative research. These authors propose a scientific research agenda to address this gap. Understanding layperson’s descriptions of what is felt was central to their proposed research agenda on increasing knowledge about emotion. Layperson’s emotion scripts play a vital role 64 in the formation of their perceptions, expectations, memories and judgements of emotion episodes in their lives (Fitness, 2000). Emotional experiences are content- rich phenomena; therefore, phenomenological and process investigations are vital components to advance any theory of emotion.

One of the core aims of the present research was to investigate the similarities and differences between anger and resentment. As outlined in the general introduction in chapter 1, this emerged from a number of researchers and philosophers proposing that anger and resentment are different emotions, with little research to back their assertions. Despite the lack of research differentiating these emotions, there are a number of key anger researchers who propose, like Barret,

Mesquita, Oschner and Gross, (2007), that subjective self-reports of anger episodes as they occur in the natural environment are meaningful for understanding anger

(Averill, 1983; Tafrate et al., 2002). Asking participants to recall a single anger episode, describe it in an open ended format, then answer other open and closed questions about that episode has been widely used by anger researchers (Kassinove &

Sukhodolsky, 1995; Kassinove, Sukhodolsky, Tsytsarev, & Solovyova, 1997; Tafrate et al., 2002).

Similarly, other emotion researchers have used strategies that investigate phenomenological aspects of emotion experience called emotion script research where prototypical features are extracted and categorised from laypeople’s accounts of autobiographical emotion memories or imagined emotion episodes (Fitness, 2000;

Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Tafrate et al., 2002; Tangney, 1992). Although some research has been conducted with respect to extracting and identifying prototypical 65 features of anger (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Russell & Fehr, 1994; Shaver et al.,

1987), no research to date has investigated prototypical features of resentment.

Emotion prototypes typically include features that make up emotion scripts such as somatic responses and experiences, eliciting events, action tendencies or urges, behavioural responses, subjective feelings, emotivational goals and appraisals

(Fitness & Fletcher, 1993; Shaver et al., 1987). Furthermore, there are clinical implications associated with doing this. Anger researchers emphasise that anger episodes need to be broken down into components in order to successfully treat and reduce harmful anger symptoms (Kassinove et al., 1997; Tafrate et al., 2002).

Previous emotion differentiation research has investigated differences between emotions on a number of appraisal dimensions, emotivational goals, somatic responses and experiences, action tendencies, subjective feelings, behaviours and consequences (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Fitness &

Fletcher, 1993; Frijda et al., 1989; Roseman et al., 1994; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985).

Each of these studies focused on some or all of the components outlined as important in understanding complex subjective emotion experiences. These components of emotion have been found to differentiate among related emotions such as regret and disappointment (van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2002; Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead, & van der Pligt, 1998); anger and contempt (Fischer & Roseman, 2007); hurt and anger

(Lemay et al., 2012); shame and guilt (Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney, 1992; Tracy &

Robins, 2006; Wicker et al., 1983); shame guilt and embarrassment (Tangney et al.,

1996); envy and jealousy (Parrott & Smith, 1993); benign envy, malicious envy, 66 admiration, and resentment (van de Ven et al., 2009, 2012); love, hate, anger and jealousy (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993).

In the present research, Study 1 investigated commonalities and differences in the patterns of subjective feelings between anger and resentment experiences. It was found that anger and resentment were both similar and different in the intensities and patterns of emotions associated with anger and resentment experiences. Study 2 was designed to replicate the findings of Study 1 and expand our understanding of the components that make up subjective emotional experiences. Consequently, Study 2 explored commonalities and differences between anger and resentment experiences according to eliciting events, somatic experiences, appraisals, emotivational goals, urges or action tendencies, and behaviours. It also replicated Study 1. The present research used methodology from a number of research studies that have differentiated among related emotions and a review of some of these studies will follow.

3.1.1 Review of emotion differentiation research.

3.1.1.1 Anger and contempt. The research conducted by Fischer and

Roseman (2007) will be reviewed in some detail since parts of the methodology used in their first study was used in the present research. In a series of three studies,

Fischer and Roseman (2007) investigated the differences between anger and contempt. The series of studies explored the differences between anger and contempt with a focus on relational antecedents and effects on the behavioural and motivational components. The exploration of these differences was hypothesised to highlight differences between anger and contempt in their social functions. This was important since it was suggested that emotions serve important social functions and 67 understanding these functions is important in order to fully understand emotion

(Barrett et al., 2007). The authors hypothesised that the key social function of anger was to change the undesired outcome caused by the other person, that if successful, may result in reconciliation with the other person. Contempt, on the other hand, was hypothesised to serve the function of removing the other person from one’s social circle. This review will focus on the methodology of first study because the present research replicated some of this methodology. The last two studies of their research altered the methodology to confirm findings found in the first study.

To investigate their hypotheses, Fischer and Roseman (2007) in their first study asked participants to recall and describe a situation in which they felt either anger or contempt towards another. Participants then rated their responses to a series of questions about the event on 7-point Likert scales (1=not applicable; 7=very applicable). Firstly, participants were asked about their appraisals of the event. The appraisal domains included who was to blame (e.g., “It was the fault of the other person”), the character of the other person (e.g., “I thought the other person was bad”), perceived control (e.g., “To what extent did you feel in control of the situation”) and the quality of the relationship with the other person (e.g., “How well do you know this person”). Secondly, participants were asked about their immediate reactions to the event including such reactions as verbal attack as well as more long- term reactions including reactions such as reconciliation or rejection. Participants were then asked about emotivational goals (Roseman et al., 1994). These were goals participants may have wanted to pursue as part of the felt emotion. For example, reconciliation goals included wanting the other to apologise, or for the other to realise 68 he or she had gone too far. Social exclusion goals included wanting to break the relationship or not wanting to be associated with the other person. Finally, relational consequences were explored through questions such as “contact with this person has diminished”. Study 2 and Study 3 of their research used methodologies to confirm the findings from Study 1.

Fischer and Roseman (2007) found that anger and contempt were characterised by different appraisal and response patterns. Prototypical anger reactions mostly began with short-term attacks, usually verbal, that in time tended to result in reconciliation and relationship improvement. Therefore, the authors concluded that the social function of anger was to try and alter an undesired outcome by changing the other’s behaviour through attacking with the hope of reconciliation and relationship improvement. Contempt, on the other hand, involved other derogation developing into long-term rejection and social exclusion from one’s social group. Thus contempt’s social function was to move the other away from oneself and his or her social environment resulting in relationship deterioration.

The present study utilised some of the methodology used in the first study of

Fischer and Roseman (2007) research to investigate the differences in the social function of anger and resentment. According to Potter-Efron (2005) individuals holding resentment spend large amounts of energy ignoring resented people and avoiding gatherings offenders attend. Thus, like contempt, resentment may also serve to exclude the resented from their social circle.

3.1.1.2 Regret and disappointment. Two studies differentiating between regret and disappointment will be reviewed to highlight some of the components 69 commonly investigated in emotion differentiation research (van Dijk & Zeelenberg,

2002; Zeelenberg et al., 1998). Zeelenberg et al. (1998) differentiated between regret and disappointment focusing on the phenomenology of the two emotions. They investigated differences between these two emotions on five key components of emotion experience developed by Roseman et al. (1994). Participants were asked to recall an event in which they felt intense regret or disappointment. They were asked to imagine giving someone a rich description of the event and to think about the thoughts and feelings they had during this event. The five components were investigated via a number of closed questions that were to be answered while holding the recalled event in their minds. They responded to the questions on 9-point Likert scales (1=not at all; 9=to a very great extent). The first of these components investigated were feelings. In this study, feelings referred more to physically felt sensations rather than the presence of other emotions as well as feelings of control and powerlessness. In Roseman et al.’s study it mainly referred to feelings experienced in the body such as “feeling your heart pounding”. The second component was thoughts. These included questions about thoughts one might have during the emotion experience such as “think about what a mistake you had made”.

The third component was action tendencies that included questions about what the participants may have liked to do, for example, “feel the tendency to kick yourself”.

The fourth component included actions. These were what the person did during the event such as “change the situation”. The last component investigated was emotivational goals, in other words, what the person wanted to do, for instance,

“wanted to get a second chance”. A total of four questions per component were asked 70 and there were significant differences between regret and disappointment on 11 of the

20 questions. Regret and disappointment were differentiated with respect to feelings, thoughts, action tendencies, actions and emotivational goals. Regret was differentiated from disappointment such that regret participants felt more intensely that they should have known better, they thought more about what a mistake they had made, they felt the tendency to kick themselves more and correct their mistake, and they wanted to undo the event and get a second chance. Disappointment experiences compared to regret experiences included greater feelings of powerlessness, tendency to do nothing and get away from the situation, actually turning away from the event, and wanting to do nothing.

In another study investigating the differences between regret and disappointment, van Dijk and Zeelenberg (2002) wanted to investigate in more detail the appraisal dimensions that differentiate between these two emotions. They included nine different appraisal dimensions adopted from Roseman (1996). Like the previous study, these appraisal dimensions were investigated using 9-point Likert scales. See Table 3.1 for a description of these appraisal dimensions, item stems and scale anchors. Even though they were specifically interested in regret and disappointment, they also included anger and sadness because these emotions often co-occurred with regret and disappointment. Consequently, participants were asked to recall and describe a situation in which they felt disappointment, regret, sadness or anger. They were then asked to rate their responses on the nine appraisal dimensions.

Since regret and disappointment were the emotions of primary interest these results will be reported. Compared to regret, disappointment was appraised as more 71

Table 3.1 Appraisal Dimensions, Descriptions, Item Stems and Scale Anchors for Items

Measuring Appraisals

Dimension Item and Scale Anchors

Unexpectedness Whether an event was expected or not. The event being expected (1) to The event being unexpected (9).

Situational State Whether events are consistent or inconsistent with a person’s motives. Believing that the event improved things (1) to Believing that the event made things worse (9)

Motivational State Appraising an event as relevant to appetitive motives. Wanting to get or keep something pleasurable. Wanting to get or keep something pleasurable (1) to Wanting to get rid of or avoid something painful (9).

Probability Whether the consequences of an event are seen as certain or uncertain. Being certain about the consequences of the event (1) to Being uncertain about the consequences of the event (9).

Control Potential Perceived ability to control or do something about the event. Thinking that there was something I could do about the event (1) to Thinking that there was nothing I could do about the event (9).

Legitimacy Whether a person thinks of himself or herself as morally right in the event. Thinking of myself as morally right (1) or Thinking of myself as morally wrong (9).

Own Power Whether a person thinks of him or herself as powerful or powerless. Feeling that I was powerless (1) to Feeling that I was powerful (9).

Problem Source Whether an event is attributable to the character or basic nature of a person. Thinking that the event did not reveal the basic nature of someone or something (1) to Thinking that the event did reveal the basic nature of someone or something (9).

Agency Who or what caused the event

Self Event caused by self Thinking that the event was not at all caused by me (1) to Thinking that the event was very much caused by me (9).

Other Event is caused by another person Thinking that the event was not at all caused by someone else (1) to Thinking that the event was very much caused by someone else (9).

Circumstances Event is caused by circumstances beyond ones control. Thinking that the event was not at all caused by circumstances beyond anyone’s control (1) to Thinking that the event was very much caused by circumstances beyond anyone’s control (9).

72 unexpected, as more wanting of something pleasurable, as thinking one was more morally right, and was caused more by circumstances beyond one’s control. Regret, on the other hand, was appraised more as thinking one could do something about the event and as caused more by oneself.

3.1.1.3 Envy and jealousy. Parrott and Smith (1993) differentiated between envy and jealousy in a series of two studies. Like much emotion differentiation research, participants were asked to recall an experience of either envy or jealousy and write detailed descriptions of these events prior to answering questionnaire items.

Subjects responded to 59 questions on 9-point Likert scales as to how characteristic each item was to their emotion experience (1=not at all characteristic; midpoint= moderately characteristic; 9=very characteristic). The 59 questions included a variety of questions about other emotions experienced such as angry, resentful, hate, hurt, bitter; perceptions such as “the emotion came on unexpectedly”, “others would disapprove if they knew what I was feeling”, feeling unfairly treated by life”; and motivations such as “motivation to improve myself”, “urge to get even”. The researchers conducted a principal-components factor analysis that resulted in 15 readily interpretable clusters. These were disapproval of feelings, longing, motivation to improve, degradation, irrationality, anger, ill will, pettiness, low self-esteem, unhappiness, helplessness, , uncertainty, fear and . They found clear differences between envy and jealousy on eight of the 15 clusters. Envy was characterised more by longing, disapproval of feelings, motivation to improve and inferiority. Jealousy, on the other hand, was characterised more by distrust, fear, uncertainty and loneliness. Jealousy was more intense than envy and the authors 73 suggested that the issue of intensity may be important more generally in comparing other emotions.

Parrott and Smith (1993) suggested that there was a loss of sensitivity in the use of retrospective memory recall due to the presence of both envy and jealousy in many of the recalled experiences. Consequently, they conducted a second study to address this. The second study involved creating four vignettes that clearly represented either envy or jealousy scenarios whereby the two jealousy scenarios contained relatively little envy and the two envy scenarios contained very little jealousy. Participants read the scenarios and then responded to 34 questions that were found to differentiate envy from jealousy on a 9-point Likert scale (1=not at all;

9=extremely). Again, principal-components factor analysis supported the distinction between envy and jealousy. The items loading highly onto the first component included four jealousy aspects; distrust, anxiety, anger and fear of rejection whereas the items that loaded highly onto the second component pertained to aspects of envy; inferiority, resentment and longing. These studies taken together clearly showed that envy and jealousy are different emotions.

3.1.1.4 Benign envy, malicious envy, admiration and resentment. The study by van de Ven et al. (2012) will be reviewed because it is a study that investigated the appraisals that distinguished a number of emotions including resentment. Although the study was mainly interested in distinguishing benign envy from malicious envy, they included admiration and resentment because they considered them to be closely related emotions. Admiration was considered similar to benign envy and resentment similar to malicious envy. Comparisons of interest were 74 benign envy versus malicious envy, admiration versus benign envy and resentment versus malicious envy.

The participants were asked to recall and briefly describe a situation in which they felt benign envy, malicious envy, admiration or resentment. Following this they were asked to complete a series of questions adopted from Roseman (1996). See

Table 3.1 for a list of these questions. One additional question was included “My

[emotion label] was caused because I thought the event was very undeserved (1)...I thought the event was very deserved (9)”.

Differences between emotions were found. For malicious envy, the situation was viewed to be undeserved and participants perceived they had less control than for benign envy. Resentment was elicited more in unfair situations attributed to the wilful behaviour of the other than for malicious envy, whereas malicious envy was perceived more if there existed a subjective experience of undeservingness caused by the circumstances. Resentment existed when events were attributed to others behaviour and malicious envy existed more when events were attributed to the circumstances. They concluded that resentment existed more when others were to blame and malicious envy existed more if situation circumstances were to blame.

They also found that events that elicited resentment had worsened the situation for the participant more than the events elicited for malicious envy. For admiration, participants felt they had caused the situation less, the event was more strongly deserved and they had lower control potential than for benign envy. Furthermore, participants felt the event had worsened more for benign envy than for admiration. 75

In an earlier study examining the same four emotions, van de Ven et al.

(2009) again had participants recall and describe a situation or event that involved either benign envy, malicious envy, admiration or resentment. Similar to the studies by Zeelenberg et al. (1998) and Roseman et al. (1994), participants were then asked to complete questions related to the experiential content; namely feelings, thoughts, action tendencies, actions and emotivational goals.

There were differences found between the emotions and some of the key findings included differences found between benign envy and malicious envy; and the related emotions of resentment and malicious envy. Participants in the benign envy condition were more likely to want to improve their own position compared to malicious envy, whereas participants in the malicious envy condition were more likely to want to degrade the other. The authors concluded that the moving-up motivation of benign envy leads to improvement for oneself whereas the motivation for benign envy was to pull-down the other from a superior position. Negative feelings and consequences were more likely to occur for resentment and the authors suggest this was likely because participants in the resentment condition were more likely to attribute the resentment event to the wilful behaviour of the other person.

Furthermore, malicious envy was elicited more when an explicit comparison was made between oneself and another, whereas resentment did not contain such a comparison.

3.1.1.5 Love, hate, anger and jealousy. Like the anger and contempt study, this study will be reviewed in more detail given the present study followed some, but not all of the methodology used by Fitness and Fletcher (1993). They performed a 76 prototype and cognitive appraisal analysis of love, hate, anger and jealousy within the context of marital relationships. A prototype approach suggests that not all instances of an emotion event necessarily fits the particular response patterns found in a study, rather it represents a typical instance of the specific emotion label studied. Emotion prototypes include a number of components that make up a specific emotion experience, for example, eliciting events, subjective feelings, somatic responses and sensations, emotivational goals, action tendencies or urges, and behavioural responses. The Fitness and Fletcher study investigated most of these key emotion components to differentiate between love, hate, anger and jealousy.

Participants were asked to relax and recall an event where they felt either love, hate, anger or jealousy for their partner and then describe in as much detail as possible the event that had elicited the emotion. Following this, participants responded to a series of open-ended questions such as when the event happened; prior and post mood; remembered cognitions, physiological symptoms, urges, behaviours, control strategies; emotion duration; and partner reaction. The participants then rated how intensely they felt the respective emotion on a 6-point Likert scale (1=not at all;

6=extremely). Following this, they rated 13 items measuring their remembered appraisals of the eliciting event on 13 dimensions; pleasantness, desirability for the relationship, importance, expectedness, certainty of understanding the event, amount of effort required to deal with the event, level of perceived obstacles associated with the event, predictability of the event, self and partner responsibility for the event, perceived control over the event, event typicality, who or what caused the emotion, and the extent to which they believed the cause was situationally specific. 77

Eliciting events from the emotion descriptions and the responses to the open ended questions were each sorted into categories. They devised a concise coding scheme that provided an adequate number of categories that were neither over inclusive nor under inclusive. Not every subject answered every question and many participants gave answers that fell into two or more categories. This situation also occurred in the present research.

Fitness and Fletcher (1993) found that all four emotions had their own distinctive profile. The finding that hate and anger showed distinctive profiles was interesting since hate has been found to be closely associated with anger (Shaver et al., 1987). With respect to hate and anger distinctions, Fitness and Fletcher found that hate events occurred significantly later than anger events; hate events occurred over a year ago on average and anger events occurred within the previous month. Hate, as opposed to anger, was most often elicited by perceptions related to bad treatment, lack of support or humiliation by a partner. Anger, as opposed to hate, was mostly elicited by the perception of unfair treatment by the partner and was distinct from perceptions of neglect and being treated badly. Participants who recalled hate reported significantly more self-related negative cognitions and were more likely to behave coldly than those who recalled anger events. Participants who recalled anger as opposed to hate had a desire to express their feelings and felt greater tension post incident, whereas those who recalled hate as opposed to anger had a desire to escape the situation. Moreover, anger as opposed to hate, was delineated by feelings of heat and warmth (e.g. hot and bothered for anger). Finally, anger events were more 78 predictable, had significantly fewer perceived obstacles and participants felt more control over the situation than for hate events.

This study showed that anger and hate were associated with distinct cognitive appraisals and prototypical features despite previous findings that hate is a subcategory of anger (Shaver et al., 1987).

3.1.2 The present research.

The reviews above illustrated that emotion differentiation research utilised a number of different methodologies; however, there were many core similarities.

Firstly, much emotion differentiation research asked participants to recall and describe situations that involved a particular emotion. Secondly, phenomenology was explored using both open-ended and closed questions. Thirdly, the domains explored included some or all of the following; eliciting events; subjective feelings; physiological or somatic responses and sensations; emotivational goals; action tendencies or urges; behaviours; and consequences. The present study predominantly drew from methodology used by Fischer and Roseman (2007) and Fitness and

Fletcher (1993). Using some of the same methodology, it was hypothesised that the present study will demonstrate that anger and resentment have both similar and distinctive prototypical features and cognitive appraisals.

A second purpose of this study was to see if the different patterns of emotions found in Study 1 could be replicated using a between groups community sample.

Study 1 used undergraduate psychology students as participants. Using this participant group meant that there may have been a lack of variability reducing the power of the study in some areas. 79

Due to growing concerns about the questionable reliability of effects reported in psychology, researchers have emphasised the importance of replicating reported findings (Anderson & Maxwell, 2015; Pashler & Harris, 2012; Pashler &

Wagenmakers, 2012; Simons, 2014). Simons (2014) referred to replicability as the

“cornerstone” (p.76) of science. Traditionally, Bonferroni corrections have been used to adjust critical alpha levels to avoid type 1 errors, or more specifically, false positives (Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). However, Simmons et al. (2011) suggested that Bonferroni corrections may introduce additional ambiguity that could make the false positive situation worse. Furthermore, Bonferroni corrections could introduce type 2 errors. Consequently authors such as Simons (2014) proposed that replication is “the best and possibly the only believable evidence for the reliability of an effect” (p76).

A third aim of this study was to investigate appraisals related to the other person involved in the event. Previous research investigating the differences between anger and contempt found that anger and contempt had different social functions

(Fischer & Roseman, 2007). They found that anger belonged to the attack-emotion family where attacking the other person was used to gain a better outcome such as long-term reconciliation, whereas contempt belonged to the exclusion-emotion family where the other person was excluded from one’s social network. The present research used some of Fischer and Roseman (2007) questions related to other person appraisals and motivations to investigate if anger and resentment serve different social functions. 80

Study 2 used an internet based questionnaire. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, the researcher wanted to access a sample that was more representative of the community than the traditional university student sample.

Secondly, internet surveys have a number of advantages over paper questionnaires.

Typically, a large percentage of psychological research is conducted using first year psychology students. For example, a group of researchers culled data from empirical studies of humans extracted from the 2002 volumes of the Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP). This is a highly ranked psychology journal with high rejection rates (Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, & John, 2004). They found that the samples in 2002 consisted of 85% student samples, 71% females with a mean age of 22.9 years. These figures are not representative of the multicultural world population (Heinrich, Heine, & Novenzayan, 2010) yet alone the western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic community most university students come from (Gosling, Sandy, John, & Potter, 2010). Gosling et al, (2010) proposed that internet based research can broaden the traditional participant base of student samples and have a number of advantages over traditional methods of data collection.

For example, internet surveys can be set up to eliminate missing data, they cost less, have a greater geographical reach, have improved efficiency and save data entry errors thus improving overall accuracy. In addition, internet samples are more diverse than traditional student samples with respect to age, gender, socio economic status and geographic region (Gosling et al., 2004). Furthermore, paper data collection methods compared to internet data collection methods have shown equivalence for 81 both quantitative and qualitative data (Ritter, Lorig, Laurent, & Matthews, 2004;

Weigold, Weigold, & Russell, 2013).

3.2 Aims

One of the aims of Study 2 was to replicate the findings of Study 1. Does anger and resentment differ in their patterns of subjective feelings and if so, is it the same as that found for the psychology undergraduate student sample. Secondly, to investigate how anger and resentment are similar and how they differ employing similar methodology used by Fitness and Fletcher (1993) and Fischer and Roseman

(2007). Open ended questions were used to investigate the eliciting events; somatic responses and experiences; action tendencies and urges; and behaviours. Quantitative and content analyses were conducted to test this. Closed questions were used to investigate differences in cognitions and emotivational goals.

3.3 Hypotheses

1) If the findings from Study 1 are replicated then at the time of the event, resentment memories would show higher resentful, envy, jealousy and embarrassed intensity ratings and lower angry, fearful and anxious intensity ratings compared to anger memories; and now at the present time, resentment memories would have higher resentful, surprised, envy, jealousy and contempt ratings at the present time compared to anger memories.

2) Resentment associated with resentment memories will last longer than the anger associated with anger memories.

3) Because this is a community sample, it is expected that there will be greater variability in how long ago the resentment and anger events occurred; therefore, 82 results should not be affected by lack of variability. Consequently, it is expected that resentment events will have occurred a longer time ago than anger memories.

4) In Study 1, overall negative affectivity was greater for resentment now than anger now. Moreover, there were no differences between anger and resentment events for overall negative affectivity then. Consequently, it is hypothesised that these findings will be replicated.

5) According to theoretical propositions about the differences between anger and resentment, anger and resentment should have different prototypical profiles; consequently, it is predicted that anger and resentment will show different profiles for eliciting events, somatic sensations and responses during the event, action tendencies or urges during the event, and behaviours at the time of the event.

6) According to theoretical propositions about the differences between anger and resentment, anger and resentment scenarios should also differ on cognitive appraisals, emotivational goals and appraisals related to the other person involved in the event.

3.4 Method

3.4.1 Participants.

Participants consisted of 229 (160 female and 69 male) Australian and international community members. One case was removed due to patterned responding throughout the questionnaire. Two were removed because the resentment scenarios described were not considered to be appropriate resentment scenarios; furthermore, the associated quantitative data was affected by this. For example, one resentment scenario was described as “watching porn”. The participant then rated all

15 emotions felt at the time of the event as “not at all” except happy which was rated 83

highly. The final sample for most quantitative analyses consisted of 226 participants

(159 female and 67 male). The anger group contained 128 participants and the

resentment group contained 98 participants. Ages ranged from 16 to 73 years with a

mean age of 45.4 years (SD = 13.11). Participants rated their English fluency on a

rating scale from 1(not at all) to 10(extremely). Five percent reported English as their

second language and were retained because their fluency scores were >7. Table 3.2

shows the demographics of the participants according to country; religion; occupation

and marital status.

Table 3.2

Demographic Variables N=226

Country/ n (%) Religion n (%) Occupation n (%) Marital n (%) Region Status

Australia 124(55) Catholic 50(22) Unskilled 28(12) Married/ 91(40) De facto

Canada 9(4) Protestant 63(28) Skilled/trade 27(12) Separated/ 91(40) Divorced

UK 17(7) Buddhist 9(4) Professional 94(42) Single 39(17)

USA 69(31) Judaism 7(3) Student 20(9) Widowed 5(3)

Other 7(3) Other 27(12) Retired 32(14)

None 70(31) Unemployed/ 25(11) Home duties/ Disability

For the set of eight questions related to the other person in the event, the

sample size was 182. Prior to answering these questions, participants were asked,

“Was another person involved in the event”? If they answered yes to this question

they were directed to the questions asking about the other person. Only 182 84 participants responded yes to this question (100 anger participants and 82 resentment participants). Consequently, this set of eight questions were analysed with a sample size of 182 instead of 226.

For the thematic content analysis, participant numbers varied for a number of reasons. Some participants left the description sections blank and were removed from thematic analyses. Some participants’ descriptions were not able to be categorised.

For example, some participant descriptions of resentment or anger events only contained physiological descriptions. For descriptions of sensations that were felt in the body during the event, some participants just named emotions or wrote things like

“many different ones” so these were not able to be used. This also happened for urges at the time of the event and for what people did at the time of the event. Several examples of excluded descriptions for the content analysis section are provided in

Appendix D.

3.4.2 Procedure.

Participants were recruited via a number of online sources including social media and website pages. A sample of participants with a wide variety of experiences, especially people who may have experienced high levels of resentment or anger was recruited. It was assumed that separated and divorced people may have high levels of these emotions and would provide rich descriptions that could highlight differences between these emotions. Thus the researcher advertised via Facebook and other groups such as Dads in Distress; Single parents are not boring; There is life after divorce; Separation, divorce and starting over; fighting fathers etc. The researcher also wanted to have participants that represented a wide range of age 85 groups to capture long held anger and resentment. Consequently, an invitation to join the study was posted on the University of the Third Age website. In addition, advertisements were posted on Facebook group pages such as Born in the 60’s: any of us out there. For a more detailed outline of the groups contacted, and the messages used to gain interest, see Appendix C. Internet group and Facebook group administrators were contacted and asked if they would pass the details of the study on to their members. The details involved a brief outline of the study, a request to participate and a link to the online survey.

Ethics approval was received from the Griffith University Human Research

Ethics Committee. Potential participants clicked on the survey link and were randomly allocated by the survey website to either a resentment or anger condition.

Participants completed the online study in their own time. The online survey was designed using the online survey design website SurveyGizmo (SurveyGizmo, 2008).

A pro package was purchased to utilise a number of advanced features, in particular, randomisation to groups and providing anonymity by not tracking IP addresses.

Participants read an information sheet and were asked whether or not they consented to complete the survey. A yes response directed the participant to the first page of the questionnaire. A no response ended the session. See Appendix B for the information sheet and online questionnaire.

3.4.3 Materials

3.4.3.1 Questionnaire. Participants were asked a number of demographic questions. They were asked their age in years and gender. They were then asked whether English was their first language and rated their fluency on a scale ranging 86 from 1=not at all fluent to 10=extremely fluent. Participants were then asked what religion they identified with, what their current occupation was, their marital status and what country they lived in? Next, participants were asked the following,

“What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life

and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt

ANGRY/RESENTFUL during the experience itself. Please describe your

ANGRY/RESENTFUL experience in as much detail as possible in the box

provided below.”

The participants rated the intensity of how they felt, a) during this experience, and b) when they think of the experience, now, at the present time, for each of 15 emotions. A 10-point rating scale was used (1=not at all to 10=extremely). The 15 emotions rated were angry, resentful, fearful, jealous, envious, guilty, surprised, happy, anxious, disgusted, sad, hurt, humiliated, embarrassed, and ashamed.

The 15 emotions were randomised to avoid order effects. Participants were asked how long their resentment or anger lasted? How long ago the experience happened? and whether or not anger and resentment were different emotions.

Participants also answered a number of other open ended questions for either an anger or resentment autobiographical memory. These included the following;

1) What sorts of sensations did you feel in your body at the time of the event?

2) What urges did you have at the time of the event? (e.g., “What did you feel like doing at the time of the event?”), and 3) What did you do at the time of the event?

Participants then answered 13 questions related to cognitive appraisals investigating fairness, power, pleasantness, expectedness of the event, effort, 87 certainty of understanding, feeling small and worthless, predictability, self -blame, control and typicality of the event. They responded on a scale ranging from 1=not at all to 10=extremely.

Finally, participants completed a set of eight questions asking about the relationship with the other person in the event, the character of the other person, the blameworthiness of the other person, participants desire for an apology, revenge motivation, desire to end the relationship, actual contact with the other person in the event now, and a desire for the other to realise he or she had gone too far. These were also rated on a scale ranging from 1=not at all to 10=extremely.

3.5 Results

3.5.1 Data cleaning and screening.

Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, v.20, IBM Corp, 2011). The data were cleaned according to protocols outlined in

Tabachnick and Fidell (2013). Cohen’s d was used as the measure for effect size between two independent group means. Comprehensive meta-analysis software was used to calculate Cohen’s d (Smith, 2014). The formulas used were:

Cohen’s d = M1 – M2 / SDpooled (3.1)

SDpooled = Sqrt({[(n1 - 1) * SD1 ^ 2 + (n2 - 1) * SD2 ^ 2] / (n1 + n2 - 2)}) (3.2)

Where M is the sample mean, SD the sample standard deviation, and n is the group sample size.

To calculate the 95% confidence intervals around the Cohen’s d point estimate, an SPSS file with accompanying syntax accessed from Karl Wuensch’s 88 statistics website was used (Wuensch, 2016). The Cohen’s d value produced was exactly the same regardless of the program used.

3.5.1.1 Missing data. There were no missing data on any of the emotion intensity ratings for the MANOVA analyses comparing emotion profiles for anger and resentment experiences. There were mis sing data for the questions, “How long did the anger or resentment last?” and, “How long ago did the anger or resentment event happen? For the first question there was a total sample size of 223 (anger n =

115 and resentment n = 88). For the second question the sample size was 221 (anger n = 125 and resentment n = 96). For the independent t-tests analysing appraisals, there were missing data for the eight questions related to the other person involved in the event. Only 182 participants indicated another person was involved in the event.

Review of scenarios indicated most of the other 44 participants had more than one other person involved in the event, or the event involved an institution or non person related event (e.g. a superannuation fund or late taxi). For the 13 cognitive appraisal questions, all 226 participants were included in the analyses. The content analyses had various sample sizes and will be given for each analysis. The reasons for the missing data are outlined in the participant section of this study.

3.5.1.2 Normality. Some variables showed moderate to large skew (>4).

These variables were transformed. The transformation resulted in all but one variable reaching normality or close to normality. The exception was the question, “How long ago did the anger or resentment event happen? The skew was too severe so a Mann-

Whitney test was conducted for this question. For the remaining variables, relevant analyses were conducted using the transformed and non-transformed data. 89

Examination of results using transformed and non-transformed data showed results were minimally affected in all analyses. Thus, analyses were conducted with non- transformed data.

3.5.1.3 MANOVA assumptions. Since participants were randomly assigned to groups and participants completed the online survey in their own time, it was assumed that the assumption of independence of observations was met. A manipulation check was conducted using independent t-tests for age and English fluency. Results revealed no significant differences between the anger and resentment groups on age (Anger, M=46.70, SD=13.19; Resentment, M=43.69, SD=12.87), t(224) = 1.717, p = .087, Cohen’s d = 0.23 [-0.03, 0.49] or English fluency (Anger,

M=9.72, SD=1.09; Resentment, M=9.74, SD=1.31), t(224) = -.164, p = .870, Cohen’s d = 0.02 [-0.24, 0.29].

No univariate or multivariate outliers were found. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant, indicating there were significant correlations amongst DVs; consequently, MANOVA was an appropriate procedure. Moreover, MANOVA was an appropriate statistical procedure because the dependent variables were theoretically related (Stevens, 2002). The assumption of linearity among DVs was met. The residual SSCP matrix revealed there was no correlation of .8 or greater between DVs, consequently, multicollinearity was not an issue. Box’s M test revealed that the assumption of equality of variance-covariance matrices was violated for both

MANOVA analyses. This violation has minimal impact when the sample size of the largest group is less than 1.5 times the size of the smallest group (Hair, Anderson,

Tatham, & Black, 1998). Since the anger group (n = 128) was less than 1.5 times the 90 size of the resentment group (n=98), the violation of this assumption was deemed to have minimal impact.

3.5.1.4 Assumptions of the independent t-test. The assumption of independence and homogeneity of variance were met for the majority of variables.

When the homogeneity of variance assumption was violated, equal variances not assumed were interpreted and reported.

3.5.2 Differences in emotion patterns.

3.5.2.1 MANOVA. Two, one-way between groups Multivariate Analysis of

Variance (MANOVA) analyses were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that anger and resentment would have different emotion patterns. To check if the manipulation was effective it was expected that the anger condition would have higher anger ratings than resentment ratings and the resentment condition would have higher resentment ratings than anger ratings. For the first MANOVA (then ratings) there were 15 dependent variables; the intensity of feeling: angry, fearful, sad, resentful, anxious, surprised, envious, jealous, happy, embarrassed, guilty, disgusted, hurt, humiliated and ashamed at the time of the event.

The 15 dependent variables for the second MANOVA (now ratings) were the intensity of feeling: angry, fearful, sad, resentful, anxious, surprised, envious, jealous, happy, embarrassed, guilty, disgusted, hurt, humiliated and ashamed now.

The independent variable for both MANOVAs was the kind of emotion memory recalled with two levels (anger and resentment). There was a significant multivariate effect for both the then, = .703, F(15,210) = 5.92, p < .001, 2=.30 and now, =

.862, F(15,210) = 2.24, p < .001, 2=.14 ratings. Thus for both then and now emotion 91 ratings, there were significantly different patterns of emotions for anger and resentment conditions. Partial eta squared values indicated the variance accounted for in each combined multivariate effect was 30% and 14%, respectively.

Follow-up univariate analyses of the effects of recall condition on emotion ratings were conducted to investigate where the anger and resentment autobiographical memories differed on emotion intensity ratings at the time of the recalled event and now. Table 3.3 and Table 3.4 show mean then and now emotion ratings for anger and resentment autobiographical memories. The then results are presented first. Univariate analyses revealed that recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories had significantly different emotional intensity ratings on angry, F(1,224) = 26.27; p < .001; Cohen’s d = 0.69 [0.42, 0.96]; resentful, F(1,224)

= 28.06, p < .001; Cohen’s d = 0.71 [0.44, 0.98]; envious, F(1,224) = 18.82; p < .001,

Cohen’s d = 0.58 [0.31, 0.85]; jealous, F(1,224) = 12.01, p = .001; Cohen’s d = 0.47

[0.20, 0.73]; fearful, F(1,224) = 5.88; p =.016, Cohen’s d = 0.33 [0.06, 0.59]; sad,

F(1,224) = 4.32; p =.039, Cohen’s d = 0.28 [0.01, 0.54]; happy, F(1,224) = 4.71; p

=.031; Cohen’s d = 0.29 [0.03, 0.56] and hurt, F(1,224) = 4.97; p =.027; Cohen’s d =

0.30 [0.03, 0.56]. There were no significant differences found on any other dependent variable for then emotion intensity ratings. Resentment memories had higher resentful, envious, jealous, fearful, sad, happy and hurt intensity ratings and lower angry intensity ratings compared to anger memories.

The now results showed that for recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories, there was a significant difference between anger and resentment memories for envious F(1,224) = 8.87, p = .003, Cohen’s d = 0.40 [0.13, 92

0.67]; resentful, F(1,224) = 5.85, p = .016, Cohen’s d = 0.33 [0.06, 0.59] and jealous

F(1,224) = 4.32, p = .03, Cohen’s d = 0.28 [0.01, 0.54]. Resentment memories had higher resentful, envious and jealous intensity ratings at the present time than did anger memories. There was no significant difference found between anger and resentment experiences for any other emotion intensity ratings.

In addition to investigating the patterns of emotions, an aggregate of the negative emotions was calculated to provide an overall measure of overall negative affectivity associated with each memory, for each time-point. Consequently, there was an aggregate rating for overall negative affectivity for the then and now time- points. All 13 negative emotions were included, together with surprise. Surprise is frequently conceptualised as serving an orienting function that is initially experienced as phenomenologically neutral but subsequently is experienced as positive or negative, depending on the predominant valence of the experience eliciting the feeling of surprise (Izard, 1977; Plutchik, 1980; Tomkins, 1962). For this reason, surprise was included as a negative emotion. Two t-tests were conducted to compare the anger and resentment memories. The resentment then memory had a significantly higher overall negative affectivity rating than the anger then memory (t(224) = -2.30, p = .017, Cohen’s d = 0.32 [0.06, 0.59]. There was no significant difference between memories at the now time-point (t(224) = -.924, p = .357, Cohen’s d = 0.12 [-0.14,

0.39]. This suggests that resentment experiences were comprised of higher levels of overall negative affect than anger experiences at the time of the event and this difference seemed to disappear over time. 93 Table 3.3

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, and 95% Confidence Intervals for Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment (n=98) Groups at the Time the Event Happened

Dependent Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] Variable Fearful Then Anger 3.86(3.39) [3.25, 4.47] =.016 0.33 [0.06, 0.59] Resentment 4.99(3.59) [4.30, 5.68]

Envious Then Anger 2.10(2.36) [1.61, 2.59] <.001 0.58 [0.31, 0.85] Resentment 3.74(3.33) [3.18, 4.31]

Jealous Then Anger 2.51(2.71) [1.97, 3.04] =.001 0.47 [0.20, 0.73] Resentment 3.94(3.50) [3.33, 4.55]

Embarrassed Anger 4.07(3.41) [3.49, 4.65] =.929 0.01 [-0.25, 0.28] Then Resentment 4.03(3.18) [3.37, 4.69]

Surprised Then Anger 5.13(3.56) [4.51, 5.75] =.798 0.03 [-0.23, 0.30] Resentment 5.26(3.54) [4.55, 5.96]

Anxious Then Anger 5.55(3.51) [4.95, 6.16] =.277 0.15 [-0.12, 0.41] Resentment 6.06(3.41) [5.37, 6.75]

Angry Then Anger 9.28(1.31) [8.95, 9.61] <.001 0.69 [0.42, 0.96] Resentment 7.98(2.45) [7.60, 8.36]

Resentful Then Anger 7.23(3.05) [6.79, 7.66] <.001 0.71 [0.44, 0.98] Resentment 9.01(1.52) [8.51, 9.51]

Happy then Anger 1.20(0.87) [0.99, 1.42] =.031 0.29 [0.03, 0.56] Resentment 1.56(1.58) [1.32, 1.81]

Sad Then Anger 6.56(3.33) [6.00, 7.13] =.039 0.28 [0.01, 0.54] Resentment 7.47(3.14) [6.82, 8.12]

Guilty Then Anger 2.98(2.98) [2.43, 3.54] =.106 0.22 [-0.05, 0.48] Resentment 3.67(3.38) [3.04, 4.30]

Ashamed Then Anger 3.70(3.37) [3.13, 4.28] =.852 0.03 [-0.24, 0.29] Resentment 3.79(3.19) [3.13, 4.44]

Disgusted Then Anger 6.70(3.43) [6.10, 7.29] =.250 0.16 [-0.11, 0.42] Resentment 6.16(3.44) [5.48, 6.85]

Hurt Then Anger 7.67(3.16) [7.18, 8.17] =.027 0.30 [0.03, 0.56] Resentment 8.52(2.34) [7.96, 9.09]

Humiliated Anger 5.39(3.56) [4.79, 6.00] =.386 0.12 [-0.15, 0.38] Then Resentment 5.80(3.36) [5.10, 6.49]

Negative Affect Anger 72.74(23.87) [68.57-, 79.62] =.017 0.32 [0.06, 0.59] Then* Resentment 80.42(23.82) [75.64, 85.19]

94 Table 3.4

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, and 95% Confidence Intervals for Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment (n=98) Groups, NOW When They Think about the Event

Dependent Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] Variable Fearful Now Anger 2.18(2.29) [1.73, 2.63] =.078 0.24 [-0.03, 0.50] Resentment 2.80(2.94) [2.28, 3.31]

Envious Now Anger 1.58(1.54) [1.23, 1.93] =.003 0.40 [0.13, 0.67] Resentment 2.39(2.53) [1.99, 2.79]

Jealous Now Anger 1.55(1.54) [1.21, 1.88] =.039 0.28 [0.01, 0.54] Resentment 2.08(2.32) [1.70, 2.46]

Embarrassed Anger 2.71(2.86) [2.25, 3.17] =.191 0.18 [-0.09, 0.44] Now Resentment 2.24(2.34) [1.71, 2.77]

Surprised Now Anger 2.25(2.42) [1.84, 2.66] =.783 0.04 [-0.23, 0.30] Resentment 2.16(2.23) [1.70, 2.63]

Anxious Now Anger 2.57(2.51) [2.10, 3.04] =.350 0.13 [-0.14, 0.39] Resentment 2.91(2.90) [2.37, 3.44]

Angry Now Anger 4.42(3.21) [3.87, 4.97] =.478 0.10 [-0.17, 0.36] Resentment 4.72(3.12) [4.09, 5.36]

Resentful Now Anger 4.29(3.27) [3.73, 4.85] =.016 0.33 [0.06, 0.59] Resentment 5.34(3.18) [4.69, 5.98]

Happy Now Anger 2.11(2.15) [1.74, 2.47] =.723 0.05 [-0.22, 0.31] Resentment 2.01(1.98) [1.60, 2.42]

Sad Now Anger 4.78(3.32) [4.20, 5.37] =.902 0.02 [-0.25, 0.28] Resentment 4.84(3.39) [4.17, 5.50]

Guilty Now Anger 2.26(2.37) [1.81, 2.71] =.291 0.14 [-0.12, 0.41] Resentment 2.62(2.81) [2.11, 3.13]

Ashamed Now Anger 2.70(2.88) [2.23, 3.18] =.277 0.15 [-0.12, 0.41] Resentment 2.31(2.49) [1.77, 2.85]

Disgusted Now Anger 4.68(3.46) [4.08, 5.28] =.989 0.00 [-0.23, 0.30] Resentment 4.67(3.39) [3.99, 5.36]

Hurt Now Anger 4.91(3.44) [4.33. 5.50] =.780 0.04 [-0.23, 0.29] Resentment 5.04(3.39) [4.37, 5.71]

Humiliated Anger 2.81(2.83) [2.33, 3.30] =.813 0.03 [-0.23, 0.30] Now Resentment 2.72(2.69) [2.17, 3.28]

Negative Affect Anger 43.70(24.46) [39.42-, 47.97] =.357 0.12 [-0.14, 0.39] Now Resentment 46.85(26.62) [41.51, 52.19]

95

3.5.3 Length of emotion experience.

The questions asking, “How long did the anger (resentment) last?” and “How long ago did the anger (resentment) event happen?” were open questions. The answers to these questions were converted to a scale ranging from 1(<1 hr) to

11(>15 years). See Table 3.5 for scale values.

Table 3.5

Table of Converted Scale Values

Scale Score Value Scale Value Score 1 <1hr 7 > 6 months to 12 months 2 >1 hr and <6 hrs 8 >12 months to 5 years 3 >6 hrs and < 1 day 9 > 5 years to 10 years 4 1 to 6 days 10 >10 years to 15 years 5 >6 days to 1 month 11 >15 years 6 >1 month to 6 months

The question, “How long ago did the anger or resentment event happen?” was converted to months for each participant.

Chi square analysis revealed that significantly more participants agreed that resentment and anger were different emotions (χ2(1) = 113.27; p < .001). Eighty-five percent (193) of participants endorsed “yes” to the question “Are anger and resentment different?” and 15% (33) endorsed “no”.

To test whether the resentment emotion associated with the resentment event lasted longer than the anger emotion associated with the anger event, an independent sample t-test was conducted. The sample size used for this analysis was 203 (anger, n=115; resentment, n=88). The t-tests revealed that the resentment emotion lasted 96 significantly longer than the anger emotion (t (200.52) = -9.42, p<.001, Cohen’s d =

1.33 [1.03, 1.64]). The mean for resentment was 7.57 (SD=2.27) and anger was 4.20

(SD=2.83). This suggests the resentment emotion associated with the resentment experience lasted on average between 6 to 12 months, whereas the anger emotion related to the anger event lasted on average between 1 to 6 days.

Due to the severe skew, a Mann- Whitney U test was conducted to assess whether the resentment event happened a longer time ago. The sample size used for this analysis was 221 (anger, n=125; resentment, n=96). As predicted, the resentment event (Mdn = 7 years/72 months) occurred a significantly longer time ago than the anger event (Mdn = 3years/36 months), U = -4241.50, p <.001, r = -.25.

3.5.4 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals and emotivational goals.

3.5.4.1 Cognitive appraisals. A series of independent t-tests were conducted to test whether anger and resentment experiences showed differences in cognitive appraisals related to the event and the self. There were 13 questions asked in relation to this and they are all included in Table 3.6, along with their means, standard deviations, 95% confidence intervals and p values. There were three cognitive appraisals that showed significant differences between anger and resentment experiences. Participants describing resentment experiences felt significantly less in control (t (220.36) = 2.69, p=.007 Cohen’s d = 0.36 [0.10, 0.63]), significantly smaller (t (224) = -2.01, p=.046, Cohen’s d = 0.27 [0.01, 0.53]) and significantly more worthless (t (224) = -2.67, p=.008 Cohen’s d = 0.36 [0.10, 0.63]) than those describing anger experiences. 97

3.5.4.2 Other appraisals and emotivational goals. There were also a series of eight independent t-tests conducted to test whether there were differences between anger and resentment experiences in how participants viewed the other person involved in the event and emotivational goals. These eight questions, their means, standard deviations, 95% confidence intervals and p values are included in Table 3.7.

Two items about the other person in the event were statistically significant.

Participants in the anger condition were significantly more likely to think the other person was to blame for the event than those in the resentment condition (t (180) =

2.07, p=.040, Cohen’s d = 0.31 [0.01, 0.60]) and contact with the other person had significantly reduced since the event in the resentment condition compared to the anger condition (t (177.08) = -2.29, p=.023, Cohen’s d = 0.34 [0.04, 0.63]). There were no other significant differences found.

98

Table 3.6

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Cognitive Appraisals According to the Anger (n=128) and Resentment (n=98) Groups

Cognitive Appraisal Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI]

I thought the event was Anger 1.88(2.02) [1.52, 2.23] =.572 0.08 [-0.19, 0.34] fair. Resentment 1.72(1.93) [1.34, 2.11]

I felt powerful. Anger 2.86(2.84) [2.36, 3.36] =.235 0.16 [-0.10, 0.42] Resentment 2.42(2.64) [1.89, 2.95]

The event was pleasant. Anger 1.27(1.17) [1.06, 1.47] =.654 0.06 [-0.20, 0.32] Resentment 1.34(1.19) [1.10, 1.58]

The event was expected Anger 3.54(3.10) [3.00, 4.08] =.550 0.08 [-0.18, 0.34] Resentment 3.30(2.94) [2.71, 3.88]

I am certain I understand Anger 6.74(3.27) [6.17, 7.31] =.290 0.14 [-0.12, 0.41] what happened. Resentment 6.27(3.45) [5.57, 6.96]

The event required a lot Anger 6.68(3.25) [6.11, 7.25] =.532 0.08 [-0.18, 0.35] of effort. Resentment 6.39(3.76) [5.63, 7.14]

The outcome of the Anger 5.92(3.10) [5.38, 6.46] =.210 0.17 [-0.10, 0.43] event was predictable. Resentment 5.37(3.52) [4.66, 6.07]

The event was Anger 4.65(3.21) [4.09, 5.21] =.234 0.16 [-0.10, 0.42] predictable. Resentment 4.13(3.24) [3.48, 4.78]

I felt worthless. Anger 4.73(3.75) [4.07, 5.38] =.007 0.36 [0.10, 0.63] Resentment 6.05(3.53) [5.34, 6.76]

I was to blame. Anger 2.63(2.42) [2.20, 3.05] =.260 0.15 [-0.11, 0.42] Resentment 3.00(2.54) [2.49, 3.51]

I felt small. Anger 4.80(3.62) [4.16, 5.43] =.046 0.27 [0.01, 0.53] Resentment 5.77(3.56) [5.05, 6.48]

I felt in control. Anger 3.01(2.61) [2.55, 3.46] =.009 0.36 [0.10, 0.63] Resentment 2.13(2.27) [1.68, 2.59]

This was a typical Anger 3.98(3.46) [3.38, 4.59] =.832 0.03 [-0.23, 0.29] Anger/Resentment event Resentment 3.89(3.30) [3.23, 4.55] for me. 99

Table 3.7

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Other Appraisals According to the Anger (n=100) and Resentment (n=82) Groups

Cognitive Appraisal Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI]

The other person in the Anger 5.54(3.83) [4.78, 6.29] =.282 0.16 [-0.13, 0.45] event was important or Resentment 4.94(3.62) [4.16, 5.72] significant to me.

The other person was to Anger 7.08(2.98) [6.49, 7.67] =.040 0.31 [0.01, 0.60] blame for the event. Resentment 6.15(3.09) [5.47, 6.82]

The character of the Anger 4.57(3.46) [3.88, 5.26] =.901 0.02 [-0.27, 0.31] other person is bad. Resentment 4.63(3.42) [3.88, 5.38]

I wanted the other Anger 7.38(3.48) [6.69, 8.07] =.115 0.24 [-0.06, 0.53] person to apologise. Resentment 6.51(3.83) [5.67, 7.35]

I wanted to get even Anger 4.65(3.71) [3.91, 5.39] =.308 0.15 [-0.14, 0.44] with the other person. Resentment 4.10(3.52) [3.32, 4.87]

I wanted to break the Anger 5.38(3.88) [4.61, 6.15] =.420 0.12 [-0.17, 0.41] relationship with the Resentment 5.84(3.78) [5.01, 6.67] other person.

Contact with this person Anger 5.30(4.07) [4.49, 6.11] =.023 0.34 [0.04, 0.63] has reduced since the Resentment 6.63(3.79) [5.80, 7.47] event. I wanted the other Anger 8.10(2.90) [7.53, 8.67] =.305 0.15 [-0.14, 0.45] person to realise he or Resentment 7.61(3.42) [6.86, 8.36] she had gone too far.

3.5.5 Emotion components.

3.5.5.1 Eliciting events. This next part of the study explored the thematic differences between the written descriptions provided by participants. Participants wrote detailed emotion accounts with explanations for the causes of the emotion.

Each participant described either an anger autobiographical memory or a resentment autobiographical memory in as much detail as possible. Eliciting events were initially coded by the PhD candidate, Rhonda Stoertebecker, using themes based on the answers provided by the participants and prior research (Fitness, 2000; Fitness & 100

Fletcher, 1993). Each eliciting event was listed in no particular order then sorted into categories on the basis of event similarity rather than the emotion label. The aim was to create a set of discriminatory categories that were neither over inclusive nor under inclusive. An independent rater was trained in the coding scheme and then categorised the descriptions independently of the researcher. Cohen’s kappa was calculated to analyse interrater reliability. The interrater reliability was satisfactory with a kappa of .824; p<.001 (Viera & Garrett, 2005). Disagreements were resolved in discussion.

A total of seven event categories emerged from the data. These were unjust or unfair treatment, moral transgressions, incompetence or goal obstruction, envy or jealousy, overlooked or rejected, not heard or understood and regret at own decisions. See Table 3.8 for categories and number of participants included in each category according to emotion condition. See Appendix H for examples of descriptions included in these categories.

3.5.5.1.1 Chi square analysis. Chi square analysis was used to evaluate the categorical data. The assumption of independence was met because participants were randomly assigned to either the anger or resentment group. Chi square analysis also requires expected cell counts to equal five or more cases (Howell, 2007). This assumption was met for all categories. Categories with less than 5% of cases were not analysed. Therefore, the regret at own decision category was not analysed because it contained a total of seven cases. A total of six categories were analysed.

Chi square analyses revealed significant differences in the eliciting events associated with anger and resentment autobiographical memories. Anger experiences 101 were more likely to be elicited by moral transgressions and incompetence or goal obstructions than resentment experiences. On the other hand, resentment experiences were more likely to be elicited by envy and jealousy events where others were seen as having more benefits, more things, more luck, more attention or wanting what the other has more often than for anger experiences. Similarly, resentment experiences were more likely to be elicited by events where participants were overlooked or rejected more often than for anger experiences. There was no significant difference in eliciting events between anger and resentment experiences for the category unfair or unjust treatment and the category not heard or understood. Regret over decisions one has made had too few participants to analyse. 102

Table 3.8

Number of Participants in Specific Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics

Category Number in Category Statistics

Anger Resentment

Unjust or unfair treatment Respondent or other being criticised, badly treated, 44 37 2=.12 falsely accused, onerous workload, unfairness p=.732 emphasised, humiliated, embarrassed, 36.7% 39% df=1

Moral transgressions 30 10 2=7.34 Lying, stealing, cheating, betrayed, affairs, p=.007 wrongdoing, selfishness, let down by another, another 25% 10.5% df=1 reneges on promise or agreement, breaking ones confidentiality, inconsiderate behaviour by another, hypocrisy

Incompetence or goal obstruction 19 4 2=7.50 Mistakes, incompetence, goal obstruction, feeling p=.006 controlled by another 15.8% 4.2% df=1

Envy or jealousy 3 11 2=7.18 Another fairly or unfairly getting more benefits/having p=.007 more things/more luck than respondent. getting more 2.5% 11.6% df=1 attention jealousy, having qualities I want, having relationships I want

Overlooked or rejected 13 26 2=9.76 Not being considered, overlooked, left out, ignored, p=.002 discounted, excluded, 10.8% 27.4% df=1 Seen as unimportant, rejected, ostracised, abandoned

Not heard or understood 6 5 2=.01 p=.931 Not listened to, not heard, not understood, not seeing 5% 5.2% df=1 my point of view

Regret at own decision or dislike of own behaviour 5 2

4.2% 2.1%

Total (n) n=120 n=95

103

3.5.5.2 Sensations. This section will report on the differences between anger and resentment experiences for physical sensations described by participants.

The categorisation of physical sensations followed the same protocol as per the eliciting events and categories were extracted according to responses from participants and previous research studying anger (Fitness, 2000; Fitness & Fletcher,

1993; Tafrate et al., 2002). Again, the aim was to extract categories that discriminated but were neither over nor under inclusive.

The trained independent rater categorised the descriptions independently of the researcher. Cohen’s kappa was calculated to analyse interrater reliability. The interrater reliability was satisfactory with a kappa of .896; p<.001 (Viera & Garrett,

2005). Again, all disagreements were resolved in later discussions.

A total of eleven categories of physical sensations emerged from the data.

These were tensed muscles, pain, trembling, changes in breathing, stomach sensations, warm or hot, heart palpitations, cold or numb, other, cry, nothing. See

Table 3.9 for categories and number of participants included in each category according to emotion condition.

3.5.5.2.1 Chi square analysis. Chi square analysis was used to evaluate the categorical data. The assumption of independence was met for similar reasons outlined in the eliciting event section. Chi square analysis also requires expected cell counts to equal five or more cases (Howell, 2007). This assumption was met for all categories that were analysed. Categories with less than 5% of cases were not analysed. Therefore two categories were not analysed, the other category and the 104 Table 3.9

Number of Participants in Physical Sensations Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics

Category Number in Category Statistics

Anger Resentment

Tensed muscles Tensed muscles, tensed body parts, cramps, heaviness 31 17 2= 2.2 in chest and limbs. p=.138 33% 22% df=1 Pain Pain, headache, pressure in head 12 17 2=2.8 p=.09 12.6% 22.4% df=1

Trembling Trembling, shaking, sweaty, restless, twitching. 36 8 2=16.55 p<.001 38% 10.5% df=1

Changes in breathing 9 8 2=.05 Changes in breathing, dizzy, light headed p=.819 9.5% 10.5% df=1

Stomach sensations 14 14 2=.419 Knots, sick, nausea, fluttering, sinking, burning p=.518 14.7% 18.4% df=1

Warm or hot 22 11 2=.01 p=.931 Warm, hot, face flushed, exploding feeling, increase in 23.2% 14.5% df=1 blood pressure, blood boiling

Heart Palpitations 32 18 2=2.04 p=.153 Heart palpitations, increased pulse, adrenalin , 34% 24% df=1 blood rush, panic

Cold or numb 14 13 2=.178 p=.673 Cold, numb, shock, dull, dead, flat, lethargic, calm 15% 17% df=1

Cry 11 4 2=2.11 p=.147 Cry, tears, watery eyes 11.6% 5.3% df=1

Nothing or none 3 5 3% 6.6%

Other 3 4

Total (n) n= 95 n=76 105 nothing or none category. Numbers and percentages of participants in these categories were still reported in the table. A total of nine categories were analysed.

Chi square analyses revealed that there were significant differences in the physical sensations associated with only one category, the trembling category.

Results indicated that significantly more participants in the anger experience experienced trembling, shaking and restlessness compared to the resentment experience. There were no statistically significant differences between anger and resentment experiences for any other category. Tensed muscles, warm or hot sensations, heart palpitations, changes in breathing, stomach sensations, feelings of cold or numbness, nothing and other all had similar percentage profiles for both anger and resentment experiences.

3.5.5.3 Urges. This section will report on urges and motivations associated with anger and resentment experiences. The categorisation of urges followed the same protocol as per the eliciting events and sensations sections. Again, the trained independent rater categorised the descriptions independently of the researcher. The interrater reliability was satisfactory with a kappa of .839; p<.001 (Viera & Garrett,

2005). Again, all disagreements were resolved in later discussions.

A total of eleven categories of urges emerged from the data. These were confront, yell and throw things, cry, withdraw or disappear, hit or attack person, escape with substances, control, resolve, revenge, positive urges, . See Table

3.10 for categories, number of participants and percentages included in each category according to emotion condition. 106

3.5.5.3.1 Chi square analysis. Chi square analysis was used to evaluate the categorical data. The assumption of independence and expected cell counts of five or more was met. Categories with less than 5% of cases were not analysed. Therefore five categories were not analysed. These were the escape, control, worry, revenge and positive urges categories. Numbers and percentages of participants in these categories were still reported in the table. A total of six categories were analysed.

Chi square analyses revealed a significant difference between anger and resentment events for two categories, the yell and throw things category and the withdraw or disappear category. Results indicated that significantly more participants in the anger experience condition had the urge to yell, throw things or verbally another person than participants in the resentment experience. In addition those in the resentment experience had the urge to withdraw from a situation, or disappear or hide in some way compared to those in the anger experience condition. There were no statistically significant differences between anger and resentment experiences for any other category. Urges to hit or attack, confront, cry, escape, control emotions, worry, seek revenge or to engage in positive actions, all had similar percentage profiles for both anger and resentment experiences.

107

Table 3.10

Number of Participants in Urges Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics

Category Number in Category Statistics

Anger Resentment

Confront Confront, defend self, tell it how it is, insult the other. 22 15 2= .032 17.6% 16.6% p=.852 df=1 Yell or throw things Yell, throw things, slam doors, stomp, hit something, 38 15 2=5.31 insult another 30.4% 16.6% p=.021 df=1

Crying 8 9 2=.931 6.4% 10% p=.335 df=1

Withdraw or disappear Leave situation, hide, disappear, sleep, be alone, die, 27 34 2=6.74 suicide. 21.6% 38.9% p=.009 df=1

Hit or attack person Hit or attack person, kill person, hurt person, shake 42 21 2=2.66 person 33.6% 23.3% p=.103 df=1

Escape 1 3 Escape via drugs, alcohol or food 1% 3%

Control 1 3 Control emotions, keep it together, remain calm 1% 3%

Resolve 7 5 2=.000 Resolve situation, reason, go on as normal, do the right 5% 5.6% p=.989 thing df=1

Worry 0 1 0% 1%

Revenge 6 1 Revenge, spread rumours, tell the newspapers, sack the 5% 1% person.

Positive action 2 2 Embrace the children, love other more, make it better, 1.6% 2% smile, laugh Total (n) n=125 n=90

108

3.5.5.4 Behaviour. This section reported on actions that the participants actually did during the anger or resentment experience. The categorisation of actions followed the same protocol as per previous sections. Again, the trained independent rater categorised the descriptions independently of the researcher. The interrater reliability was satisfactory with a kappa of .812; p<.001 (Viera & Garrett, 2005).

Again, all disagreements were resolved in later discussions.

A total of ten categories of behaviours were extracted from the data. These were confront, yell and throw things, cry, withdraw or disappear, hit or attack person, escape, control, resolve, other, nothing. See Table 3.11 for categories, number of participants and percentages included in each category according to emotion condition.

3.5.5.4.1 Chi square analysis. Chi square analysis was used to evaluate the categorical data. The assumption of independence and expected cell counts of five or more was met. Categories with less than 5% of cases were not analysed. This meant three categories were not analysed. These were the hit person or attack, escape, and other categories. Numbers and percentages of participants in these categories were still reported in the table. A total of seven categories were analysed.

Chi square analyses revealed that there was a significant difference for the yell or throw things category. Results indicated that significantly more participants in the anger experience had actually yelled or used aggression towards inanimate objects compared to the resentment experience. There were no statistically significant differences between anger and resentment experiences for any other category.

109

Table 3.11

Number of Participants in Behaviour Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics

Category Number in Category Statistics

Anger Resentment

Confront Confront, defend self, tell it how it is, insult the other. 11 15 2= 2.71 9% 16.5% p=.100 df=1 Yell or throw things Yell, throw things, slam doors, stomp, hit something, 27 9 2=5.56 insult another 22% 9.9% p=.018 df=1

Crying 13 18 2=3.49 10.7% 19.8% p=.062 df=1

Withdraw or disappear Leave situation, hide, disappear, sleep, be alone, die, 18 15 2=.199 suicide. 14.8% 16.5% p=.730 df=1

Hit or attack person Hit or attack person, kill person, hurt person, shake 4 2 person 3% 2%

Escape 2 1 Escape via drugs, alcohol or food 1.5% 1%

Control 21 9 2=2.31 Control emotions, keep it together, remain calm 17% 9.9% p=.129 df=1

Resolve 34 19 2=1.36 Resolve situation, reason, go on as normal, do the right 27.9% 20.9% p=.243 thing df=1

Nothing 10 14 2=2.69 8.2% 15.4% p=.101 df=1

Other 0 2 Used deception, panicked 0% 2%

Total (n) n= 122 n=91 110

Control, resolve, confronting, crying, withdrawing or disappearing, hitting or attacking the person, escaping via drugs or alcohol, doing nothing and other all had similar percentage profiles for both anger and resentment experiences.

3.6 Discussion

The results of Study 2 once again revealed both commonalities and differences between prototypical features of anger and resentment. Not only were some differences apparent in the kinds of situations that elicited “or caused” the two emotions, there were also some differences in prototypical features such as subjective feelings, sensations, cognitions, urges, and actions that accompanied them.

Furthermore, and of particular interest, feelings of resentment lasted longer than did feelings of anger. This study showed that anger and resentment can be differentiated on the basis of appraisal and emotion prototype features.

3.6.1 Replication of findings from Study 1 and 2 and new findings.

The first aim of Study 2 was to replicate the findings from Study 1 utilising a between groups community sample. Study 1 used an undergraduate sample with a repeated measures design. This may have been problematic given the resentment and anger autobiographical memories may have been influenced by priming effects such that the recalled resentment experience may have been influenced by the previous recalled anger experience and vice versa. This occurred on 17 occasions whereby a participant recalled the same or related event for the 2 scenarios (e.g., maltreatment during parental divorce). Study 2 aimed to address this issue and used a community, online sample with a between groups design. 111

3.6.1.1 Patterns of emotions. In Study 2, prototypical anger and resentment experiences were accompanied by significantly different patterns of subjective feelings both then and now, but the specific emotions that accompanied anger and resentment events differed from that found in Study 1; therefore, Hypothesis 1 was not supported. At the time the event occurred, resentment autobiographical memories were associated with higher levels of resentment, envy, jealousy, fear, sadness, happiness and hurt and lower levels of anger. On the other hand, in Study 1, resentment experiences had higher resentment, envy, jealousy, embarrassment, and lower anger, fear and anxiousness than anger experiences. Higher embarrassment for resentment experiences and higher fear and anxiousness for anger experiences found in Study 1 were not replicated in Study 2. In Study 2 resentment experiences had higher fear, the opposite of the finding in Study 1. In addition, Study 2 found resentment experiences had higher intensity ratings for additional emotions, specifically sadness, happiness and hurt. Although there are no theoretical answers for why this occurred, it appears that the most robust differences were the ones that were replicated, namely that prototypical resentment experiences had higher ratings of resentment, envy and jealousy and lower ratings of anger compared to prototypical anger experiences.

At the present time (now), resentment memories had higher intensity ratings for resentment, envy and jealousy. This finding partly replicated the results of Study

1. In Study 1, resentment was higher on surprise and contempt and this was not replicated in Study 2. Contempt was not measured in Study 2, instead it was replaced by humiliated. 112

Some of the emotions that were rated more highly (>5) by both groups in

Study 2 were surprised, sad, disgusted, hurt, anxious, angry, resentful, and humiliated. There were similarities in the specific emotions rated >5 for Study 1 and

2. Participants in both emotion experiences had high levels of surprise, sadness, disgust, and hurt in Study 1 and 2. Contempt was replaced by humiliated in Study 2 and was also rated highly by participants in both emotion conditions. Anxiousness was rated <5 in Study 2 but >5 in Study 1. So for participants experiencing anger or resentment experiences, negative affect was a large component of the experience for individuals, with some emotions being stronger in anger experiences and others stronger in resentment experiences. More research with greater numbers of participants is required to investigate these less robust findings.

Both studies have found that at the time of the emotion event, prototypical resentment had higher emotion intensity ratings for envy and jealousy. This appears to be a robust finding. This replication across studies using different samples and different research designs provided support for Ortony et al. (1988) proposition that resentment belongs to a group of emotions representing event based, resentment emotions (e.g., envy, jealousy, resentment) involving displeasure about an event that is perceived to be desirable for someone else. It may be that resentment acts as a substitute for envy when a moral standpoint is more favourable than admitting to having a desire for what another has, a more inferior standpoint. Ben Ze’ev (2000) argued that to admit to envy is to admit to being inferior and is a publicly unacceptable emotion. A standpoint that has been supported by empirical research

(Parrott & Smith, 1993). Furthermore, resentment that also involves envy could 113 include a desire for what the other has, a judgment about deservingness and a moral judgement about justice, making it a broader emotion than anger. Support for assertions by researchers that prototypical anger is associated more with fear than prototypical resentment was not replicated in this study. In fact the reverse was found. More research is needed to untangle the relationship between resentment, anger, envy, jealousy and fear.

As predicted (Hypothesis 2), the resentment associated with the resentment condition lasted significantly longer than the anger associated with the anger condition. In addition, the Hypothesis (Hypothesis 3) proposing that the resentment experience would have occurred a longer time ago than the anger experience was supported in the present study. This was different to the findings of Study 1. Study 2 aimed to address suspected lack of variability by using a more variable community sample. Consequently, the results of Study 2 may be more accurate because there was more variability in the data.

In Study1, there was a significant difference between the overall negative affect for the emotion intensity ratings associated with the resentment event now at the present time, but not at the time the event happened. The results of Study 2 were reversed, thus Hypothesis 4 was not supported. The resentment experience had greater overall negative affect than anger experiences at the time the event happened, with no significant difference found now at the present time. This difference could have occurred because there was a longer space of time between when the event happened and now in the community sample because there was a higher average age 114 for the community sample compared to the younger undergraduate sample. Study 3 will replicate this with another undergraduate sample to further clarify this finding.

3.6.1.2 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals, emotivational goals.

Modern appraisal and psychological constructionist approaches view appraisals as an important part of the construction of emotion episodes. A prototypical resentment and anger episode can be distinguished according to differences in appraisals.

As predicted (Hypothesis 6), participants in the anger experience differed in their appraisals compared to participants in the resentment experience group. The participants in the anger condition rated the other person involved in the event as more blameworthy than in the resentment condition. This supported Ortony et al.

(1988) proposition that anger belongs to an agent based group of emotions that involve displeasure and disapproval of another’s blameworthy behaviour and the related undesirable event. This also supported Averill’s (1983) statement, “More than anything else, anger is an attribution of blame” (p. 1150). Finally, it supported other researchers’ findings that anger is associated with other blame (Ellsworth & Smith,

1988; Scherer, 2001; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). Unfortunately these researchers did not investigate resentment as part of their research.

Participants recalling resentment experiences reported greater reductions in their contact with the other person in the event than participants recalling the anger experience. Potter-Efron (2005) suggested that resentment towards another leads to avoiding the other person such as avoiding functions the other person attends. The finding that participants in the resentment condition had reduced contact with the other supported this assertion. This means that resentment may serve a social function 115 of creating distance between a perpetrator and victim. The evolutionary purpose of this could be to regain personal strength and gather resources in a safe space, away from the harmful agent. Interestingly, the participants in each condition had similar levels of intention with regards to breaking the relationship with the other person

(>5). This makes sense in light of the higher overall negative affect associated with resentment experiences. Due to the greater experience of negative affect, it may be that resentment experience participants enacted their intention to break the relationship more than the anger experience participants. Both sets of participants rated their intention to break the relationship at >6.

The other person in the event was similarly important and significant to the participants in the anger and resentment experiences. Participants in both conditions viewed the character of the other person as bad to a similar extent but the means were below 5, the midpoint between 1(not at all) and 10(extremely). Both wanted the other person to apologise at a level greater than moderate (>5). Anger and resentment experience participants both wanted to seek revenge and have the other realise he or she had gone too far at similar levels. The desire to have the other recognise their actions was scored highly for both types of emotion events (>7.5).

Participants in the resentment experience condition felt more worthless and small compared to anger experience participants. This supported Murphy and

Hampton (1988) proposal that resentment involves a greater injury to self worth than anger. This is further supported by the finding that more participants in the resentment condition had urges and motivations to withdraw or disappear from life or the situation than anger participants. It is likely that when you feel worthless and 116 small that you would want to escape the situation. It is further strengthened by the finding that contact had reduced more for the resentment condition. This gives more strength to the idea that resentment may serve a disconnection function. Furthermore, resentment participants felt less in control than participants in the anger condition.

Therefore, resentment may serve to help a person gain safety, control and improve self worth.

There were no differences between prototypical anger and resentment conditions with respect to fairness of the event, expectedness of the event, appraisals of the character of the perpetrator, and revenge motivations towards the perpetrator.

In other words, prototypical anger and resentment events were both perceived as unfair and unexpected. Revenge was desired for both conditions. Both groups appeared to experience powerlessness and the situation recalled was a typical anger or resentment event for them.

3.6.1.3 Content analysis. One of the aims of Study 2 was to investigate prototypical feature differences between anger and resentment experiences using content analysis. This analysis included the prototypical features of eliciting events, physical sensations, urges or action tendencies and actual behaviours. The hypothesis

(Hypothesis 5) that anger and resentment would show differences in these domains was supported.

3.6.1.3.1 Eliciting events. Eliciting events can be viewed as “causes” of the emotion. There were significant differences between anger and resentment experiences for eliciting events that precipitated the two emotions. Namely, more participants who recalled resentment experiences described envy and jealousy and 117 being overlooked and rejected as eliciting events compared to participants in the anger experience. More participants who recalled anger experiences had incompetence and goal obstruction and moral transgressions as eliciting events than resentment participants. This means that prototypical resentment appears to be associated more with events that involve the other having more than them and wanting what they have. Again, providing added support for resentment being an event based emotion involving displeasure about an event that is perceived to be desirable for someone else (Ortony et al., 1988). More participants who recalled resentment experiences reported experiences associated with events involving rejection and exclusion. This could also explain the finding that participants in the resentment condition had greater reduced contact with the other. The finding that more participants in the anger condition reported eliciting events of moral transgressions than anger participants does not support assertions that prototypical resentment is a more moral emotion than prototypical anger (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000).

Rather the converse is true. Although resentment was not discussed or evaluated, anger research and theorists have commonly asserted that anger involves perceptions of injustice and moral transgressions (Shaver et al., 1987; Solomon, 1993). In addition, anger experiences were associated more with goal obstruction than resentment experiences. This concurs with other prominent anger researchers’ views on typical determinants of anger. For example, Berkowitz and Harmon-Jones (2004) discussed how anger ensues if the instigating event is viewed as personally relevant and that person is kept from reaching a personally relevant goal. 118

There were a number of eliciting events that were similar for both anger and resentment experiences. Both had over 35% of the participants describe events in which they perceived unjust treatment. Research has commonly found that appraisals of injustice and unfair treatment are core anger appraisals (Berkowitz & Harmon-

Jones, 2004). It appears they are also key resentment appraisals.

The number of participants describing anger and resentment experiences did not differ on two other eliciting event categories. The first being not heard or understood and the second being regret at own decision or dislike of own behaviour.

There were less than 5% of participants in these categories so they weren’t analysed but the number for each were similar.

3.6.1.3.2 Sensations. A second prototypical feature of participant’s emotion experience investigated in Study 2 involved asking about physical sensations experienced during the recalled anger or resentment experience. There was only one category of physical sensations that significantly differentiated between anger and resentment experiences. A greater number of participants recalling anger experiences experienced trembling as a physical sensation. This included sensations of trembling, shaking, twitching and restlessness. The analysis of categorical data is usually underpowered and categories had small numbers of participants per group, so finding a significant difference, if one exists, can be difficult. Given this, a discussion of some specific trends is important. Higher percentages of participants recalling the anger experience described arousal type sensations. For example heart palpitations, sensations of warmth and hotness and tensed muscles were experienced more with anger experiences than resentment experiences. Although these last three were not 119 statistically significant, there were 9 to 10% more participants describing such sensations in the anger condition versus the resentment condition. Even if we disregard these final three categories, it appears from the statistically significant finding, that anger was more often accompanied by shaking and trembling; thus it may be safe to say that prototypical anger was associated with higher arousal than prototypical resentment. Anger and resentment experiences did not differ on the experience of reported pain, changes in breathing, stomach sensations, feelings of coldness or numbness, other sensations and no sensations. Psychological construction theories assert that emotions can be differentiated on two main dimensions, valence and arousal (Russell, 2003). Applying this theory, prototypical anger appears to be higher on the arousal dimension than prototypical resentment, and a prototypical instance of resentment appears to be associated with greater negative affect (valence) than a prototypical anger instance.

3.6.1.3.3 Urges or action tendencies. A third set of prototypical features investigated were urges or action tendencies experienced during the recalled emotion experience. Anger experiences had a greater number of reported action tendencies where participants wanted to act out by yelling, throwing or hitting things, stomping or verbally abusing the other than resentment experiences. In contrast, resentment experiences had larger numbers of action tendencies associated with wanting to withdraw or disappear. This means that prototypical anger appeared to be an emotion associated with wanting to act out more than prototypical resentment, and prototypical resentment was associated more with wanting to withdraw or escape.

There was also a trend for anger participants to want to actually physically harm a 120 person by hitting, shaking, hurting or killing them more than resentment participants

(34% versus 23%). Thus prototypical anger may involve acting out that also includes wanting to attack the other physically. There were no differences between anger and resentment experiences in the number of urges to confront the other and defend oneself, to cry, to resolve the situation, to control ones emotion and to seek revenge.

3.6.1.3.4 Behaviours. The final prototypical feature investigated was behaviours. That is, what participants actually did during the emotion experience.

These results replicated the findings found for action tendencies. More participants recalling an anger event described actually acting out by yelling, throwing things, screaming, and hitting things than participants in the resentment condition.

3.6.1.3.5 Summary Clearly, the findings in Study 2 confirmed that to some extent, prototypical anger and resentment instances have both distinct and similar prototypical features that represent the emotions. Prototypical resentment was associated with displeasure about events perceived to be desirable for someone else and prototypical anger was associated with events perceived to be caused by another.

Prototypical resentment was more negative and lingered longer than prototypical anger. Furthermore, resentment involved more disconnection from the other person and was more likely to involve the urge to withdraw from the other than anger. Thus prototypical resentment may serve a social function that involves gaining distance from the other person. Given resentment participants felt more worthless, smaller and less in control than anger participants, gaining distance from the other may serve a function that allows the resenter to improve one’s self-worth and gain more control of his or her situation. Furthermore, given resentment was associated more with 121 situations and emotions where people desired what another had, gaining distance from the other may also allow people to improve their own position in life. Future research needs to further investigate these last two points.

Anger events were elicited more by incompetence and goal obstruction and moral transgressions than resentment events. Furthermore anger events involved more trembling, urges to attack and actual attack behaviours. Given anger participants had more contact with the other person, the attack responses to moral transgression and goal obstruction may serve the social function to rectify an unwanted outcome that may result in reconciliation and relationship maintenance.

This would support Fischer and Roseman (2007) conclusions that this is indeed a core function of prototypical anger.

Given resentment is a more negative emotion, lingers longer, is associated with relationship deterioration, lower self-esteem, feeling smaller and greater worthlessness, the question needs to be asked, “What are the consequences of this to one’s physical and psychological well-being”? Study 3 aims to investigate this question by exploring the relationship of trait anger and trait resentment to psychological and physical health variables as well as replicate the differences found in Study 1 and 2. 122

CHAPTER 4

4.1 Study 3 Introduction

The results of Study 1 and particularly of Study 2 revealed that prototypical anger and resentment both shared common and distinct prototypical features. These findings raise important questions. What are the consequences of anger and resentment for the well-being of individuals? Are there differential consequences or are the consequences the same? The primary purpose of Study 3 was to address these questions.

A substantial body of research attests to the adverse effect of anger on physical health, mental health, and social functioning. A brief review of this research will be presented next.

4.1.1 Effects of anger.

Many studies have examined the effects of anger, often together with hostility, on the functioning of the cardiovascular system and the incidence of coronary heart disease. In a meta-analytic review of 39 studies investigating coronary heart disease outcomes in both initially healthy individuals and individuals with existing heart disease, Chida and Steptoe (2009) found that anger and hostility were associated with increased heart disease in healthy individuals and a poor prognosis in those with existing heart disease. They also found that the harmful effects of anger and hostility were greater in men than women. Other research has also consistently found that anger was associated with increased cardiovascular disease and reactivity

(Burns, Friedman, & Katkin, 1992; Mostofsky, Penner, & Mittleman, 2014; Steptoe

& Kivimäki, 2013) and increased secretions of so-called stress hormones of 123 adrenalin, noradrenalin and cortisol (Lupis, Lerman, & Wolf, 2014). Such increases result in more wear and tear on the body, leading to an increased risk of health problems (Schneiderman, Ironson, & Siegel, 2005; Smith, Glazer, Ruiz, & Gallo,

2004; Smith & MacKenzie, 2006). Furthermore, trait anger-out has been found to be associated with chronic pain (Bruehl, Chung, & Burns, 2006). More specifically, behavioural anger expression predicted subsequent increases in back pain during the hours immediately following behavioural anger expression for those higher in trait anger-out (Bruehl, Liu, Burns, Chont, & Jamison, 2012).

Much research has also examined the effects of anger on social functioning

(Lemay et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2004) . For example, Lemay et al. (2012) compared the experience and interpersonal consequences of hurt and anger. Negative interpersonal consequences of anger were exacerbated by a desire to control others and by antagonistic behaviours. Hurt experiences had more positive interpersonal consequences. Finally, there is clear evidence of an association between anger and mental health problems (Besharat, Nia, & Farahani, 2013; Kopper & Epperson, 1996;

Lubke, Ouwens, de Moor, Trull, & Boomsma, 2015).

Anger is clearly harmful to physical, mental and social well-being. Little research, however, has directly examined the effects of resentment on well-being.

There are two studies that have examined the relationship between resentment and personality disorders (Fossati et al., 2004; Sinha & Watson, 2006). Fossati et al.

(2004) found that resentment and guilt uniquely explained borderline personality disorder symptoms over and above other anger and hostility subscales. Furthermore,

Sinha and Watson (2006) investigated the relationship between personality disorders 124 and hostility using the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory in an undergraduate sample and found that the resentment subscale explained the largest proportion of the variance in borderline personality disorder (43%), avoidant personality disorder

(40%), schizotypal personality disorder (39%), passive-aggressive personality disorder (37%), obsessive compulsive personality disorder (28%) and schizoid personality disorder (24%). Although there is a scarcity of research on the association between resentment and well-being, forgiveness intervention research does shed some light on this matter.

Forgiveness intervention research aimed at forgiving transgressions has resulted in reductions in depression, anxiety, anger, post-traumatic stress symptoms, substance abuse vulnerability and in increasing, self-esteem (Al-Mabuk, Enright, &

Cardis, 1995; Baskin & Enright, 2004; Freedman & Enright, 1996; Harris et al.,

2006; Lin et al., 2004; Rye et al., 2005; Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005).

Forgiveness researchers have suggested that anger and resentment are different emotions and that resolving resentment is a key mechanism through which forgiveness interventions work (Reed & Enright, 2006). The reductions in these psychological well-being variables is interesting given the symptoms of these psychological conditions were not directly targeted. Rather, a key target of the interventions was the letting go or attenuation of anger and long-held resentment associated with a transgression. Thus resentment was an important target separate from anger. This implies that the holding of resentment, or remaining in a state of unforgiveness, which includes a number of emotions including resentment and 125 bitterness but not hot anger (Worthington & Wade, 1999), may have consequences for one’s psychological well-being.

Epidemiological research on the relationship between unforgiveness and the lifetime prevalence of having a psychological disorder has found that those at the greatest risk of experiencing any of the psychopathologies investigated were those who took a long time to forgive and who had many people they could not forgive.

These people were 3.1 to 5.7 times more likely to experience a psychological disorder in their lifetime than those who did not take a long time to forgive and had few or no people they could not forgive (Toussaint & Cheadle, 2009).

Much research provides support for beneficial effects of forgiveness on psychological health but research also exists for its benefits associated with physical health. Such research has found associations between higher levels of forgiveness and lower levels of stress-related cardiovascular and neuroendocrine reactivity, cortisol reactivity, chronic back pain, blood pressure and better overall physical health (Berry

& Worthington, 2001; Carson et al., 2005; Lawler-Row, Karremans, Scott, Edlis-

Matityahou, & Edwards, 2008; Lawler-Row & Piferi, 2006; Lawler et al., 2003;

Lawler et al., 2005; Maltby, Macaskill, & Day, 2001; Seawell, Toussaint, & Cheadle,

2014; Toussaint, Williams, Musick, & Everson, 2001; Witvliet, Ludwig, & Vander

Laan, 2001; Witvliet, Phipps, Feldman, & Beckham, 2004).

A 3-year prospective study by Seawell et al. (2014) investigated associations between unforgiveness and physical health in a nationally representative sample of

1024 adults aged over 66 years. Unforgiveness was measured by two questions, 1)

“How often do you feel resentful towards others for things they have done?” and 2) 126

“How often do you hold a grudge?” Results showed that unforgiveness prospectively correlated with worse self-reported physical health and unforgiveness had a unique effect such that it was associated with prospective health changes above and beyond traditional socio-demographic and health behaviour predictors. This study is interesting given the unforgiveness measure included an item related to a tendency to experience resentment. The prospective design indicates that resentment may result in lower physical health.

Finally, in a study by Lawler-Row et al. (2008), participants were asked to describe a time when they felt betrayed by one of their parents. High state forgiveness was significantly associated with lower heart rate and fewer physical symptoms, and high trait forgiveness was significantly associated with fewer medications and lower alcohol use. These findings were not associated with anger-out indicating that the benefits of forgiveness on physical health extend beyond anger dissipation. This means that there are other factors mediating the relationship between forgiveness and physical health. The authors suggest that forgiveness may also include an increase in positive factors such as self-esteem, , and improvements in social relationships. Since forgiveness researchers suggest that the reduction of resentment is a key mechanism of change and that unforgiveness includes emotions such as resentment and bitterness, it may be that the reduction of resentment could also account for at least some of the positive relationship between forgiveness and physical health. However, resentment as a separate emotion was not directly tested in this study. 127

It is clear that forgiveness and unforgiveness were associated with a number of well-being variables but these studies did not directly explore the relationship between resentment and mental, social and physical health problems. Furthermore, in forgiveness interventions, changes in resentment following forgiveness interventions were not measured.

In brief, much evidence attests to the detrimental effects of anger on well- being and there is some indirect evidence supporting that resentment may likewise have detrimental effects. However, no research to date has directly examined the effects of resentment on well-being, nor has any research investigated whether anger and resentment have differential effects on physical, social, and psychological well- being. Study 3 was designed to address these latter two issues.

4.1.2 The present research.

In the present research, Study 1 and 2 were the first studies to systematically investigate the question of whether or not anger and resentment are different emotions. The results from these two studies showed that to some extent they are similar and to some extent they are distinct. Study 2 showed that resentment experiences were more negative than anger experiences, resentment lingers longer than anger and participants in the resentment condition felt more worthless, smaller and had less contact with the other than anger participants. Combining these findings with the research reviewed above showing forgiveness and unforgiveness are associated with diminished psychological and physical well-being raises an important question, namely, “Do these differences matter in terms of their consequences for the health and well-being of individuals who frequently and intensely experience these 128 two emotions?” Enright’s (2001) proposition that anger is like a flame whereas resentment is like hot embers that linger suggests that there may be at least some differential effects of anger and resentment on health and well-being. Furthermore, because resentment lingers longer, its effects may be particularly detrimental. To date, no research has directly examined the differential effects of anger and resentment on health and psychological well-being. Study 3 was designed to address this issue by investigating the effects on health and psychological well-being of individual differences in the propensity to experience anger (trait anger) and the propensity to experience resentment (trait resentment).

Study 3 investigated the relationship between trait resentment and trait anger on various indices of psychological, social and physical well-being. The present study included the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory resentment subscale (Buss & Durkee,

1957) to measure trait resentment and the Aggression Questionnaire anger subscale

(Buss & Perry, 1992) to measure trait anger.

A second purpose of this study was to replicate elements of the findings from

Study 1 and 2. As outlined in Study 2, there are mounting concerns about the questionable reliability of effects reported in psychology. Consequently, researchers have stressed the significance of replicating reported findings (Anderson & Maxwell,

2015; Pashler & Harris, 2012; Pashler & Wagenmakers, 2012; Simons, 2014).

4.2 Aims

The aims of Study 3 were

a) To replicate findings from Study 1 and Study 2. More specifically to replicate

the major findings regarding subjective feelings associated with anger and 129

resentment experiences and the differences in eliciting events and appraisals

associated with the two emotions.

b) To investigate whether or not trait anger and trait resentment independently

predict and contribute to physical, social and psychological functioning.

4.3 Hypotheses

The two aims of the present study resulted in the following hypotheses:

1. The patterns of emotions associated with anger and resentment memories that

were robust were predicted to replicate in Study 3. Thus, resentment

memories will have greater emotion intensity ratings for resentment, envy and

jealousy and lower anger ratings at the time the event happened and that anger

ratings will no longer differ between anger and resentment experiences now at

the present time.

2. That the resentment associated with the resentment experience will last longer

than the anger associated with the anger experience.

3. That the resentment experience will have occurred a longer time ago than the

anger experience.

4. That the anger condition will have significantly more anger participants

describing eliciting events associated with goal obstruction, and moral

transgressions, and significantly fewer associated with envy and being

overlooked/rejected than participants in the resentment condition.

5. That anger and resentment will show differences in cognitive appraisals and

appraisals about the other person in the event. If the findings of Study 2 are

replicated then the other person will be seen as more to blame for anger events 130

than for resentment events and participants in the resentment condition will

have less contact with the other person than anger participants. For cognitive

appraisals, participants in the resentment experience will report feeling more

worthless, smaller and less in control than participants in the anger

experience.

6. Given anger has been found to have negative consequences on well-being it

was hypothesised that trait anger will significantly explain variance in

psychological, social and physical well-being and that the association will be

negative such that higher trait anger will be associated with lower well-being.

Since resentment has been found to linger longer than anger, and resentment

participants have reported lower self-worth and less control than anger

participants, it is predicted that trait resentment will also explain significant

variance in well-being but more so. The association will be that higher trait

resentment will be associated with lesser well-being.

In Study 1, overall negative affectivity for now was greater in the resentment condition, whereas in Study 2, overall negative affectivity was greater for resentment then. In view of these inconsistent findings across the first two studies, no firm predictions were made concerning differences between overall negative affectivity for anger and resentment experiences, either then or now.

4.4 Method

4.4.1 Participants.

One hundred and forty-two students enrolled in an introductory psychology subject at Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, completed an online questionnaire. 131

Participants received experimental credit for participation. Ages ranged from 17 years to 48 years with a mean age of 20.87 years (SD = 5.28). The sample consisted of 28 males and 114 females. Participants indicated whether English was their first language. Of the 142 participants, 20 (14%) indicated English was not their first language. Of these participants, 4 rated their English fluency as less than 8 on a scale ranging from 1=not at all fluent to 10 =extremely fluent. Examination of their responses indicated they seemed to understand the questions and wrote coherent descriptions. Consequently, these participants were retained.

For the content analysis section of the study, eight participants (6 anger and 2 resentment) were excluded leaving a final sample of 134 participants. These eight participants described scenarios that did not have clear themes. For example, participant 55 stated that a fight caused the anger but it is unclear as to what the fight was about. Moreover, participant 35 just described the reaction rather than a clear eliciting event or perception.

Participant 55: “A fight between me and my ex-partner where I became very

angry at him and yelled and called him names. I felt extremely angry and

frustrated at the situation and found myself unable to control what I was

saying to him.”

Participant 35: “I had this massive feeling inside of me that just burst with

anger which then followed on to hate... I refused to listen or take in anything

the person said to me as I was blinded with so much anger towards them. I 132

became stubborn, mean, let my feelings show, told them how I felt and what I

thought of the situation which was biased due to the feelings I had.”

4.4.2 Procedure.

Participants were recruited via an online advertisement on the Griffith

University Psychology Research Participation website (see Appendix E).

Ethics approval to conduct the study was received from the Griffith University

Human Research Ethics Committee. Participants signed up for the study via the online portal and the researcher emailed the survey link to their student email addresses provided by the research participation website. Participants were randomly allocated by the researcher to either a resentment (n=73) or anger (n=69) condition.

Random assignment was determined using an online random number calculator

(Urbaniak & Plous, 1997). Participants completed the online study in their own time.

The online survey was designed using the online survey design website SurveyGizmo

(SurveyGizmo, 2010).

Participants read an information sheet (Appendix E) and were asked whether or not they consented to complete the survey. A yes response directed the participant to the first page of the questionnaire. A no response ended the session without penalty. Student numbers were removed from the data set once credit for participation was allocated.

4.4.3 Materials.

4.4.3.1 Emotion questionnaire. Participants were first asked a number of demographic questions. They were asked their student number, age in years and 133 gender. They were then asked whether English was their first language and rated their fluency on a scale ranging from 1=not at all fluent to 10=extremely fluent. Next, participants were asked to recall either an anger or resentment experience. In order to maximally differentiate between the two emotions, an attempt was made to obtain memories that were exclusively related to either anger or resentment. This was done by asking for an experience in which they felt angry but not resentful or an experience in which they felt resentful but not angry. The instructions given were as follows:

“What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander over your life and

think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt Angry (or

Resentful) towards a person but NOT Resentful (or Angry). Please describe

your Anger (or Resentment) experience in as much detail as possible in the

box provided below.”

To reduce the length of the questionnaire, only 10 emotions were included on the emotion rating scale. The participants rated the intensity of how they felt, a) during this experience, and b) when they think of the experience, now, at the present time, for each of the 10 emotions. A 10-point rating scale was used (1=not at all to

10=extremely). The 10 emotions rated were angry, resentful, fearful, happy, envious, sad, jealous, embarrassed, surprised, anxious. The 10 emotions were randomised to avoid order effects.

Three other questions related to the anger and resentment autobiographical memories were asked. They were, “Are anger and resentment different?”, “How long did the anger or resentment last?” and “How long ago did the anger or resentment 134 event happen?” Answers to the question, “How long did the anger or resentment last?” ranged from less than an hour to 15 years and was converted to a scale ranging from 1(<1hr) to 10(>10 to 15 years). See Table 4.1 for scale values. The question,

“How long ago did the anger or resentment event happen?” was converted to months.

Table 4.1 Table of Converted Scale Values

Scale Score Value Scale Score Value 1 <1 hr 6 >1 month to 6 months 2 >1 hr and <6 hrs 7 > 6 months to 12 months 3 >6 hrs and < 1 day 8 >12 months to 5 years 4 1 to 6 days 9 > 5 years to 10 years 5 >6 days to 1 month 10 >10 years to 15 years

4.4.3.2 The Aggression questionnaire – Anger subscale. (AQ: Buss &

Perry, 1992). The Aggression Questionnaire is a 29-item questionnaire consisting of four subscales: Physical Aggression, Verbal Aggression, Anger and Hostility. This questionnaire is an updated version of the 50-year old Buss-Durkee Hostility

Inventory. The 7-item anger subscale was used in the present study to measure trait anger. It consists of seven items including, “Sometimes I fly off the handle for no good reason” and “I have trouble controlling my temper”. One item was reverse scored and a higher score reflects higher levels of trait anger. Each item was rated on a five-point scale (ranging from 1=extremely uncharacteristic of me to 5=extremely characteristic of me). Studies have reported good internal consistency with

Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.85, 0.83 and 0.80 (Archer & Webb, 2006; Buss &

Perry, 1992; Harris, 1997). Studies have reported good test-retest reliability and validity (Buss & Perry, 1992; Harris, 1997). A copy of this subscale and the other

Study 3 measures can be found in Appendix E. Furthermore the internal consistency 135 of this measure and all other measures used in this study were adequate for this group of participants and are presented in Table 4.8.

4.4.3.3 Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory – Resentment subscale. (BDHI:

Buss & Durkee, 1957). This inventory is a widely used 75-item questionnaire on aggression (Buss & Perry, 1992; Vassar & Hale, 2009). It consists of seven subscales:

Assault, Indirect Aggression, , Negativism, Resentment, and

Verbal Aggression. To measure trait resentment, the 8-item Resentment subscale was used in the present study. This subscale includes questions related to jealousy, resentment and beliefs about getting a raw deal in life. Sample items include, “At times I feel like I get a raw deal out of life”, and “When I look back on what’s happened to me, I can’t help feeling mildly resentful”.

In previous research, Cronbach’s alpha for the resentment subscale has been reported at 0.74 (Sinha & Watson, 2006), and 0.64 (Fossati et al., 2004). However, a later review of the research found that the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory had undesirable reliability coefficients (Vassar & Hale, 2009). The authors reported an average Cronbach’s alpha of 0.62 for the resentment subscale using true-false response formats. According to Buss and Perry (1992) true-false response formats may affect reliability because respondents often prefer the use of Likert scales.

Furthermore, the correlations among true-false items are approximations of what the correlations would be if the items were rated in a Likert format. Consequently, the rating scale was altered to match the anger subscale of the Aggression Questionnaire to allow for increased variability and reliability in analyses (Buss & Perry, 1992;

Velicer, Govia, Cherico, & Corriveau, 1985). Like the Aggression Questionnaire, 136 each item was rated on a five-point scale (ranging from 1=extremely uncharacteristic of me to 5=extremely characteristic of me). One item was reverse scored with higher scores reflecting greater levels of resentment. Cronbach alpha coefficients in the present study were good (see Table 4.8 for values).

4.4.3.4 Physical, social and mental health functioning. (SF-36v2: Ware et al., 2007). The SF36v2 was used to assess participants health and well-being and is a

36-item measure comprising 8 health domains: Physical Functioning, Role Physical,

Bodily Pain, General Health, Vitality, Social Functioning, Role Emotion and Mental health. See table 4.2 for a brief description of each subscale. The transformed scores range from 0 to 100 with higher scores representing better health functioning.

The SF-36v2 and the earlier version, the SF-36 are widely used measures of health functioning worldwide (Ware et al., 2007; Ware, Kosinski, & Keller, 1994). They have also been widely used in Australia with considerable data on the SF-36 from large national samples (Butterworth & Crosier, 2004). The measures have been adapted and normed for use in Australian populations by replacing imperial units of measurement with metric units of measurement (Hawthorne, Osborne, Taylor, & Sansoni, 2007). For example, the SF-36 has been used in every wave of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey (Wooden, 2014). This was a longitudinal Australia-wide survey of approximately 14,000 people aged 15 and over from around 7680 households (Butterworth & Crosier, 2004). The SF-36 was also used as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health Survey involving a sample of approximately 50,000 women from three cohorts, 1973-78, 1946-51, and 1921-26 (Butterworth, 2003). The first wave began in 1996 and a seventh wave for the 1973-78 cohort began in 2015. Moreover, the SF-26 was completed by approximately 18,800 adults as part of the National Health Survey in 1995 resulting in published norms available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Australian Beaureau of Statistics, 1995). The SF-36 and SF-36v2 are also sometimes described as measures of quality of life and are also widely used to assess individuals. They have both been shown to have adequate reliability and validity. Cronbach alphas for the eight health domains have ranged between 0.82 to 0.93 (Butterworth & Crosier, 2004; Hawthorne et al., 2007). Commented [JC1]: I assume you have changed this from double spacing to fit the table on the top of a page. I think it would be better to leave this as double spaced and use a page break if you don’t want the table breaking across a page. I think the blank space that will create will look better than this change of formatting. 137

Table 4.2

Description of SF-36v2 Domains

Health Domain Description

Physical Functioning Engagement in vigorous or moderate activities such as walking, running, lifting moving, climbing. Low scores indicate significant limitations in physical functioning, high scores indicate little or no limitations.

Role Physical Reduced time or accomplishments at work or other activities due to physical limitations. Low scores represent significant problems with work or other activities due to physical limitations, high scores represent little or no problems.

Bodily Pain Reported amount of pain and its interference with normal work activities. Low scores reflect high levels of pain that impact on normal activities, high scores reflect little or no pain and little or no impact on normal activities.

General Health Perceived overall health status. Low scores indicate poor evaluation of general health, high scores reflect favourable evaluation of respondent’s health.

Vitality Reported fatigue and energy levels. Low scores reflect feelings of tiredness and being worn out, high scores indicate feeling energetic all or most of the time.

Social Functioning The extent to which emotional health or physical health affected social activities. Low scores indicate emotional and physical health frequently interfere with social activities, high scores indicate that emotional and physical health problems seldom interfere with social activities.

Role Emotion Reduced time or accomplishments at work or other activities due to emotional difficulty. Low scores reflect problems with work or other activities due to emotional problems, high scores represent little or no influence of emotional problems on work or other activities.

Mental Health Reported mood. Low scores represent frequent feelings of anxiousness and depression, high scores reflect feelings of calm, peace and happiness all or most of the time.

138

4.5 Results

4.5.1 Data cleaning and screening.

Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences

(SPSS, v.20, IBM Corp, 2011). The data were cleaned according to protocols outlined in Tabachnick and Fidell (2013). Cohen’s d was used as the measure for effect size and was calculated using Comprehensive Meta-analysis software (Smith,

2014). This software used equation 3.1 and 3.2 from Study 2.

To calculate the 95% confidence intervals around the Cohen’s d point estimate, an SPSS file and syntax accessed from Karl Wuensch’s statistics website was used (Wuensch, 2016). The Cohen’s d value produced was exactly the same regardless of the program used.

4.5.1.1 Missing data. One participant had missing data on two questions,

“how long did your anger last?” and “how long ago did the event happen?” One additional participant had missing data on the question, “how long did your anger last?” These two participants were in the anger condition. For these three data points, the missing values were substituted with the mean for the anger condition for each question. The last nineteen participants to complete the survey had missing data for the angry then and resentment then rating scales. This appears to have occurred due to a technical error. Of these, 11 were in the anger condition and 8 were in the resentment condition. Little’s MCAR test was conducted to evaluate whether or not the missing data was missing completely at random. The results showed that the data was missing completely at random (2=24.96, df= 20, p=.21); therefore, no pattern of missing data was found. Since the number of missing scores for the anger then and 139 resentment then response scales were greater than 5%, missing data were replaced using multiple imputation with 5 iterations (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2013), this method is advantageous because it retains sampling variability. The use of 5 iterations meant that 5 data sets plus the original data set were created. Independent t-tests were conducted using the 5 imputed data sets for the anger then and resentment then scales. Results for the differences between means of the anger group and the resentment group on the anger then and resentment then scales for each of the 5 data sets did not differ from the results of the original data set where the 19 participants were removed from the analyses. Consequently, for ease of reporting, the original data set was used in all analyses. For the two independent t-tests involving the anger then and resentment then emotion intensity scales, the 19 participants with missing data were removed from the analyses.

4.5.1.2 Normality. Normality of variables were assessed and some variables showed moderate to large skew (>4). Transformations of these variables were conducted and most variables reached normality. An exception occurred for the question, “How long ago did the anger or resentment event happen?” Consequently, a

Mann-Whitney U test was conducted for this question. For all other variables the relevant analyses were conducted using transformed and non-transformed data.

Examination of results using transformed and non-transformed data showed results were minimally affected in all analyses. Thus, analyses were reported with non- transformed data.

4.5.1.3 MANOVA assumptions. Since participants were randomly assigned to groups and participants completed the online survey in their own time, it was 140 assumed that the assumption of independence of observations was met. A manipulation check was conducted using independent t-tests for age, English fluency, the AQ-anger subscale, the BDHI-resentment subscale, and the eight SF36v2 health variables. Results revealed no significant differences between the anger and resentment groups on any of these outcome variables; therefore, the independence assumption was met (See Appendix F for results). Six outliers and three multivariate outliers were found. Analyses were performed with and without these outliers.

Results indicated that the removal of these cases had minimal impact. Consequently, all cases were retained for the analyses. Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant, indicating there were significant correlations amongst DVs; consequently, MANOVA was an appropriate procedure. Moreover, MANOVA was an appropriate statistical procedure because the dependent variables were theoretically related (Stevens, 2002).

The assumption of linearity among DVs was met. The residual SSCP matrix revealed there was no correlation of .8 or greater between DVs, consequently, multicollinearity was not an issue. Box’s M test revealed that the assumption of equality of variance- covariance matrices was violated for both MANOVA analyses. This violation has minimal impact when the sample size of the largest group is less than 1.5 times the size of the smallest group (Hair et al., 1998). Since the resentment group (n = 73) was less than 1.5 times the size of the anger group (n=69), the violation of this assumption was deemed to have minimal impact.

4.5.1.4 Regression assumptions. The assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity were met for all regression variables. There were no multivariate outliers or influential scores. Two regression variables had univariate outliers 141

(Physical Functioning and Role Physical). Examination of analyses with and without these outliers revealed minimal influence by these extreme scores, thus outliers were retained for all analyses. Tolerance levels revealed that multicollinearity was not an issue (Tolerance >.60). Furthermore, the sample size was adequate to achieve an adequate level of power (Field, 2005).

4.5.1.5 Assumptions of the independent t-test. The assumption of independence and homogeneity of variance were met for the majority of variables.

When the homogeneity of variance assumption was violated, equal variances not assumed were interpreted and reported.

4.5.1.6 Factor analysis of the resentment subscale. Since the response format for the resentment subscale of the BDHI was altered to increase variability and reliability, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to assess the factor structure of the instrument. A principal axis factor analysis with a varimax rotation was conducted. The items of the resentment subscale should load onto a single factor.

The rotated factor matrix indicated that item 6 did not load onto any factor (<.2) and item 4 split loaded on a second factor (.39 and .76). The remaining 6 items loaded onto a single factor with loadings ranging between .54 and .79. A reliability analysis showed the Cronbach’s alpha of the measure increased from .74 to .81 when item 6 was removed from the scale. The Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory has been criticised for inadequate reliability, with average Cronbach Alpha’s across studies reported at

.62 (Vassar & Hale, 2009). A Cronbach’s alpha of .81 indicated good internal consistency; therefore, the reverse scored item 6 (I don’t know any people I downright hate) was not included in the calculation of the resentment subscale. The 142

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (.85) of the final 7-item

Resentment scale indicated that the data were suitable for factor analysis (Field,

2005; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). The determinant of the correlation matrix was greater than .00001 (.131) indicating an absence of multicollinearity (Field, 2005).

The single factor solution of the 7-item scale accounted for 40% of the variance.

Details of the final 7 items and the resultant factor loadings are presented in

Appendix G.

4.5.2 Emotion patterns.

4.5.2.1 MANOVA. Two, one-way between groups Multivariate Analysis of

Variance (MANOVA) analyses were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that anger and resentment would have different emotion patterns. For the first MANOVA

(then ratings), there were 10 dependent variables; the intensity of feeling: angry, fearful, sad, resentful, anxious, surprised, envious, jealous, happy, embarrassed, felt at the time of the event. As mentioned earlier, a sample size of 123 participants was used for this MANOVA given the last 19 participants had missing values due to technical difficulties with the online survey. The data were found to be missing at random and 5 imputed data sets were created. Given the results of the 5 data sets did not vary from the original data set, the original data set was used for analyses.

The 10 dependent variables for the second MANOVA (now ratings) were the intensity of feeling: angry, fearful, sad, resentful, anxious, surprised, envious, jealous, happy, embarrassed, felt now. The independent variable for both

MANOVA’s was the kind of emotion memory recalled with two levels (anger and resentment). There was a significant multivariate effect for both the then, =.32, 143

F(10,112) = 23.39, p < .001, η2=.68 and now =.77, F(10, 112) = 3.96, p < .001,

η2=.23 groups of dependent variables. Thus for both then and now emotion ratings, there were significantly different patterns of emotions for anger and resentment conditions. Eta squared values indicated the variance accounted for in each combined multivariate effect was 68% and 23%, respectively.

Follow-up univariate analyses of the effects of recall condition on emotion ratings were conducted to investigate where the anger and resentment autobiographical memories differed on emotion intensity ratings at the time of the recalled event and now. Table 4.3 and Table 4.4 show the means and standard deviations for the then and now emotion ratings for anger and resentment autobiographical memories. The then results are presented first. As expected, univariate analyses revealed that recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories had significantly different emotional intensity ratings on angry, F(1,121) =

48.42, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 1.26 [0.87, 1.64]; resentful, F(1,121) = 128.42, p < .001,

Cohen’s d = 2.05 [1.61, 2.48]; envious, F(1,121) = 18.79, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.78

[0.41, 1.15] and jealous, F(1,121) = 15.58, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.71 [0.35, 1.08].

There were no significant differences found on any other dependent variable at the time of the emotional experiences themselves. Resentment memories had higher resentment, envy and jealousy intensity ratings and lower anger intensity ratings compared to anger memories.

The now results showed that for recalled anger and resentment autobiographical memories, the emotional intensity ratings were significantly different on resentful, F(1,121) = 16.11, p = <001, Cohen’s d = 0.67 [0.34, 1.01]; 144 jealous, F(1,121) = 12.81, p = <001, Cohen’s d = 0.60 [0.26,0 .94]; and envious,

F(1,121) = 8.26, p = .005, Cohen’s d = 0.48 [0.15, 0.82]. Again, there were no significant differences found on any other emotion intensity ratings. Resentment memories had higher resentment, jealousy and envy ratings at the present time than did anger memories. Anger now ratings did not differ between conditions.

In addition to investigating the patterns of emotions, an aggregate of the negative emotions was calculated to provide an overall measure of negative affectivity associated with each memory for each time-point. Consequently, there was an aggregate rating for negative affectivity for the then and now time-points. All eight negative emotions plus surprise were included. As per Study 1 and 2, surprise was included because in the context of the negative valence of anger and resentment memories, surprise is considered to be a negative emotion (Izard, 1977; Plutchik,

1980; Tomkins, 1962). Again the sample size differed between the then and now ratings due to missing data. Two independent sample t-tests were conducted to compare the anger and resentment memories with the negative affectivity variable as the dependent variable. The resentment then memory had significantly higher overall negative affectivity than the anger then memory (t(121) = -2.37, p = .026, Cohen’s d

= 0.49 [0.13, 0.85]. There was no significant difference between memories at the now time-point (t(140) = -1.75, p = .079, Cohen’s d = 0.29 [-0.03, 0.62]. This suggests that resentment experiences were comprised of higher levels of overall negative affect than anger experiences at the time of the event and that this difference seemed to disappear over time. However, inspection of the Cohen’s d value (0.29) suggests that at the now time point there was still a small effect with the resentment negative 145 affectivity now score being 0.29 of a standard deviation greater than the anger negative affectivity now score. In Study 2, there was also no significant difference between resentment anger experiences on the negative affectivity now ratings and the effect size was d = 0.12 which was negligible. Since the sample in Study 2 was on average 24 years older, it was expected that there would be a longer gap between when the event happened, and now, compared to the undergraduate samples in Study

1 and 2, so a greater dissipation of negative affect was understandable.

146

Table 4.3

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals for Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65) Groups at the Time the Event Happened.

Dependent Variable Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI]

Fearful Then Anger 3.02(2.53) [2.35-3.68] =.926 0.02 [-0.34, 0.37] Resentment 3.06(2.73) [2.38-3.75]

Envious Then Anger 2.41(2.46) [1.77-3.06] <.001 0.78 [0.41, 1.15] Resentment 4.74(3.36 [3.91-5.57]

Jealous Then Anger 2.60(2.88) [1.85-3.36] <.001 0.71 [0.35, 1.08] Resentment 4.92(3.56) [4.04-5.80]

Embarrassed Then Anger 3.93(3.01) [3.14-4.72] =.943 0.01 [-0.34, 0.37] Resentment 3.97(2.94) [3.24-4.70]

Surprised Then Anger 5.67(3.05) [4.87-6.47] =.375 0.16 [-0.19, 0.52] Resentment 5.18(3.02) [4.43-5.93]

Anxious Then Anger 4.91(2.81) [4.17-5.65] =.644 0.08 [-0.27, 0.44] Resentment 4.68(2.85) [3.97-5.38]

Angry Then Anger 8.88(1.32) [8.53-9.23] <.001 1.26 [0.87, 1.64] Resentment 6.11(2.76) [5.42-6.79]

Resentful Then Anger 3.72(2.55) [3.05-4.40] <.001 2.05 [1.61, 2.48] Resentment 8.28(1.88) [7.81-8.74]

Happy then Anger 1.57(1.27) [1.23-1.90] =.726 0.06 [-0.29, 0.42] Resentment 1.65(1.67) [1.36-1.93]

Sad Then Anger 5.79(3.29) [4.93-6.66] =.488 0.12 [-0.23, 0.48] Resentment 6.17(2.71) [5.50-6.84]

Negative Affect Anger 40.95(14.36) [37.17- 44.72] =.019 0.49 [0.13, 0.85] Then Resentment 47.11(15.48) [43.54-50.67]

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Table 4.4

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d and 95% Confidence Intervals for Emotion Scales According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65) Groups NOW When They Think about the Event

Dependent Variable Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI]

Fearful Now Anger 1.94(1.85) 1.50-2.39 =.922 0.02 [-0.31, 0.35] Resentment 1.97(1.84) 1.54-2.40

Envious Now Anger 1.68(1.46) 1.33-2.03 =.005 0.48 [0.15, 0.82] Resentment 2.62(2.30) 2.08-3.15

Jealous Now Anger 1.62(1.42) 1.28-1.96 <.001 0.60 [0.26, 0.94] Resentment 2.92(2.67) 2.29-3.54

Embarrassed Now Anger 2.84(2.25) 2.30-3.38 =.605 0.09 [-0.24, 0.42] Resentment 2.63(2.57) 2.03-3.23

Surprised Now Anger 2.06(1.75) 1.64-2.48 =.753 0.05 [-0.28, 0.38] Resentment 2.15(1.76) 1.74-2.56

Anxious Now Anger 2.33(1.79) 1.90-2.76 =.837 0.04 [-0.30, 0.36] Resentment 2.40(1.91) 1.95-2.84

Angry Now Anger 3.94(2.50) 3.34-4.54 =.947 0.01 [-0.31, 0.34] Resentment 3.97(2.97) 3.28-4.66

Resentful Now Anger 2.87(2.36) 2.30-3.44 <.001 0.67 [0.34, 1.01] Resentment 4.68(2.97) 3.99-5.38

Happy Now Anger 2.78(2.51) 2.18-3.39 =.382 0.15 [-0.18, 0.48] Resentment 3.16(2.67) 2.54-3.79

Sad Now Anger 3.45(2.75) 2.79-4.11 =.740 0.06 [-0.27, 0.38] Resentment 3.30(2.54) 2.71-3.89

Negative Affect Anger 22.74(10.47) 20.22-25.25 =.079 0.29 [-0.03, 0.62] Now Resentment 26.64(15.48) 23.03-30.25

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4.5.3 Length of emotion experience.

Chi square analysis revealed that significantly more participants agreed that resentment and anger were different emotions (χ2(1) = 43.33; p < .001). Eighty percent (113) of participants endorsed “yes” to the question “Are anger and resentment different?” and 20% (29) endorsed “no”.

To test whether the resentment associated with the resentment event lasted longer than anger for the anger event, an independent sample t-test was conducted.

The t-test revealed that the resentment emotion associated with the resentment event lasted significantly longer than the anger emotion associated with the anger event

(t(142) = -4.98, p<.001, Cohen’s d = 0.83 [0.49, 1.18]). The mean for resentment was

5.19 (SD=2.16) and anger was 3.33 (SD=2.29). This suggests the resentment emotion associated with the resentment event lasted on average between 6 days to 1 month where the anger emotion associated with the anger event lasted on average between

6hrs and 1 day. Furthermore, the effect size revealed that this effect was large.

A Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to test whether the resentment event occurred a longer time ago than the anger event. Contrary to predictions, there were no differences between resentment and anger on how long ago the event happened (U

= 2466.00, p=.830). Both events occurred approximately the same number of months ago (Mdn = 12 months/1 year).

4.5.4 Eliciting events.

This next part of the study explored the thematic differences between the written descriptions provided by participants. Each participant described either an anger autobiographical memory or a resentment autobiographical memory in as much 149 detail as possible. From these descriptions themes were extracted and categorised according to seven types of eliciting event. Each emotion description was initially coded by the PhD student, Rhonda Stoertebecker using schemes based on the answers provided by the participants and prior research (Fitness, 2000; Fitness & Fletcher,

1993). For example, each eliciting event was listed in no particular order then sorted into categories on the basis of event similarity rather than the emotion label. The aim was to create a set of discriminatory categories that were neither over inclusive nor under inclusive.

An independent rater was trained in the coding scheme and then categorised the descriptions independently of the researcher. Cohen’s kappa was calculated to analyse interrater reliability. The interrater reliability was satisfactory with a kappa of

.846; p<.001 (Viera & Garrett, 2005). Disagreements were resolved in discussion.

A total of seven event categories emerged from the data. These were unjust treatment, moral transgressions, incompetence and goal obstruction, envy and jealousy, overlooked and rejected, not heard or understood and regret at own decisions. See Table 4.5 for categories and number of participants included in each category according to emotion condition. See Appendix H for examples of descriptions included in these categories.

4.5.4.1 Analysis. Chi square analysis or Fisher’s exact test were used to evaluate the data for each category that contains at least 5% of cases. The assumption of independence was met because participants were randomly assigned to either the anger or resentment group. Participants were either in the resentment group or the anger group. Chi square analysis also requires expected cell counts to equal five or 150 more cases (Howell, 2007). This assumption was met for four categories. For the incompetence and goal obstruction category, Fisher’s exact test was used

(McDonald, 2014). The not heard or understood category (contained five cases) and regret at own decision (contained 3 cases) were not analysed. A total of five categories were analysed.

Chi square analyses revealed that there were significant differences in the eliciting events associated with anger and resentment autobiographical memories.

Anger memories were elicited more often by moral transgressions and incompetence or goal obstruction more often for than for resentment memories. On the other hand, resentment memories were more likely to be elicited by events involving envy and jealousy (e.g., viewing another as having more benefits, more things, more luck, more attention or wanting what the other has) and feeling overlooked or rejected than anger memories. There was no significant difference between anger and resentment conditions for eliciting events related to unfair or unjust treatment. The final two categories not heard or understood and regret at own decisions had too few participants to analyse. 151

Table 4.5

Number of Participants in Specific Categories According to Emotion Group and Relevant Chi Square Statistics

Category Number in Category Statistics

Anger Resentment

Unjust treatment Respondent or other being criticised, badly treated, 24 17 2=3.15 falsely accused, onerous workload, unfairness 38% 24% p=.076 emphasised, humiliated, embarrassed, df=1

Moral transgressions 23 15 2=3.89 Lying, stealing, cheating, betrayed, affairs, 37% 21% p=.049 wrongdoing, selfishness, let down by another, another df=1 reneges on promise or agreement, breaking ones confidentiality, inconsiderate behaviour by another, hypocrisy

Incompetence/goal obstruction 8 1 p=.013 Mistakes, incompetence, goal obstruction, feeling 13% 1% Fisher’s exact controlled by another

Envy/Jealousy 1 20 2=17.85 Another fairly or unfairly getting more benefits/having 1% 28% p<.001 more things/more luck than respondent. getting more df=1 attention jealousy, having qualities I want, having relationships I want

Overlooked/Rejected 2 15 2=9.71 Not being considered, overlooked, left out, ignored, 3% 21% p=.002 discounted, excluded, df=1 Seen as unimportant, rejected, ostracised, abandoned

Not heard/Not understood 3 2 5% 3% Not listened to, not heard, not understood, not seeing my point of view

Regret at own decision or dislike of own behaviour 2 1 5% 1%

Total (n) n=63 n=71

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4.5.5 Cognitive appraisals, emotivational goals and other appraisals.

4.5.5.1 Cognitive appraisals. To test the hypothesis that the participants in the resentment condition would feel more worthless, smaller and more in control than anger participants during the event, a series of independent t=tests were conducted.

There were 13 questions associated with cognitions relating to the event and they are included in Table 4.6; along with their means, standard deviations, 95% confidence intervals and p values. The hypothesis was not supported; there were no significant differences between anger and resentment conditions on cognitive appraisals

4.5.5.2 Emotivational goals and other appraisals. To test the hypothesis that anger participants will view the other in the event as more blameworthy than participants in the resentment event, and that there will be less contact with the other person for participants in the resentment condition than the anger condition, a series of eight independent t-tests were conducted. These eight questions, their means, standard deviations, 95% confidence intervals and p values are included in Table 4.7.

Three appraisals about the other person in the event were statistically significant.

Participants in the anger condition were significantly more likely to think the other person was to blame for the event (t (121) = 3.04, p=.003, Cohen’s d = 0.55 [0.19,

0.91]), they wanted to break the relationship with the other person (t (121) = 2.21, p=.029, Cohen’s d = 0.40 [0.04, 0.76]), and they wanted the other to realise they had gone too far (t (120.95) = 2.92, p=.004, Cohen’s d = 0.53 [0.17, 0.89]) more than participants in the resentment condition. Attributing more blameworthiness to the other in the anger condition replicated the findings of Study 2. The other two differences were new findings. The hypothesis that resentment participants would 153 have less contact with the other than anger participants was not replicated. There were no other significant differences between anger and resentment conditions for emotivational goals and other appraisals.

154

Table 4.6

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Cognitive Appraisals According to the Anger (n=69) and Resentment (n=73) Groups

Cognitive Appraisal Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] I thought the event was fair. Anger 2.52(2.48) [1.97, 3.07] =.158 0.24 [-0.09, 0.57] Resentment 3.14(1.97) [2.48, 3.80]

I felt powerful. Anger 4.20(2.50) [3.61, 4.79] =.688 0.07 [-0.26, 0.40] Resentment 4.37(2.44) [3.81, 4.93]

The event was pleasant. Anger 1.74(1.71) [1.33, 2.15] =.759 0.05 [-0.28, 0.38] Resentment 1.66(1.45) [1.32, 1.99]

The event was expected Anger 3.42(2.97) [2.71, 4.13] =.624 0.08 [-0.25, 0.41] Resentment 3.66(2.79) [3.01, 4.31]

I am certain I understand Anger 6.61(2.81) [5.93, 7.28] =.175 0.23 [-0.10, 0.56] what happened. Resentment 5.93(3.08) [5.21, 6.65]

The event required a lot of Anger 5.23(3.15) [4.48, 5.99] =.456 0.13 [-0.20, 0.46] effort. Resentment 5.62(2.98) [4.92, 6.31]

The outcome of the event Anger 4.90(3.06) [4.16, 5.63] =.738 0.06 [-0.27, 0.36] was predictable. Resentment 4.73(3.07) [4.01, 5.44]

The event was predictable. Anger 3.93(3.11) [3.18, 4.68] =.834 0.04 [-0.29, 0.36] Resentment 3.82(2.89) [3.15, 4.50]

I felt worthless. Anger 4.58(3.32) [3.78, 5.38] =.233 0.20 [-0.13, 0.53] Resentment 5.25(3.32) [4.47, 6.02]

I was to blame. Anger 3.03(2.26) [2.49, 3.57] =.889 0.02 [-0.30, 0.35] Resentment 3.08(2.27) [2.55, 3.61]

I felt small. Anger 5.39(3.40) [4.57, 6.21] =.437 0.13 [-0.20, 0.46] Resentment 5.81(2.97) [5.12, 6.50]

I felt in control. Anger 2.77(2.31) [2.21, 3.32] =.190 0.22 [-0.11, 0.55] Resentment 2.27(2.16) [1.77, 2.78]

This was a typical Anger Anger 4.01(2.96) [3.30, 4.73] =.059 0.32 [-0.13, 0.65] /Resentment event for me. Resentment 3.14(2.52) [2.55, 3.73]

155

Table 4.7

Means, Standard Deviations, Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and p values for Other Appraisals According to the Anger (n=58) and Resentment (n=65) Groups

Cognitive Appraisal Group M(SD) 95% CI p value Cohen’s d [95% CI] The other person in the Anger 6.31(3.67) [5.36, 7.26] =.116 0.29 [-0.07, 0.64] event was important or Resentment 5.32(3.24) [4.53, 6.11] significant to me.

The other person was to Anger 7.09(2.62) [6.40, 7.78] =.003 0.55 [0.19, 0.91] blame for the event. Resentment 5.55(2.93) [4.83, 6.28]

The character of the other Anger 4.64(2.87) [3.88, 5.39] =.389 0.16 [-0.20, 0.51] person is bad. Resentment 4.18(2.94) [3.46, 4.91]

I wanted the other person to Anger 6.93(3.36) [6.05, 7.81] =.082 0.31 [-0.04, 0.67] apologise. Resentment 5.82(3.70) [4.90, 6.73]

I wanted to get even with Anger 4.24(3.22) [3.39, 5.09] =.146 0.26 [-0.09, 0.62] the other person. Resentment 3.42(3.04) [2.66, 4.17]

I wanted to break the Anger 4.97(3.64) [4.01, 5.92] =.029 0.40 [0.04, 0.76] relationship with the other Resentment 3.58(3.29) [2.77, 4.40] person.

Contact with this person has Anger 4.64(3.67) [3.67, 5.60] =.224 0.22 [-0.14, 0.57] reduced since the event. Resentment 5.46(3.79) [4.52, 6.40]

I wanted the other person to Anger 7.64(3.06) [6.83, 8.44] =.004 0.53 [0.17, 0.89] realise he or she had gone Resentment 5.91(3.50) [5.04, 6.78] too far.

156

4.5.6 Contribution of anger and resentment to well-being.

4.5.6.1 Correlations. Bivariate correlations between the psychological, social and health variables of the SF36v2 Health Survey and anger and resentment are presented in Table 4.9. Age was not significantly associated with anger, resentment or any of the SF36v2 psychological, social and health variables. There was a moderate positive relationship between anger and resentment. As anger scores increased so did resentment scores. Except for physical functioning, anger and resentment were negatively associated with the SF36v2 health and well-being variables such that higher scores on anger and resentment were associated with lower levels of health and well-being. Physical functioning showed a weak positive association with role physical and bodily pain such that better physical functioning was associated with lower levels of bodily pain and less impact on the physical aspects of work and daily activities. Physical functioning was not significantly associated with any other variables. All other SF36v2 psychological, social and health variables were positively associated with each other.

157

Table 4.8

Summary of Means (M), Standard Deviations(SD) and Cronbach Alphas (α) of the Measures Used in Multiple Regression (N=142)

Dependent Variable M (SD) α

Resentment 17.22(5.65) .81

Anger 17.41(5.50) .81

SF-36v2-Physical Functioning 85.32(21.24) .91

SF-36v2-Role Physical 77.82(32.76) .80

SF-36v2-Bodily Pain 74.06(21.93) .89

SF-36v2-General Health 64.42(21.40) .86

SF-36v2-Vitality 50.14(19.48) .76

SF-36v2-Social Functioning 74.12(24.08) .80

SF-36v2-Role Emotional 59.86(39.81) .73

SF-36v2-Mental Health 62.76(18.49) .84

158

Table 4.9

Summary of Intercorrelations for Scores on Anger, Resentment and SF-36v2 Health Survey Variables

Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. Anger --

2. Resentment .63*** --

3. Physical Functioning -.13 -.01 --

4. Role Physical -28** -.22** .27** --

5. Bodily Pain -.40*** -.35*** .25** .42*** --

6. General Health -.37*** -.43*** .14 .48*** .55*** --

7. Vitality -.38*** -.46*** .01 .34*** .45*** .58*** --

8. Social Functioning -.42*** -.45*** .11 .42*** .49*** .53*** .62*** --

9. Role Emotional -.28** -.39*** .06 .20* .29** .42*** .52*** .67*** --

10. Mental Health -.46*** -.56*** .08 .28** .36*** .55*** .70*** .71*** .63*** --

11. Age -.03 -.05 .08 .08 .11 .07 .08 -.10 .00 .01 --

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

159

4.5.6.2 Regression. Another aim of the study was to investigate the contribution of anger, and resentment to the SF36v2 psychological, social and health variables (Hypothesis 6). A series of eight hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to investigate the hypotheses that anger and resentment are important predictors and independently explain SF36v2 psychological, social and health variables. The independent variable, anger was entered at step 1 and resentment was entered at step 2, resulting in 2 models. This was done to assess whether resentment explained unique variance in the health variables over and above that of anger. Each of the 8 health domains of the SF36v2 (physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, role emotional and mental health) were entered as dependent variables. Age did not correlate significantly with any dependent variable so it was not controlled for in any analyses.

4.5.6.2.1 SF36v2. Following are the hierarchical regression results for the SF36v2 dependent variables. Regression statistics are presented in Table 4.10.

4.5.6.2.2 Physical functioning. Trait anger explained no significant variance in physical functioning (F(1,140) = 2.25, p =.136). At step 2, trait resentment did not add any significant explanation to participants physical functioning (Fchg (1,139) = 1.21; p = .274). Therefore, anger and resentment did not significantly explain participants’ ability to engage in physical activities such as lifting, running, climbing stairs and walking.

4.5.6.2.3 Role physical. At step 1, trait anger significantly accounted for

8% of the variance in role physical (F(1,140) = 12.00; p = .001). At step 2, trait resentment did not add any significant variance to the explanation of role physical

(Fchg (1,139) = .51; p = .475). Trait anger significantly explained 3% of the 8% 160 uniquely (t(139) = -2.23; p = .027). Trait anger and trait resentment shared 5% of the variance explained in role physical. Inspection of β values in Table 4.10 reveal that anger had a more important contribution to participants’ ability to function at work and in other activities due to physical limitations than resentment.

Specifically, the greater the trait anger, the more likely one was to experience decreases in functioning at work and usual activities due to physical limitations.

4.5.6.2.4 Bodily pain. At step 1, trait anger significantly accounted for

16% of the variance in bodily pain (F(1,140) = 26.70, p < .001). At step 2, trait resentment did not significantly add any explanation to bodily pain (Fchg (1,139) =

2.59, p =.475). Trait anger significantly explained 5% of the variance in bodily pain uniquely (t(139) = -3.02; p = .003) while trait resentment had no unique contribution. A total of 18% of the variance was explained by both trait anger and resentment; consequently, trait anger and resentment shared 13% of the variance in bodily pain. As with role physical, these results seem to indicate anger was a more important contributor to participants’ interference in one’s normal activities due to bodily pain than resentment.

4.5.6.2.5 General health. At step 1, trait anger significantly explained

14% of the variance in general health (F(1,140) = 22.15; p < .001). At step 2, trait resentment added 6% to the explanation of general health (Fchg (1,139) = 10.82; p

= .001). Trait resentment contributed a significant 6% of unique variance to the explanation of general health (t(139) = -3.29; p = .001), whereas anger contributed no significant unique variance. Together anger and resentment contributed 20% of the variance to the explanation of general health, thus trait anger and resentment shared 14% of the variance in general health. Once trait resentment was added to the model, anger contributed no unique variance to general health. These results 161 indicate that resentment was a more important contributor to general health than anger. The relationship between the independent variables and general health is negative, therefore the greater the experience of anger and resentment, the lower the perceived general health.

4.5.6.2.6 Vitality. At step 1, trait anger significantly explained 15% of the variance in vitality (F(1,140) = 23.68; p < .001). At step 2, trait resentment significantly added an extra 8% to the explanation of the variance in vitality (Fchg

(1,139) = 13.75; p < .001). Trait resentment uniquely explained 8% of the variance (t(139) = -3.71; p < .001), and trait anger explained no unique variance in vitality. A total of 22% of the variance was explained by both trait resentment and trait anger. Thus trait anger and trait resentment shared 14% of the variance in vitality. These results indicate that trait resentment was a more important contributor to participants’ experience of feeling energetic and full of energy than trait anger. Inspection of β values suggests participants experience higher levels of lethargy and fatigue with increasing levels of trait resentment.

4.5.6.2.7 Social functioning. At step 1, trait anger significantly contributed 18% of the variance to social functioning (F(1,140) = 29.83; p <

.001). At step 2, trait resentment significantly added an extra 6% to the explanation of social functioning (Fchg (1,139) = 10.57; p = .001). Trait anger significantly contributed 3% unique variance (t(139) = -2.33; p = .02) and trait resentment contributed 6% unique variance to social functioning (t(139) = -3.25; p

= .001). Together they shared 14% of the variance in social functioning. The significant β values for both trait anger and trait resentment indicate both are important variables in the explanation of social functioning and both contributed differently to decreases in social functioning. More specifically, both anger and 162 resentment independently contributed to interference in normal social activities due to physical and emotional problems.

4.5.6.2.8 Role emotional. At step 1, trait anger significantly contributed

8% of the variance in role emotional (F(1,140) = 12.10; p = .001). At step 2, trait resentment significantly added an extra 8% explanation to role emotional, the effect of emotional problems on functioning at work and other activities (Fchg

(1,139) = 12.29; p =.001). A total of 15% of the variance in role emotional was explained by anger and resentment. Trait anger contributed no unique variance, whereby trait resentment contributed a significant 8% unique variance to role emotional (t(139) = -3.51; p = .001). Thus 7% of the variance was shared by both.

Trait resentment was a more important variable than trait anger in the explanation of reduced functioning in work and other activities due to emotional problems.

4.5.6.2.9 Mental health. At step 1, trait anger significantly explained

21% of the variance in anxiety and depression symptoms (F(1,140) = 37.10; p <

.001). At step 2, trait resentment significantly explained an extra 12% of the variance in these symptoms (Fchg (1,139) = 25.58; p < .001). Trait anger contributed no unique variance but resentment significantly contributed 12% unique variance to the explanation of mental health (t(139) = -5.06; p < .001). The remaining 21% was shared by anger and resentment. Trait resentment was more important in the explanation of anxiety and depression symptoms such that higher resentment was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression symptoms.

163 Table 4.10

Hierarchical Regression of Anger and Resentment Predicting SF-36v2 Variables

DVs IVs B SE β R2 sr2 Δ R2 95% CI for B B Physical Functioning Model 1 Anger -.49 .32 -.13 .02 .02 .02 [-.1.13, .16]

Model 2 Anger -.77 .42 -.20 .02 .00 [-.1.60, .05] Resentment .45 .41 .12 .00 .00 [-.35 - 1.25]

Role Physical Model 1 Anger -1.68 .48 -.28 .08** .08** .08** [-2.63, -.72]

Model 2 Anger -1.39 .62 -.23 .08** .03* [-2.63, .16] Resentment -.44 .61 -.08 .00 .00 [-1.64, .77]

Bodily Pain Model 1 Anger -1.60 .31 -.40 .16*** .16*** .16*** [-2.21, -.99]

Model 2 Anger -1.20 .40 -.30 .18*** .05** .02 [-1.98, -.41] Resentment -.62 .39 -.16 .02 [-1.38, -.14]

General Health Model 1 Anger -1.44 .31 -.37 .14*** .14*** .14*** [-2.04, -.84]

Model 2 Anger -.65 .38 -.17 .20*** .02 [-1.40, .10] Resentment -1.22 .37 -.32 .06** .06** [-1.95, -.49]

Vitality Model 1 Anger -1.35 .28 -.38 .15*** .14*** .15*** [-1.90, -.80]

Model 2 Anger -.55 .34 -.16 .22*** .01 [-1.22, .13] Resentment -1.23 .33 -.36 .08*** .08*** [-1.89, -.58]

Social Functioning Model 1 Anger -1.84 .34 -.42 .18*** .18*** .18*** [-2.50, -1.17]

Model 2 Anger -.98 .42 -.22 .23*** .03* [-1.81, -.15] Resentment -1.33 .41 -.31 .06** .06** [-2.13, -.52]

Role Emotional Model 1 Anger -2.04 .59 -.28 .08** .08** .08*** [-3.20, -.88] *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 Model 2 Anger -.43 .73 -.06 .15*** .00 [-1.87, -1.05] Resentment -2.48 .71 -.35 .07** .08** [-3.88, -1.08]

Mental Health Model 1 Anger -1.54 .25 -.46 .21*** .21*** .21*** [-2.04, -1.04]

Model 2 Anger -.58 .30 -.17 33*** .02 [-1.18, .01] Resentment -1.48 .30 -.45 .12*** .12*** [-2.06, -.90]

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

4.5.7 Meta-analysis.

Several researchers have outlined many weaknesses associated with Null

Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) and reliance on it has been accused of 164 causing significant inconsistencies in conclusions made in the scientific literature

(Anderson & Maxwell, 2015; Bonett, 2009; Braver, Thoemmes, & Rosenthal,

2014; Cohn & Becker, 2003; Cumming, 2014; Cumming, Fidler, Kalinowski, &

Lai, 2012; Fidler, Geoff, Mark, & Neil, 2004; Kalinowski & Fidler, 2010;

Schmidt, 1996; Stukas & Cumming, 2014). So much so, that many of these authors are calling for its abandonment in favour of interpreting effect sizes, confidence intervals and including the use of meta-analyses. Anderson and

Maxwell (2015) wrote, “If reproducibility is the gold standard of science, then meta-analysis is the gold standard of reproducibility. Statistically combining the results of multiple studies not only increases power, but also pulls from a more influential evidence base in drawing conclusions” (p. 7). That said, it may be premature to abandon NHST altogether and it has been suggested that combining

NHST and meta-analysis is a viable option (Cumming, 2012, 2014). The

American Psychological Association’s sixth edition of the publication manual calls for the reporting of both NHST results and their associated effect size point estimates and confidence intervals, and includes an appendix dedicated to meta- analyses (American Psychological Association, 2010). Consequently, a series of meta-analyses was included here to address consistent and inconsistent findings across the studies in the present research. Conducting a meta-analysis across two or three studies is viable and recommended to make sense of data within a research program (Cumming, 2012, 2014) and to aid in drawing conclusions

(Anderson & Maxwell, 2015; Valentine, Pigott, & Rothstein, 2010).

A random effects model was used to compute the aggregated effect sizes across studies. This was done because the studies were assumed to have been drawn from populations that differed from each other (Borenstein, 2009; 165

Cumming, 2012, 2014). This occurred in the present research because both undergraduate students and a community sample were used. The findings from a random effects model represent the average of the distribution of effect sizes in the population (Borenstein, 2009).

A meta-analysis was conducted for two reasons. Firstly, some of the findings across studies were inconsistent and a clearer overall picture of the results across studies was sought. Secondly, some of the findings across the studies were consistent such that a statistically significant effect was replicated across studies and the researcher wanted an aggregated effect of the findings for these variables. Aggregating replication attempts via statistical procedures such as meta-analysis defines a more precise estimate of the effect size in question

(Bonett, 2009).

4.5.7.1 Inclusion if the results were consistent. If results were statistically significant, an aggregate to determine a more precise estimate of effect size was sought across either 2 or 3 studies, depending on whether or not the variable of interest was tested. A significant effect was found for emotion intensity ratings across all three studies. The variables belonging in this category were subjective feelings associated with the recalled events, namely, angry, resentful, envious and jealous at the time of the event, and resentful, envious and jealous, now at the present time. In addition, the cognition “The other person was to blame” and the duration of the anger (resentment) feelings were tested in Study

2 and 3 and found to be statistically significant in both studies. Consequently, these were aggregated in a separate meta-analysis per variable.

There were also consistent findings found for eliciting events tested in

Study 2 and Study 3. These were not suitable for a meta-analysis because the 166 outcomes were dichotomous. The confidence intervals are important in interpreting the results of a meta-analysis and when dichotomous variables are used in a meta-analysis, the confidence intervals produced are based on the number of events observed rather than the sample size in each group (The

Cochrane Collaboration, 2011). In the present research, some categories of eliciting events contained only a few events producing confidence intervals that were so large they were of little practical use (Cumming, 2014).

4.5.7.2 Inclusion if the results were inconsistent. A number of variables tested across the studies in the present research had inconsistent findings.

Inconsistent findings were those that found significant differences in some studies but not in others, despite effect sizes in each study of d = 0.20 or more. Firstly, a variable was included in a meta-analysis if it was found to be statistically significant in at least one study and showed a trend in the same direction in at least one other. A trend was a finding that had a p value of >.05 with an effect size of d = 0.2 or more. An effect of d = 0.20 was considered a small effect (Cohen,

1992). The variables that met this condition included negative effect then, negative affect now, “I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far”, “I felt worthless”, “I felt small”, “I felt in control”, and “Contact with the other has changed”.

Secondly, a variable was included in a meta-analysis if it was tested in two studies and showed a trend in the same direction across both studies. The variable

“I wanted the other to apologise” met this inclusion criterion because it had an effect of d = 0.24 in Study 2 and d = 0.32 in Study 3 in favour of the anger condition, but neither were statistically significant. 167

Finally, the two items, “I wanted the other to apologise” and “I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far” were combined in a single meta-analysis to get a more precise estimate of the effect size of the variable called coercion. These two items were included in a set of four items Fischer and

Roseman (2007) used to construct their coercion construct.

The results of the various meta-analyses conducted are presented in Tables

4.11 and 4.12 and discussed in the sections to follow. The meta-analysis software

Comprehensive Meta-analysis version 3 was used to conduct the meta-analyses

(Smith, 2014)

4.5.7.3 Meta-analyses of emotion ratings. Meta-analyses for all emotion ratings data were based on all three studies. Aggregated effect sizes for angry then, resentful then, envious then and jealous then were d = 0.62, d = 1.11, d =

0.56 and d = 0.47, respectively (see Table 4.11). Inspection of the confidence intervals show that they did not include zero, therefore it was considered that across studies there was a significant difference between anger and resentment on these emotion intensity ratings, such that, resentment had greater ratings of resentment, jealousy and envy, and less anger than anger events at the time the event happened. The aggregated effect sizes ranged from moderate to large

(Cohen, 1992).

The Q statistics and their p values are presented in Table 4.11 and 4.12 but will not be interpreted because the statistic was underpowered since only two or three studies were contained in the meta-analyses (Valentine et al., 2010). Instead, it has been recommended that I2 be interpreted in place of the Q statistic (Higgins

& Thompson, 2002; Higgins, Thompson, Deeks, & Altman, 2003). I2 statistics represent an effect size describing heterogeneity with I2 values of 25%, 50%, and 168

75% representing low, moderate and high heterogeneity (Higgins et al., 2003;

Valentine et al., 2010).

Inspection of I2 suggests that the angry then and resentment then results were heterogeneous. This means that not all the studies were measuring the same effect. Although some heterogeneity is expected, the amount of heterogeneity,

89% and 94% respectively, are considered to be considerably large (Higgins et al.,

2003). This can be a problem if the source of heterogeneity is unknown. Although it is not possible to be certain, it is likely that the source of heterogeneity in these variables has occurred because of the different instructions provided in Study 3. In

Study 3, participants were instructed to think of an anger event in which they were angry but not resentful. For resentment participants the reverse was asked.

Instead, in Study 1 and 2, participants were instructed to recall a situation in which they felt either angry or resentful. The instructions in Study 3 resulted in much larger effect sizes between the angry and resentful intensity ratings than in

Studies 1 and 2. Consequently, it is likely that the meta-analysis saw this variation as a different effect. This is positive, because Studies 1 and 2 probably represented attenuated differences compared to Study 3 and attenuated the aggregated effect size. The I2 values for envy then and jealousy then suggest there was a small to almost moderate amount of heterogeneity with 35% and 39% of the variance being attributed to variability between studies and 65% and 61% of variability being attributed to sampling error and a true effect size.

At the present time, resentment events had greater levels of resentful, envious and jealous than anger events. The aggregated effect sizes of these differences were d = 0.45 and d = 0.38 and d = 0.35, respectively. The confidence intervals did not include zero, so were considered significant. I2 values indicated 169 that there was little heterogeneity associated with these effects. The effects were between small and moderate in size.

There was a small aggregated effect for negative overall affectivity then (d

= 0.28) and overall negative affectivity now (d = 0.22) across all three studies. I2 values show these effects were homogenous (I2 = 0.00). Inspection of the confidence intervals show they did not include zero, therefore it can be considered that across studies, resentment events involved higher overall negative affectivity than anger events, both at the time the event happened, and now at the present time.

Finally, the aggregated effect size across Study 2 and 3 for resentment lasting longer than anger was d = 1.07. The confidence intervals did not contain zero so the result was significant. I2 values (74%) indicated that this result was considerably heterogeneous resulting in wide confidence intervals. Nevertheless, it is highly plausible that the true effect size lies somewhere between d = 0.62 and d = 1.32, which represent moderate to large effects (Cohen, 1992).

4.5.7.4 Meta-analyses of cognitions and other appraisals. Meta- analyses for cognitions and other appraisal data were based on Study 2 and Study

3. Aggregated effect sizes for cognitions and appraisals related to the other were calculated for each variable using meta-analysis. “I felt worthless” (d = 0.28), “I felt small” (d = 0.20), “I felt in control” (d = 0.29) and “contact with the other has reduced” (d = 0.29) had small effect sizes. The confidence interval for each of the four variables did not include zero and were considered significant. Furthermore,

I2 values for each of the variables were zero so the effect sizes were homogenous with 100% of the variance in each due to sampling error only. The lower limit of the 95% confidence intervals for “I felt small” and “Contact with the other has 170 reduced” were close to zero, indicating that the mean effect of the population of effects could be trivial. According to Cumming (2012, 2014), the distribution of the average of the population of effect sizes is shaped like a cat’s eye. Thus values further from the point estimate become progressively less likely as we move towards the lower and upper limits of the confidence interval and values close to the point estimate are most plausible. Therefore, it is safe to say these results supported the conclusion that individuals describing resentment events felt more worthless, smaller, less in control and had less contact with the other than those describing anger events, albeit a small effect.

The aggregated effect for “The other was to blame” was moderate (d =

0.41). Since the confidence intervals did not contain zero, the effect was significant. Furthermore a very small percentage of variance (I2 = 6.5%) was due to between study variability. Thus the findings were considered homogenous.

Individuals describing anger events blamed the other more than individuals describing resentment events.

The meta-analysis found an above small effect for “I want the other to apologise” (d = 0.27) and “I wanted the other to realise he or she had gone too far” (d = 0.32). Although the confidence interval for wanting the other to apologise was significant because it did not contain zero, the confidence interval for the second goal did contain zero. Both of these items represent a goal called coercion defined as “forcing change in an undesired outcome brought about by another person” (Fischer & Roseman, 2007, p 105.). Therefore, the two items were included in a meta-analysis and an aggregate for coercion was calculated.

There was a small effect for coercion (d = 0.29), the confidence intervals of which did not encompass zero. Furthermore, the results were homogenous with 100% of 171 the variability due to sampling error. This means that those describing anger events wanted to force change in an undesired outcome caused by another more than those describing resentment events.

172

Table 4.11

Random Effects Model Meta-Analysis Results Across Studies for Subjective Emotion Intensity Scores Including Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and Other Meta-Analysis Statistics

Emotion Variable No. of studies Cohen’s d [95% CI] Q I2 T2 p value

Angry Then 3 0.62 [0.15, 1.08] 18.84 89.38 0.15 < .001

Resentful Then 3 1.11 [0.41, 1.8] 34.15 94.25 0.35 < .001

Envious Then 3 0.56 [0.37, 0.75] 3.08 34.99 0.01 = .215

Jealous Then 3 0.47 [0.27, 0.66] 3.32 39.83 0.01 = .190

Resentful Now 3 0.45 [0.29, 0.61] 2.41 17.05 0.00 = .300

Envious Now 3 0.38 [0.24, 0.52] 0.57 0.00 0.004 = .752

Jealous Now 3 0.35 [0.18, 0.52] 2.72 26.41 0.006 = .257

Negative affect 3 0.28 [0.16, 0.42] 0.767 0.00 0.00 = . 677 Then

Negative affect 3 0.22 [0.10, 0.35] 0.78 0.00 0.00 = .677 Now

How long the 2 1.07 [0.62, 1.32] 3.84 73.93 0.08 = .050 emotion lasts Note: Q is a test of heterogeneity (between study variability) with an associated p value. If p<.05 the test suggests heterogeneity (Valentine et al., 2010). I2 represents degree of heterogeneity with 25%, 50% and 75% representing small, medium and large degrees of heterogeneity (Higgins & Thompson, 2002). T2 is the variance of the sample effect size (Cumming, 2014).

173

Table 4.12

Random Effects Model Meta-Analysis Results Across Studies for Cognitive Appraisals and Other Related Appraisals Including Cohen’s d, 95% Confidence Intervals and other Meta-Analysis Statistics

Appraisals No. of Cohen’s d [95% CI] Q I2 T2 p value studies I felt worthless 2 0.28 [0.09, 0.50] 0.70 0.00 0.00 = .404

I felt small 2 0.20 [0.01, 0.39] 0.54 0.00 0.00 = .464

I felt in control 2 0.29 [0.10, 0.48] 0.49 0.00 0.00 = .483

Contact with the other 2 0.29 [0.06, 0.52] 0.25 0.00 0.00 = .618 has reduced

Other person is to 2 0.41 [0.17, 0.64] 1.07 6.47 0.00 = .301 blame

I want the other to 2 0.27 [0.04, 0.50] 0.10 0.00 0.00 = .752 apologise

I wanted the other to 2 0.32 [-0.04, 0.68] 2.24 58.74 0.04 = .120 realise he or she had gone too far

Coercion 2 0.29 [0.13, 0.45] 2.57 0.00 0.00 = .464

Note: Q is a test of heterogeneity (between study variability) with an associated p value. If p<.05 the test suggests heterogeneity (Valentine et al., 2010). I2 represents degree of heterogeneity with 25%, 50% and 75% representing small, medium and large degrees of heterogeneity (Higgins & Thompson, 2002). T2 is the variance of the sample effect size (Cumming, 2014).

4.6 Discussion

The major aim of Study 3 was to determine if anger and resentment differed in their impact on physical, social and psychological well-being. This was accomplished by examining the effects of individual differences in the everyday frequency of anger experiences (i.e., trait anger) and of resentment experiences

(i.e., trait resentment) on various aspects of well-being. Results revealed a complex pattern of findings revealing that both anger and resentment have adverse effects on most aspects of well-being, with resentment having a somewhat greater detrimental effect than anger. 174

4.6.1 Consequences.

According to the World Health Organization’s definition of health, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (World Health Organization, 1946).

The SF36v2 Health Survey used in the present research assess eight health related domains that incorporate the domains mentioned in the World Health

Organization’s definition of health. Both trait anger and trait resentment were associated with lower functioning in psychological, physical and social well- being. However, neither anger nor resentment was significantly associated with engagement in vigorous or moderate physical activities such as walking or running. The commonalities between trait anger and trait resentment contributed significantly to lower functioning on all other seven health domains, indicating that the shared features of trait anger and trait resentment were detrimental. There were also differences between anger and resentment in relation to which emotion was more important to the decreased functioning. Trait resentment was a more important contributor on four of the eight health domains (general health, vitality, role emotional and mental health) than trait anger because it contributed unique variance to these domains when anger did not. Thus, trait resentment had more detrimental associations with perceptions of overall health, feelings of lethargy and fatigue, effects of emotional problems on various daily activities, and the experience of anxiety and depression symptoms.

Trait anger, on the other hand, was a more important contributor on two health domains (role physical and bodily pain). For trait anger, detrimental associations were evident for pain and its interference on normal activities, and the effects of physical limitations on work and other activities. Both trait anger 175 and trait resentment contributed unique variance to social functioning, indicating they both have negative associations with social functioning, but the nature of these relationships were different.

Clearly, both trait anger and trait resentment together had negative consequences on health and well-being but trait resentment contributed uniquely to more health related domains than did anger; suggesting that while both have detrimental effects on health and well-being, the detrimental effects of resentment are greater. These findings support Hypothesis 6.

As mentioned earlier, much previous research has documented the adverse effects of anger on health and the present findings simply add to this substantial body of knowledge (Chida & Steptoe, 2009). This research is however, the first to demonstrate not only the negative effects of resentment on physical, mental, and social well-being but also that the effects of resentment were even more negative than the well-known effects of anger. Clearly, this increased understanding of the prototypical features of resentment is important, both to emotion science and to its interventions designed to reduce the harmful effects of feelings of resentment.

4.6.2 Emotion patterns and overall negative affect.

Another aim of Study 3 was to replicate the findings from Study 1 and 2 utilising a between groups undergraduate student sample. As predicted

(Hypothesis 1), resentment experiences had higher emotion intensity ratings of resentment, envy and jealousy and lower ratings of anger than anger experiences at the time the event happened. Now, at the present time this was also true, except anger was no longer significantly different between the two emotion experiences.

The replication of these findings across all three studies indicates the findings are robust. 176

The differences between resentment and anger experiences for other emotion intensity ratings have not been replicated across studies and were not considered robust findings. Furthermore, some of these emotions were not tested in Study 3 (in order to reduce the length of the questionnaire). In brief, no firm conclusions can be made about differences between anger and resentment experiences in emotion intensity ratings for subjective feelings, other than the robust findings for resentment, anger, envy and jealousy.

The reason for several differences between Study 1 and 2 as to which emotions were greater for resentment is unknown, but could be related to the differences in the samples used. Also, the repeated measures design in Study 1 may have captured the subtle nuances of the differences between the subjective feelings that comprise an anger and resentment event. This study design was the one most likely to capture these subtle differences due to reduced variability in repeated measures designs, thus Study 1 results may be the most accurate.

Additional research needs to be conducted to investigate this further, perhaps using a large repeated measures community sample.

One other finding in Study 3 merits brief comment. In contrast to Study 1 and Study 2, participants in Study 3 were instructed to either recall an experience in which they felt anger but not resentment or an experience in which they felt resentment but not anger. In the anger recall condition, anger was rated as intense

(8.88 on a 10-point scale) and resentment was rated as moderately low (3.72). In the resentment condition, resentment was rated as intense (8.28) but anger was also rated as moderately intense (6.11). This pattern of results indicates that one can feel very angry with relatively little resentment but one cannot feel very resentful without also feeling moderately high levels of anger. Another difference 177 between anger and resentment is thus that prototypical resentment is more often accompanied by anger than the other way round.

These results were consistent with those of Study 2 which found greater negative affectivity for the resentment condition then; and was in contrast to

Study 1, which found greater negative affectivity for the resentment condition now. The results of the meta-analysis of overall negative affectivity data provided clarity regarding these inconsistent findings across studies. When data from all three studies were combined, overall negative affectivity both then and now was greater for resentment experiences.

As predicted (Hypothesis 2), resentment in the resentment experience lasted longer than anger in the anger experience. This finding was replicated in both Study 2 and Study 3. However, in contrast to the finding in Study 2, the resentment event did not occur a longer time ago (Hypothesis 3). This was similar to the finding in Study 1, and was probably due to the lack of variability in the age ranges of both undergraduate student samples. Overall, these findings suggest that as much as prototypical anger and resentment are both negative in valence, prototypical resentment is a more negative emotional experience that lingers longer than prototypical anger.

4.6.3 Eliciting events.

As predicted (Hypothesis 4), the anger group had significantly more eliciting events associated with goal obstruction and morally reprehensible behaviours such as lying, stealing, cheating and affairs. The resentment group had significantly more appraisals associated with envy themes such as wanting what another had and appraisals associated with themes around being overlooked or rejected. 178

There were also similarities in the eliciting events associated with anger and resentment autobiographical memories. Anger and resentment experiences equally involved events that are unfair or unjust and participants seem to equally feel unheard or not understood. This replicated the findings in Study 2 and appears to be a robust finding.

4.6.4 Cognitive appraisals, other appraisals and emotivational goals.

Prototypical anger and resentment can be differentiated according to specific appraisals. Hypothesis 5 predicted that there would be a number of differences in appraisals associated with anger and resentment experiences, however, results only revealed a significant difference for other blame. Those in the anger condition blamed others more than those in the resentment condition.

Predictions that participants in the resentment condition would feel more worthless, smaller, less in control, and had less contact, were not upheld.

Unexpectedly, “I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far” and “I wanted to break the relationship” were greater for participants in the anger condition. No such differences were found for these other related appraisals in

Study 2. To add clarity to these inconsistencies across studies 2 and 3, “I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far” was subjected to a meta- analysis. “I wanted to break the relationship was not included because it did not meet inclusion criteria (see 4.5.7.2). “I wanted the other to apologise” was also included in a meta-analysis because it had an effect size greater than d=0.20 in

Study 2 and Study 3. Both variables were also combined to represent the coercion construct.

Results revealed that those describing resentment experiences felt more worthless, smaller, less in control and had reduced contact with the other 179 compared to those describing anger experiences. Furthermore, those describing anger experiences were more likely to have emotivational goals that involved changing another’s behaviour (coercion) than those describing resentment experiences. Anger participants wanted the other to apologise and realise he or she had gone too far more than resentment participants. They also blamed the other more than resentment participants. According to Fischer and Roseman

(2007), emotivational goals such as these, signify a desire for the other to change behaviour in order to change an undesired outcome, perhaps in order to reconcile or maintain relationships.

Anger and resentment experiences also showed a number of similarities in cognitive appraisals. Both thought the event was very unfair, felt powerless, thought the event was very unpleasant, thought the event was unexpected and unpredictable, moderately understood what happened, thought the character of the other person was moderately bad, and felt the events required a moderate amount of effort. Moreover, participants in both conditions had similar emotivational goals in that both anger and resentment participants wanted to get even with the other person. Finally, the other person was important to participants to a similar extent.

In summary, Study 3 found that although prototypical anger and prototypical resentment have many commonalities, they also have a number of distinct prototypical features involving differences in subjective feelings, cognitions, emotivational goals, eliciting events and consequences. Essentially, prototypical resentment can be seen as the bigger bad guy, as it were. The implications of these findings are varied and will be discussed in the general discussion along with key limitations of this research. 180

CHAPTER 5

5.1 General discussion

The three studies found definitive differences between the experiences of anger and resentment that clearly warrant the distinction between the two emotions. The majority of participants reported that they considered anger and resentment to be different emotions (85% in Study 2 and 80% in Study 3).

Unfortunately, the components that differentiate anger and resentment are difficult to verbalise for individuals. This idea is summed up by Russell and Fehr (1994) when they wrote “Everyone knows what an emotion is until asked to give a definition” (p.464). The present research found a number of interesting differences that can be articulated above and beyond a simple “Yes they are different”.

A prototypical anger event is characterised by differences in subjective feelings, eliciting events, sensations, cognitions, emotivational goals, urges or action tendencies, behaviours and consequences compared with a prototypical resentment event. Resentment experiences are more negative, linger longer and have more detrimental consequences than anger experiences. Furthermore it appears their social function is different. Anger belongs to the attack-emotion family where attacking the other person occurs in order to gain a better outcome and may involve relationship maintenance and reconciliation. This is consonant with the findings of Fischer and Roseman (2007). As found in the present research, other prominent emotion researchers have also found anger to include actions that involve attacking another (Averill, 1982; Fitness & Fletcher, 1993;

Frijda et al., 1989; Kassinove et al., 1997; Roseman et al., 1994; Shaver et al.,

1987) and motivations “designed to rectify injustice” (Shaver et al., 1987, p. 181

1078). Resentment, on the other hand, belongs to the exclusion-emotion family aimed at excluding the self from the other person. This exclusion may provide space for the purpose of gaining control, gathering resources and improving self- esteem. Consistent with other researchers’ findings, anger is characterised by intense but shorter-term emotion (Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Kassinove et al.,

1997) aiming to coerce change in another’s behaviour (Fischer & Roseman,

2007). Resentment is also intense, but is a longer lasting, more negative emotion accompanied by more negative self evaluation. Although the purpose of resentment may be to remove oneself from a harmful situation to gather resources and improve one’s self concept, and perhaps position in life, it seems that when resentment is experienced intensely, often and for too long, there is an opposite effect. The outcomes of a tendency to experience resentment are more detrimental to one’s psychological, social and physical well-being.

Despite these distinctions, anger and resentment experiences also shared a number of similarities. They were both negative, and contributed significantly to decreased psychological, social and physical functioning. Both were elicited equally by events that were unfair and unjust. To further support this finding, participants also cognitively appraised the events as unfair to a similar extent.

Participants describing anger and resentment experiences also appraised the events similarly on a number of other cognitive appraisals. They felt powerless; thought the event was unpleasant, unexpected and unpredictable; the character of the other was viewed as moderately bad, and they felt the events required a moderate amount of effort to a similar extent. The other person in the event was as important to anger participants as he or she was to resentment participants and both wanted to get even with the other to a similar extent. 182

These distinctions and similarities were based on the findings of three studies that investigated several key components of emotion; namely subjective feelings, eliciting events, sensations, cognitions, emotivational goals, action tendencies or urges, behaviours and consequences. Different samples of participants reported on their anger and resentment experiences across three studies with different designs. All three studies asked participants to recall and describe autobiographical memories. In the first study, undergraduate psychology students reported on subjective feelings according to a repeated measures design for two time points, at the time the event happened, and also when they think about the event now, at the present time. In the second study, a between groups community sample answered questions related to subjective feelings, cognitions and emotivational goals. Autobiographical descriptions of anger and resentment experiences were analysed to investigate differences in eliciting events.

Furthermore, responses to open questions asking about sensations, urges and behaviours were categorised and analysed. Another aim of Study 2 was to tap the experiences of individuals who have lived longer and more varied lives than undergraduate students. Moreover, recruitment was aimed at collecting data from people who were thought likely to have experienced strong feelings of resentment and anger. Consequently, people with experience of divorce and separation (e.g.,

Dads in Distress) and older people were targeted (e.g., University of the Third

Age website). The resulting sample was on average approximately 20 years older than the undergraduate students. In Study 3, an undergraduate sample was again recruited using a between groups design and participants responded to questions about subjective feelings, cognitions, emotivational goals, trait anger, trait resentment and psychological, social and physical well-being. Eliciting events 183 were also analysed in this study. Despite a number of similarities, distinct patterns were found for anger and resentment that were consistent across studies. A meta- analysis of findings supported firm conclusions about a number of distinctive features of anger and resentment.

The distinctive features of anger and resentment need to be seen as prototypical emotion episodes (Russell & Barrett, 1999; Russell & Fehr, 1994).

Russell and colleagues contend that a prototypical emotional episode is a complex set of interrelated events consisting of a variety of emotion components, many of which have been investigated in the present research. This means that not all instances of anger and resentment necessarily comprise all the components found to distinguish the emotions. For example, there are instances of an anger experience where the individual may feel overlooked and rejected and withdraw from contact with the other. There may also be instances of resentment where people yell and throw things. Furthermore, the patterns found to distinguish the emotions may also occur together or blend with each other. The purpose of these studies was to highlight typical instances of what people subjectively label as anger and resentment and what characterises them.

In all three studies, resentment experiences were accompanied by greater intensities of resentment, envy and jealousy; whereas anger experiences were accompanied by greater intensities of anger at the time the event happened. Now at the present time, only resentment was characterised by greater intensities of subjective feelings; namely, resentment, envy and jealousy. In all three studies, anger was no longer more intense in the anger experience compared to the resentment experience. This finding, coupled with the finding that resentment lasts longer, suggests that resentment lingers longer than anger. Furthermore, the 184 overall negative affect is greater for resentment experiences compared to anger experiences at both time points. This means that even though anger and resentment are both negative, resentment is more so. Despite these differences, anger and resentment often occur together. However, Study 3 showed that one can feel very angry with very little resentment but one cannot feel very resentful without also feeling moderately high levels of anger. In other words, resentment is more often accompanied by anger than anger is accompanied by resentment.

The hypothesis that anger and resentment will be distinguished by differences in eliciting events, cognitions, emotivational goals, urges, sensations and behaviours was supported. In Study 2 and 3, anger and resentment experiences were elicited with similar frequency by events in which people experienced unfair or unjust treatment (e.g., feeling criticised, humiliated or embarrassed, falsely accused, perceiving unfairness). Many researchers have found anger involved perceptions of unfair treatment (Fitness, 2000; Frijda et al.,

1989; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985), but for resentment, these findings are new. There were four eliciting events that differentiated anger and resentment memories.

Anger was more likely to be elicited by moral transgressions (e.g., lying, cheating, stealing, feeling betrayed, and affairs) and incompetence and goal obstruction.

These findings are consistent with those of other researchers that found anger was elicited by moral transgressions (Fitness, 2000) and interference with one’s goals

(Berkowitz & Harmon-Jones, 2004; Fitness, 2000; Lewis, Alessandri, & Sullivan,

1990; Roseman, 1991). Anger events were also blamed on the other person to a greater extent. This finding is consistent with numerous other studies that have found anger to involve blaming another (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Fischer & 185

Roseman, 2007; Frijda et al., 1989; Roseman, 1991; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985;

Smith et al., 1993).

Resentment, on the other hand, was elicited more often by envy and jealousy as well as feeling overlooked or rejected. When an individual perceives another as having more benefits, things, luck or attention, resentment was more likely to ensue. Resentment was also evoked when one felt rejected or excluded by another, ignored, discounted or not considered. These events could be linked to the finding that those describing resentment experiences also felt more worthless, small and less in control than those describing anger experiences. These differences in cognitions are understandable in the context of theoretical assertions made related to experiences of envy (Ben-Ze'ev, 2000; Parrott & Smith,

1993). Theorists such as Ben-Ze'ev (2000) propose that envy involves feelings of inferiority because social comparisons are made about oneself as having less and being less than another. Thus we are more likely to evaluate ourselves more negatively. Research supports these assertions (Haslam & Bornstein, 1996; Parrott

& Smith, 1993; Smith & Kim, 2007; Smith et al., 1994), furthermore, the inferiority that accompanies envy has been found to predict depression (Smith et al., 1994). As a result envy is an unacceptable and intolerable emotion (Ben-Ze'ev,

2000; Smith & Kim, 2007) that may lead people to use resentment as a mask for underlying envy by searching for evidence of injustice in the situation (Rawls,

1999). So it may be that resentment is a more tolerable emotion resulting in the suppression of envy in favour of resentment. This conclusion is supported by the finding that the mean intensity ratings of envy and jealousy are low in all three studies compared to the intensity ratings of other negative emotions. Therefore, 186 resentment may be seen as a secondary emotion and envy as a primary emotion

(Greenberg, 2003), at least in some instances.

According to Greenberg (2003), secondary emotions are responses or defences against more intolerable or vulnerable emotions that obscure the original feelings such as primary sadness or primary jealousy. Primary emotions, on the other hand, are people’s very first feeling in response to a stimulus which can be either adaptive or maladaptive. The aim of Greenberg’s emotion-focused therapy is to help clients get past the defences of secondary emotions to become aware of their core, often more vulnerable, primary emotion. Emotion-focused therapy is a validated treatment for couple’s (Greenberg & Goldman, 2008) and has modest research support for its efficacy in the treatment of depression (Lovelock,

Mathews, & Murphy, 2010).

During anger experiences, people may attempt to gain some control during the situation by acting out. In contrast, those in resentment situations may not feel as able to gain control during the situation so tend to withdraw contact from the other person in the event, perhaps in order to gain control at a later time. This is supported by the finding in Study 2 that those describing anger situations were more likely to have urges to act out and engage in attack behaviour than those in resentment situations. Those in resentment situations, on the other hand, were more likely have the urge to withdraw and disappear and actually reduced contact with the other. This idea is further supported by the finding that anger participants reported feeling a greater level of control during their anger experience than resentment participants. This last finding was robust when aggregated across

Study 2 and 3. 187

The results of the present studies lead to the conclusion that there are distinct differences in the social function of anger and resentment. Anger appears to belong to the attack and coercion emotion family more than resentment. When angry, people are more likely to report attack urges such as yelling, insulting another, slamming doors or throwing things and actually engage in these behaviours more often. People who are angry are also more likely to have emotivational goals that force change in another’s behaviour to resolve an undesired outcome (coercion) such as wanting the other to apologise or wanting the other to realise he or she had gone too far. The proposed aim of the attack behaviours is to maintain relationships, maybe reconcile with the other in addition to gaining control during the situation as noted earlier. This is supported by the finding that anger participants had more contact with the other person compared to resentment participants. Resentment, on the other hand, belongs to the exclusion emotion family. When resentful, people are more likely to want to withdraw from the situation and have less actual contact with the other person.

This could be to gain control as noted earlier, improve self-worth and gather resources or improve one’s position to be more in line with the envied other.

Interestingly, contempt is also regarded as belonging to the exclusion-emotion family (Fischer & Roseman, 2007). In contempt, the goal is to exclude the other appraised as unworthy or inferior. In contrast, resentment has the goal of excluding the self appraised as unworthy or inferior. The exclusion in resentment is self-exclusion, whereas the exclusion in contempt is other-exclusion.

The present research findings can also be explained according to the psychological constructionist theory of emotion. Some key psychological constructionist theorists propose that all emotions consist of a core affect 188 comprising two dimensions, valence and arousal (Barrett, 2012; Barrett et al.,

2015; Russell, 1980, 2003, 2009, 2015). Emotions can be differentiated along these dimensions and become categorised as distinct emotions through psychological processes involving emotion experience components such as those investigated in the present research (e.g., appraisals, behaviours, sensations).

These psychological processes are similar to those that categorise a plant into a weed or flower (Barrett, 2012, 2014). According to Barrett, a plant is seen as an object that exists in the natural world without the need for a human mind to perceive it, thus it is perceiver independent. Core affect is likened to a plant in that it consists of processes that occur in the body along dimensions of valence and arousal; it is present at all times and does not require a human mind to perceive it.

Naming the plant as a weed or a flower occurs according to the context (e.g., a rose is a weed in a vegetable garden), it provides meaning (e.g., a flower is to be cherished), prescribes actions (e.g., pull out or water), communicates (e.g., a child giving a dandelion communicates something different from a partner giving a dandelion), and serves a purpose to control the mental states and actions of another (e.g., give a rose to get a kiss). Thus the naming of a plant as a weed or a flower is perceiver dependent. The labelling of emotions from physical sensations of valence and arousal (core affect) works in the same way. A human mind makes meaning of physical events and “via this meaning, physical changes acquire the ability to perform functions they do not have on their own (creating social meaning, prescribing actions, allowing communication and aiding social influence)” (Barrett, 2012, p.419) . What distinguishes one emotion from another are emotion components such as those investigated in the present research. 189

Another metaphor that has been applied to psychological constructionist theories is a baking metaphor (Gruber, 2013). The components that cause an emotion to be labelled as anger or resentment include differences in emotion components such as eliciting events, appraisals and social functions of these emotions (Barrett, 2012, 2014; Gruber, 2013; Russell & Barrett, 1999). These different ingredients are what make a chocolate cake distinct from a fruit cake.

Both cakes require flour, sugar and eggs in different proportions (i.e. core affect dimensions) but the blend of other ingredients make the cakes distinctively different. The weed and flower metaphor is better at illustrating the complex function of emotion label construction by a human perceiver.

The present research shows that anger and resentment share a common core of negative affect (valence dimension). All the feelings that accompany anger and resentment events share a common aversive quality coloured by more intense feelings that are specific to each, namely, envy, jealousy and resentment for resentment experiences and anger for anger experiences. Resentment, however, is more negative and lasts longer than anger. On the arousal dimension, it appears that anger and resentment both have high arousal given they both involve sensations such as trembling, tensed muscles, stomach sensations s uch as feeling nauseous and knotted inside, feelings of warmth and hotness in the body, and heart palpitations. Anger events, however, have greater sensations of arousal given Study 2 found a significantly greater number of anger events involved trembling than resentment events. In addition, even though the difference between other sensations was not statistically significant, there was a trend for individuals experiencing anger events to have more instances of arousal type sensations compared to individuals experiencing resentment events. For instance, 34% of 190 anger participants experienced heart palpitations compared to 25% of resentment participants, 30% of anger participants experienced tension in the body compared to 22% of resentment participants, and 23% of anger participants experienced warm and hot sensations in the body compared to 14.5% of resentment participants. Thus, anger and resentment include the core affect dimensions of valence and arousal, albeit in different proportions. The emotion components that comprise each emotion label have been discussed throughout this section.

The present research also provides support for some of the predominantly conceptual theories. Ortony et al. (1988) proposed that anger belongs to a group of emotions called agent based, anger emotions (e.g., anger, fury, rage) that involves displeasure and disapproval of another’s blameworthy behaviour and the related undesirable event. In contrast, resentment belongs to a group of emotions called event based, resentment emotions (e.g., envy, jealousy, resentment) that involve displeasure about an event that is perceived to be desirable for someone else. The present research found anger participants blamed others more than resentment participants and resentment experiences had higher levels of envy and jealousy and were elicited by events involving envy and jealousy more often than anger experiences. These findings also support the findings of Alvarado and

Jameson (2002) who constructed a 2D multidimensional scaling model of anger related emotions. They found that resentment was much closer in proximity to envy and jealousy than anger, and anger was much closer in proximity to fury and rage than resentment. Finally, the results of the present research support assertions made by Murphy and Hampton (1988). They conceptualised anger as being an attack emotion, whereas resentment involves injury to one’s self worth and is an attempt at a personal defence against feeling diminished. 191

Finally, Study 3 investigated the consequences of trait anger and trait resentment on psychological, social and physical well-being. Results indicated that both anger and resentment have detrimental effects on all three domains of well-being, with resentment having a more detrimental effect. Trait resentment, but not trait anger, accounted for significant unique variance over and above anger in four of the eight domains (i.e., general health, vitality, role emotional and mental health); whereas trait anger, but not trait resentment, accounted for significant unique variance in two domains (role physical and bodily pain). People who tend to feel angry have greater impaired function due to physical limitations and bodily pain. Trait anger and trait resentment had no association with one’s ability to engage in physical activities such as walking, lifting things or running.

General health and feelings of lethargy and fatigue were associated with higher levels of both trait anger and trait resentment with trait resentment, but not trait anger, explaining significant unique variance. Thus in these domains, trait resentment had more detrimental associations. Social functioning was the only domain where both trait anger and trait resentment explained unique variance.

Thus both contributed differently to social functioning. One explanation of this difference could be that for anger, the social problems relate to difficulties within relationships that were maintained via coercive behaviours and emotivational goals intended to influence behaviour such as wanting the other to apologise; whereas for those with higher trait resentment social problems could be related to a lack of social interaction due to reduced contact with others. Although the findings of the present research support differences between anger and resentment in levels of contact with the other person and greater coercive behaviour for anger participants, more research is needed to test this conclusion. Finally, trait 192 resentment contributes to emotional problems that interfere with daily activities as well as anxiety and depression symptoms more than trait anger, although both are detrimental.

The present research has a number of strengths. Firstly, the research used both a repeated measures design and a between-group design to investigate differences between anger and resentment. Secondly, both a community sample and undergraduate samples were used, providing some generalisability of findings to a larger variety of individuals. Thirdly, this was the first research that has systematically investigated similarities and differences between anger and resentment. Finally, many of the findings were replicated across studies indicating the robustness of some of the findings. There were also some inconsistencies across studies but many of these were clarified by the use of meta-analysis.

The present research also had a number of limitations. Only one study investigated the emotion components of sensations, urges, behaviours and consequences. Thus these aspects need to be replicated in future research using larger and more diverse samples. Furthermore, the consequences associated with trait anger and trait resentment were investigated using a correlational design; therefore, it cannot be said that anger and resentment cause physical, social and psychological problems. It may be that having these problems causes people to feel angry and resentful more often.

Prospective research may shed some light on the temporal relationships between trait anger and resentment and the SF36v2 health domains measured in the present research. Firstly, a prospective study by Seawell et al. (2014) supports the proposition that the temporal relationship is one in which a tendency to experience resentment causes physical health problems. They found that 193 unforgiveness; measured by two items “How often do you feel resentful towards others for things they have done?” and “How often do you hold a grudge?” prospectively correlated with worse self-reported physical health 3 years later.

Secondly, a longitudinal survey design found that offense related forgiveness at time 1 was significantly related to less psychological distress 36 weeks later

(Orcutt, 2006). Thus high trait resentment may “cause” some of the detrimental consequences associated with the general health and mental health domains.

Thirdly, the present research found that trait anger, but not trait resentment, contributed unique variance to role physical and bodily pain. Again, the relationship may be explained as increases in pain causing the anger rather than the other way around. A recent prospective study by Bruehl et al. (2012) sheds some light on the causal relationship between anger and pain. They found that engaging in higher levels of behavioural anger expression (high trait anger- out) predicted subsequent increases in chronic pain intensity during the hours immediately following the behavioural expression. Furthermore, elevated pain had minimal impact on behavioural anger expression levels among high trait anger-out individuals. However, elevated pain made low trait anger-out individuals act like high anger-out individuals. So for those who were high in trait anger-out, the anger “caused the pain”, but for those low in trait-anger, the pain

“caused” uncharacteristic increases in the behavioural expression of anger.

Inspection of the items comprising the trait anger scale used in the present research indicates the scale was measuring trait anger-out. Thus, high trait anger in the present research represented high anger-out and the prospective study above supports the conclusion that trait anger may “cause” the pain and physical problems due to pain found in the present research. 194

Finally, if resentment is associated with higher levels of envy and jealousy, perceptions of others having more than me, and perceptions of rejection; it could be argued that tendencies to feel this emotion may emerge early in life in the context of families and sibling rivalry. Additionally, early traumas and maltreatment as well as perceptions of betrayal and unfairness can also start in early childhood as a result of family and other interpersonal events. This means that these emotions may temporally precede the experience of mental health and physical health problems. These relationships may then feedback into the system to further increase the experience of these negative events. Prospective research needs to investigate this further.

The use of autobiographical memories may be problematic because the method is self-report and relies on retrospective accounts of emotion episodes that are susceptible to biases in recall. These biases may increase the further back the event occurred. This is of particular concern in Study 2 where some of the events occurred up to 30 years ago. It is possible the reports would differ from those obtained in real life situations using observational or diary methods. Such methods need to engage in experience-sampling gathered on a moment-to- moment basis (Kashdan et al., 2015). However, much emotion research utilises this methodology and it may be that the most salient aspects of the emotion memory are recalled, providing some accuracy with respect to typical features associated with the emotion. Furthermore, it is possible that the stories associated with each emotion memory vary in ways we have not analysed. For example, using a bigger list of subjective feelings could reveal other differences than those uncovered in the present research. Finally, the complexity of the emotion experiences described means that there is great variability that can reduce power 195 to find an effect and attenuate results. Thus it is more likely that some effects found are smaller than the true population effects.

The findings of this research have important implications for anger management programs and therapeutic interventions. If anger is the flame and resentment the hot coals (Enright, 2001), then anger management interventions need to include protocols that deal with long-held resentment (DiGiuseppe &

Tafrate, 2001). The present research found that resentment explains variance in well-being differently and to a greater extent than anger, consequently anger management protocols should broaden the emotions they target to include resentment. On the basis of this and previous research it is known that anger is more likely to result in confronting behaviour and therapeutic approaches designed to target confronting behaviour are clearly useful and beneficial. It is also known that resentment involves lower self-worth and relationship deterioration. Interventions that also focus on letting go of resentment or at least attenuating it would undoubtedly help change feelings of worthlessness and diminishment as well as reduce the intensity and frequency of anger episodes.

There are also important implications for the proposed theoretical underpinnings and proposed mechanisms of change associated with forgiveness therapy (Enright, 2001; Reed & Enright, 2006). The present research provides evidence in support of the proposition that anger and resentment are different, and that resentment is a more detrimental emotion.

The present research adds to emotion knowledge in general. We now know about some ways in which anger and resentment are different, some of which support previous theoretical assertions. Furthermore, research has found that people who give more detailed descriptions of their emotional experiences 196 use more adaptive emotion regulation strategies than people who use less detailed descriptions. Adding to the knowledge base on how these two related emotions differ adds to knowledge that can be used to help others improve their emotion differentiation skills.

In summary, prototypical anger and resentment emotional experiences are clearly distinct, despite sharing a number of similarities. They have different social functions and both have detrimental associations with psychological, social and physical well-being with resentment being more detrimental. The findings in the present research support the general proposition that the similarities and differences between anger and resentment are more related to the relative salience of the emotion components that comprise them. The profiles of the components and the variations in their intensities and frequencies are what differentiate an emotion rather than the presence or absence of emotion components. It is evident that this research has convincingly shown anger and resentment to have distinct features and that our componential approach is useful in disentangling emotion features that are not easily or clearly distinguished in everyday language. 197

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Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161-1190. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00294.x Turner, T. J., & Ortony, A. (1992). Basic emotions: Can conflicting criteria converge? Psychological Review, 99(3), 566-571. doi: 10.1037/0033- 295X.99.3.566 Urbaniak, G. C., & Plous, S. (1997). Research Randomizer. Retrieved July 5th, 2010, from http://www.randomizer.org/ Valentine, J. C., Pigott, T. D., & Rothstein, H. R. (2010). How many studies do you need?: A primer on statistical power for meta-analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 35(2), 215-247. doi: 10.3102/1076998609346961 van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2009). Leveling up and down: the experiences of benign and malicious envy. Emotion, 9(3), 419-429. doi: 10.1037/a0015669 212 van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2012). Appraisal patterns of envy and related emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 36(2), 195-204. doi: 10.1007/s11031-011-9235-8 van Dijk, W. W., & Zeelenberg, M. (2002). Investigating the appraisal patterns of regret and disappointment. Motivation and Emotion, 26(4), 321-331. doi: 10.1023/A:1022823221146 Vassar, M., & Hale, W. (2009). Reliability reporting across studies using the Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24(1), 20- 37. doi: 10.1177/0886260508314931 Velicer, W. F., Govia, J. M., Cherico, N. P., & Corriveau, D. P. (1985). Item format and the structure of the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory. Aggressive Behavior, 11(1), 65-82. doi: 10.1002/1098- 2337(1985)11:1%3C65::AID-AB2480110108%3E3.0.CO;2-H Viera, A. J., & Garrett, J. M. (2005). Understanding interobserver agreement: The Kappa statistic. Family Medicine, 37(5), 360-363. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15883903 Wade, N. G., Hoyt, W. T., Kidwell, J. E., & Worthington, E. L., Jr. (2014). Efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to promote forgiveness: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 82(1), 154- 170. doi: 10.1037/a0035268 Wade, N. G., Worthington, E. L., & Meyer, J. E. (2005). But do they work? A meta-analysis of group interventions to promote forgiveness. In E. L. Worthington (Ed.), Handbook of forgiveness (pp. 423-440). New York: Brunner-Routledge. Ware, J. E., Jr., Kosinski, M., Bjorner, J. B., Turner-Bowker, D. M., Gandek, B., & Maruish, M. E. (2007). User's manual for the SF-36v2 Health Survey (2nd ed.). Lincoln, RI: QualityMetric Incorporated. Ware, J. E., Jr., Kosinski, M., & Keller, S. (1994). SF-36 Physical and Mental Health Summary Scales: A User's Manual. Weigold, A., Weigold, I. K., & Russell, E. J. (2013). Examination of the equivalence of self-report survey-based paper-and-pencil and internet data collection methods. Psychological Methods, 18(1), 53-70. doi: 10.1037/a0031607 Wicker, F. W., Payne, G. C., & Morgan, R. D. (1983). Participant descriptions of guilt and shame. Motivation and Emotion, 7(1), 25-39. doi: 10.1007/bf00992963 Wilderdom.com. (2016). Cohensdrepeatedmeasurescalculator.xls. Retrieved 9th January 2016, from http://wilderdom.com/courses/surveyresearch/tutorials/5/ Williams, J. M. G., Barnhofer, T., Crane, C., Hermans, D., Raes, F., Watkins, E., & Dalgleish, T. (2007). Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 122-148. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.122 Williamson, G. M., Martin-Cook, K., Weiner, M. F., Svetlik, D. A., Saine, K., Hynan, L. S., . . . Schulz, R. (2005). Caregiver resentment: Explaining why care recipients exhibit problem behavior. Rehabilitation Psychology, 50(3), 215-223. doi: 10.1037/0090-5550.50.3.215 Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., Barrett, L. F., & Barsalou, L. W. (2015). Variety in emotional life: within-category typicality of emotional experiences is associated with neural activity in large-scale brain networks. Social 213

Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(1), 62-71. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsu037 Witvliet, C. V., Ludwig, T., & Vander Laan, K. (2001). Granting forgiveness or harboring grudges: Implications for emotion, physiology, and health. Psychological Science, 12(2), 117-123. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00320 Witvliet, C. V., Phipps, K. A., Feldman, M. E., & Beckham, J. C. (2004). Posttraumatic mental and physical health correlates of forgiveness and religious coping in military veterans. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17(3), 269-273. doi: 10.1023/B:JOTS.0000029270.47848.e5 Wooden, M. (2014). Hilda project discussion paper no. 1/14: The measurement of sexual identity in wave 12 of the HILDA survey (and associations with mental health and earnings). Retrieved from: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/hilda/Bibliography/Hilda _Discussion_Papers/hdps114.pdf World Health Organization. (1946). Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948. Worthington, E. L., & Wade, N. G. (1999). The psychology of unforgiveness and forgiveness and implications for clinical practice. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 18(4), 385 - 418. doi: 10.1521/jscp.1999.18.4.385 Wuensch, K. (2016). Cohen's d calculator. Retrieved 8th January 2016, from http://daniellakens.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/calculating-confidence- intervals-for.html Zachar, P. (2006). The classification of emotion and scientific realism. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 26(1-2), 120-138. doi: 10.1037/h0091270 Zeelenberg, M., & Breugelmans, S. M. (2008). The role of interpersonal harm in distinguishing regret from guilt. Emotion, 8(5), 589-596. doi: 10.1037/a0012894 Zeelenberg, M., van Dijk, W. W., Manstead, A. S., & van der Pligt, J. (1998). The experience of regret and disappointment. Cognition and Emotion, 12(2), 221-230. doi: 10.1080/026999398379727

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Appendix A

Information Sheet for Study 1

Individual differences in emotional autobiographical memories

INFORMATION SHEET

Chief Investigators

Dr. Penelope Davis, Senior lecturer, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology Ph. (07) 3735 3315 Email: [email protected] Rhonda Stoertebecker, BPsych (Hons), PhD student, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology, Ph: (07) 3735 3343, Email: [email protected]

Why is the research being conducted? Recent research has found that forgiveness interventions result in beneficial outcomes for psychological health. Given that this is a new research area, the emotions and the complexity of these emotions underlying the beneficial outcomes of these interventions is unclear. This research is designed to differentiate between emotions that may underlie why these interventions are showing promise. What you will be asked to do. You will be asked to complete an assessment session that will go for approximately one hour. This will involve completing 2 questionnaires regarding how you feel and how you tend to act. You will then be asked to recall and write down a number of events in your past associated with 5 emotions and rate how you felt at the time. Following this assessment no further participation in this study is required. The basis by which participants will be selected or screened You have been asked to participate because you are currently enrolled at Griffith University as an undergraduate student. The expected benefits of the research This research will be beneficial for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will contribute to our understanding of emotion. Secondly, this understanding can better inform 215 future psychological interventions and helps understand why they work. This is important to make psychological interventions more effective. Risks to you It is highly unlikely that there are any risks associated with your participation in this study. You will end the session with the recollection of a memory associated with a positive emotion and be fully debriefed at the conclusion. In the unlikely event that you feel distressed at the end of this procedure you will find contact numbers at the end of this information sheet to assist with this matter. Your confidentiality All the data obtained will be confidential and no one will have access to information concerning you. There will be no identifying information collected with your questionnaires and response sheets. After testing is completed, a code number will be assigned to your data so that identifying information (e.g., names) will not be used. Your participation is voluntary Your participation in this study is voluntary. You can withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or explanation. A decision not to participate will not interfere with or impact on your progress in your course at Griffith University in any way. Mechanism for distribution and return / Web backend Unidentified assessments packages will be collected at the end of the session and kept in a locked cabinet in the researcher’s office. Questions / further information The investigators can be contacted if you require any further information about this research project. If at any time you feel disturbed or upset as a result of participation in this research please contact Dr Penelope Davis on the above number. The ethical conduct of this research Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans. If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the research project please contact the Manager, Research Ethics on 3875 5585 or [email protected].

216

Feedback to you At the conclusion of this research project, a summary of results will be available from the investigators for all who request it. The data from this assessment will be used as part of a PhD thesis for the second investigator and may be used in journal publications. Since no identifying information will be collected, your anonymity will be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (07) 3875 5585

We would greatly appreciate your allowing us to include you in this research project. Please complete the attached Consent Form. Thank you for your support

217

Instructions for Study 1

1. Give out information sheet

SAY: Please read the information sheet provided. If you do not wish to participate you are free to leave now and you will not be penalized in any way for doing so. Furthermore, your participation is voluntary, if you decide at any time that you no longer wish to participate, you may leave without any penalty to you.

2. SAY: The handing in of completed questionnaires will indicate consent to participate in this research.

3. SAY: In this research we are interested in learning more about how readily people recall or remember personal real life experiences associated with different emotions. We are interested in five different emotions so there will be 5 trials in which we will be asking you to remember different experiences. Just before each trial, I will tell you which particular emotion is involved.

Trial 1 What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself.

When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank s pace associated with trial 1. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 1.

Place sheet to the side of you

Now what I would like you to do is turn over the packet headed Emotion. You will see a list of emotions on the pages. First I would like you to write (______) in the brackets at the top of the sheet.

Now look at the memory you wrote down for trial 1 and rate how you felt during that experience at the time the experience occurred for all the emotions listed. You are also asked to rate how you feel now about the experience when you think about it in the present time. Please begin and stop when you have completed the first two pages.

Trial 2

What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself. 218

When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank space associated with trial 2. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 2.

Place the sheet to the side of you

On the top of the next page write the emotion (______). Now look at the memory you wrote down for trial 2 and rate how you felt during that experience at the time the experience occurred for all the emotions listed. You are also asked to rate how you feel now about the experience when you think about it in the present time. Please begin and stop when you have completed the first two pages.

Trial 3

What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself.

When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank space associated with trial 3. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 3.

Place the sheet to the side of you

On the top of the next page write the emotion (______). Now look at the memory you wrote down for trial 3 and rate how you felt during that experience at the time the experience occurred for all the emotions listed. You are also asked to rate how you feel now about the experience when you think about it in the present time. Please begin and stop when you have completed the first two pages.

Trial 4

What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself.

When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank space associated with trial 4. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 4.

Place the sheet to the side of you

On the top of the next page write the emotion (______). Now look at the memory you wrote down for trial 4 and rate how you felt during that experience at the time the experience occurred for all the emotions listed. You are also asked to rate how you feel now about the experience when you think about it in the present time. Please begin and stop when you have completed the first two pages. 219

Trial 5

What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt (______) DURING the experience itself.

When an experience comes to mind write the emotion in the blank space associated with trial 5. Now write a brief description of the experience on the lines provided for trial 5.

Place sheet to the side of you

Now what I would like you to do is turn over the packet headed Emotion. You will see a list of emotions on the pages. First I would like you to write (______) in the brackets at the top of the sheet.

Now look at the memory you wrote down for trial 5 and rate how you felt during that experience at the time the experience occurred for all the emotions listed. You are also asked to rate how you feel now about the experience when you think about it in the present time. Please begin and stop when you have completed the first two pages.

4. Now I would like you to turn over the last packet and complete the demographic questions provided. When you have finished return your questionnaires and response sheets to the front of the room.

220

Response sheet for Study 1

Trial 1 Provide a brief description of a ______memory below

______Trial 2 Provide a brief description of a ______memory below

______Trial 3 Provide a brief description of a ______memory below

______Trial 4 Provide a brief description of a ______memory below

______Trial 5 Provide a brief description of a ______memory below

______

221

Study 1 Emotion rating scales (One for each emotion condition)

Please rate on the following scales how you felt during the situation described in trial 1 by circling the number that best describes how you felt during the event and now. Angry then Not at all angry Extremely angry

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Angry now Not at all angry Extremely angry

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Fearful then Not at all fearful Extremely fearful

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Fearful now Not at all fearful Extremely fearful

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sad then Not at all sad Extremely sad

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sad now Not at all sad Extremely sad

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Happy then Not at all happy Extremely happy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Happy now Not at all happy Extremely happy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Resentful then Not at all resentful Extremely resentful

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Resentful now Not at all resentful Extremely resentful

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Guilty then Not at all guilty Extremely guilty 222

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Guilty now Not at all guilty Extremely guilty

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ashamed then Not at all ashamed Extremely ashamed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ashamed now Not at all ashamed Extremely ashamed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Anxious then Not at all anxious Extremely anxious

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Anxious now Not at all anxious Extremely anxious

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Surprised then Not at all surprised Extremely surprised

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Surprised now Not at all surprised Extremely surprised

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Envy then No Envy Extreme envy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Envy now No Envy Extreme envy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jealousy then No Jealousy Extreme jealousy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jealousy now No Jealousy Extreme jealousy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

223

Contempt then No Contempt Extreme contempt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Contempt now No Contempt Extreme contempt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Disgust then No disgust Extreme disgust

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Disgust now No disgust Extreme disgust

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hurt then Not at all hurt Extremely hurt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hurt now Not at all hurt Extremely hurt

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Embarrassed then Not at all embarrassed Extremely embarrassed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Embarrassed now Not at all embarrassed Extremely embarrassed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. When did this experience happen? Please tick one of the following:

1. Within the past week  2. Within the past month  3. Within the last few months  4. Within the past year  5. More than a year ago  6. Before age 15 

224

Study 1 Demographics page

1. What is your age in years?______

2. What is your gender Male  Female 

3. How Fluent is your English?

Not Very Fluent Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

4. Was the anger and resentment experience you recalled: The same  Related  Different 

225

Appendix B

Information Sheet for Study 2

INFORMATION SHEET Dr. Penelope Davis, Senior lecturer, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology Ph. (+617) 3735 3315 Email: [email protected]

Rhonda Stoertebecker, BPsych (Hons), PhD student, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology, Ph: (+617) 3735 3343, Email: [email protected]

Why is the research being conducted? Emotions are a part of our everyday life. Sometimes they are enjoyable, and sometimes they are not. Despite the importance of emotion, scientists know surprisingly little about the impact of emotion on our well-being. Recent research does, however, suggest that the emotions we experience in our daily lives may well have a profound influence on our physical, social and psychological well- being. Our research is designed to increase current understanding of a number of different emotions. Your participation is vital to our research. What you will be asked to do. You will be asked to recall and describe an event from your past associated with a particular emotion. You will then be asked to rate your feelings and to complete a number of questions about the event. Your participation in this research is much appreciated and will take approximately 45 minutes. The basis by which participants will be selected or screened. Participants from a number of online sources will be asked to participate. This will include Facebook groups and other online groups. The expected benefits of the research. This research will be beneficial for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will contribute to our understanding of emotion. Emotions can feel like they rule our lives at times and we want to know more about them. Secondly, this understanding can better inform future psychological and health interventions. This is important to make psychological and health interventions more effective. 226

Risks to you. It is highly unlikely that there are any risks associated with your participation in this study. In the unlikely event that you feel distressed at the end of this procedure you will find contact numbers at the end of this information sheet to assist with this matter. Your confidentiality. No names or addresses will be collected as part of this survey. IP addresses will not be gathered. Once the survey has closed and all data is gathered, all responses will be wiped from the survey website. All data used for analysis will include no identifying information and will be stored in password protected folders. Your participation is voluntary. Your participation in this study is voluntary. You can withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or explanation. Expression of Consent. If you complete the survey, then it will be understood that you have consented to participate in this research. Please print this sheet and retain it for your later reference. Mechanism for distribution and return / Web backend. Completed questionnaires will be stored securely on the web for a short time until the required number of participants is reached. After this, all the data will be downloaded to password protected files and wiped permanently from the web storage. Questions / further information. The investigators can be contacted if you require any further information about this research project. If at any time you feel disturbed or upset as a result of participation in this research, please contact Dr Penelope Davis on the above number or email address. The ethical conduct of this research. Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans. If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the research project please contact the Manager, Research Ethics on (07) 3735 5585 or [email protected]. 227

Feedback to you At the conclusion of this research project, a summary of results will be available from the investigators for all who request it. The aggregated data from this assessment will be used as part of a PhD thesis for the second investigator and may be used in journal publications. Since no identifying information will be analysed, your anonymity will be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (+617) 3735 5585.

We would greatly appreciate your allowing us to include you in this research project. Thank you for your support Please print this page for later reference

228

Online Questionnaire for Study 2

1.) What is your age in years? ______

2.) What is your Gender?  Male  Female

3.) Is English your first language?  Yes  No

4.) How Fluent is your English?

Not Very Fluent Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5.) What is your current occupation? ______

6.) What religion do you identify with? ______

7.) What country do you live in? ______

8.) What is your marital status?

 Married/De facto

 Separated/Divorced

 Single

 Widowed

9.) What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt

ANGRY/RESENTFUL during the experience itself. Please describe your

Resentment experience in as much detail as possible in the box provided below

The online textbox allowed for unlimited description

229

10.) Please rate on the following scales how you felt DURING the resentment/anger experience described earlier. Choose the number that best describes how you felt DURING the event.

Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Extremely

Angry          

Resentful          

Fearful          

Happy          

Envious          

Sad          

Jealous          

Embarrassed          

Surprised          

Anxious          

Hurt          

Ashamed          

Disgusted          

Guilty          

Humiliated          

230

11) Please rate on the following scales how you feel NOW, at the present time, about the resentment/anger experience described earlier. Choose the number that best describes how you feel NOW.

Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Extremely

Angry          

Resentful          

Fearful          

Happy          

Envious          

Sad          

Jealous          

Embarrassed          

Surprised          

Anxious          

Hurt          

Ashamed          

Disgusted          

Guilty          

Humiliated          

12.) How long did your resentment/anger last?

______

13.) When did the resentment/anger experience happen? How long ago?

______231

14.) Are Anger and Resentment different?  Yes  No

15.) What sorts of sensations did you feel in your body at the time of the event?

______

16.) What urges did you have at the time of the event? (e.g. What did you feel

like doing at the time of the event?). ______

______

17.) What did you do at the time of the event? ______

______

Please indicate the response that best describes your experience. 18. I thought the event was fair.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 19. I felt powerful.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20. The event was pleasant.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 21. The event was expected

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 22. I am certain I understand what happened.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 23. The event required a lot of effort.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 24. The outcome of the event was predictable.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 25. The event was predictable.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 26. I felt worthless.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 27. I was to blame.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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28. I felt small.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 29. I felt in control.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 30. This was a typical Anger/Resentment event for me.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

31. Was another person involved in the event?  Yes  No

Please indicate the response that best describes your experience of the other person in the event. 32. The other person in the event was important or significant to me.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 33. The other person was to blame for the event.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 34. The character of the other person is bad.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 35. I wanted the other person to apologise.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 36. I wanted to get even with the other person

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 37. I wanted to break the relationship with the other person.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 38. Contact with this person has reduced since the event.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 39. I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Appendix C

Messages Sent to Group Administrators and Groups Approached

1. Sent to administrators of “Single Mums and Dads”; “Best divorce letter ever”; “Separation, divorce and starting over”; “There is life after divorce” and “Single Parents are Not Boring”.

My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University Mt Gravatt. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to your Facebook group. I am studying emotions and am interested in the contribution of single parents or divorced people to help us understand emotions better. Raising children on your own and/or going through separation or divorce is an emotional rollercoaster. People experience a whole lot of emotions that are at times joyful and at times overwhelming. This is why you would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it involves before you send it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

2. Posted on “Facebook Australia” and “The Great Facebook Race Australia” wall Hi, Please help. I am doing research for my PhD on emotion and need people to help me complete an anonymous survey. Emotions often rule us yet we know so little about them. Please help if you can. The link below will give you more information about the study and take you to the survey. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

3. Sent to the administrators for the groups “Born in the 60's, any of us out there”? ; “We were born in Australia in the 50’s”; “Baby boomers Facebook group”.

My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University Mt Gravatt. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to your Facebook group. I am studying emotions and am interested in the contribution of mature people who have lived life a little to help us understand emotions better. This group would be an ideal group for this. You would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it 234

involves before you send it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

4. Sent to administrator of “I’m happily married” My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University in Australia. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to your Facebook group. I am studying emotions and am interested in the contribution of happily married people to help us understand emotions better. Most people have experienced a whole lot of emotions that are at times joyful and at times overwhelming and at times they feel like they overwhelm us. Given that emotions are so prevalent in our lives we know very little about them. This is why you would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it involves before you send it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

5. Sent to the administrator of , “Four guys, one destination, one mission: Suicide prevention” My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University in Australia. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to your Facebook group. I am studying emotions and am interested in the contribution of many people to help us understand emotions better. Most people have experienced a whole lot of emotions that are at times joyful and at times not and they feel like they overwhelm us. Given that emotions are so prevalent in our lives we know very little about them. This is why you would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it involves before you send it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew 6. Posted the following discussion topic on the Facebook wall of, “I’m intellectually promiscuous” Hi I am a student at Griffith University in Australia and am currently collecting internet surveys for my PhD research. I am hoping that people in this forum would help out by completing a survey for me. Emotions are extremely overwhelming, yet science knows very little about them. Philosophers have talked about emotions for decades yet we have 235 little evidence supporting some of the claims. This research to find out more about certain emotions. This survey is anonymous and is approved university research. Please click on the link below for more information to see if you would like to participate. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew 7. Messaged administrators from the University of the Third Age. A link was placed on the website by administrators. Hi, I am a PhD student at Griffith University Mt Gravatt. I am researching emotions and trying to understand them better. Given that they often rule our lives at times, science knows very little about them. The reason I am contacting your organisation is that I am looking for people to complete the survey who have experienced life and can contribute to our knowledge. The survey is anonymous and can be completed online. The research is University approved and has ethics approval. I would really appreciate it if you could email the link to your members who may decide to help out and contribute. People have found it interesting and some have said it has been helpful. If you click on the link below you can access the survey and read more about it. I hope you feel it is worthwhile. Could you please let me know your decision about passing it on. I realise you may get many of these requests so I hope it is not a burden for you. It is really important to us to have the input of people with life experience since most research is based on university students. We know very little from mature people who have much to offer us. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

8. Sent to administrators of “How many mums are on Facebook”

My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University in Australia. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to your Facebook group. I am studying emotions and am interested in the contribution of parents to help us understand emotions better. Most people have experienced a whole lot of emotions that are at times joyful and at times overwhelming. Given that emotions are so prevalent in our lives we know very little about them. This is why you would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it involves before you send it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

9. Sent to administrator of Facebook group, “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who

just want peace” 236

I am writing to you to see if you can help me with getting my PhD survey out there. I am investigating emotions because we know so little about them yet they overwhelm us all. I thought people in this group might be interested in doing it. People have found it interesting. It is genuine approved university research. The link below will take you to an information sheet if you want to check it out. It is also anonymous. Hope you think it is worthwhile and are willing to let the group know about it. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

10. Sent to administrator of the Facebook group, “Mature women are sexy and got it all” I am wondering if you can help me. I am a PhD student at a University in Australia and I am interested in investigating emotions. Your group would be an ideal place to get it out there since the members have experienced life. Science knows very little about emotions yet they rule us at times, maybe even often. I hope you feel the research is worthwhile enough to help out. It is anonymous and is approved university research. The link below will describe it in more detail. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew

11. Emailed Administrators from the “Dadman” website; “The National Organisation for Men Against Sexism” website; the “Mankind project website”; “the Father’s rights” Facebook group; the “Fathers forever” Facebook group; the “Fighting fathers” Facebook group; and the “Devoted fathers” Facebook group. http://www.joekelly.org/; http://mankindproject.org/at; http://www.nomas.org/

My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am a PhD student at Griffith University Brisbane Australia. I am wondering if you could help me get my survey out to the members of your group. I am studying emotions and am very interested in hearing from men. We want to know about emotional experiences from the perspective of males as well as females so we can better understand certain types of emotion. Most of us have found emotions overwhelming at times, yet science knows so little about the personal experience of them. We are also interested in how they are related to physical and psychological well-being. You would be so helpful in helping us understand emotion. I have provided you with a link below so you can have a look at the study and what it involves before you email it out to your group. I hope you decide that this is worthwhile and help me get it out there. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew 237

12. Contacted the administrator for the Facebook group, “2.4 Million strong group for general discussion. Invite all”

My name is Rhonda Stoertebecker and I am currently investigating emotions as part of my PhD. I wanted to run the survey past you rather than just post it as a member which may be annoying and viewed as Spamming. Although emotions overwhelm us and can feel like they control us, science knows very little about them. I am wondering if you could help me disseminate my survey to your group. It appears that your group members have many interests and this topic may interest some. The research has ethics approval and is genuine university research. The survey is anonymous. Your support would be much appreciated. For more information about the survey please click on the link below.

It will take you to an information page and if you continue, the survey itself. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/71156/46aew 238

Appendix D

Examples of Descriptions Excluded From Analysis in Study 2

Description of emotion event

Participant number 17649179 Resentment is very close to the feeling of anger. They can occur at the same time or separately. I can be angry with different things but may not be resentful i.e. someone takes the car space when I have been indicating waiting for the spot. Resentment is a feeling I harbour, about things that have happened in the past that have not been resolved. It can also be triggered by things happening in the now. Perhaps resentment is a primary feeling to anger.

Participant number 18734425 Unsure.

Participant number 19178420 I experience little if any in the way of resentment. I tend not to dwell on resentment of people or situations; I see resentment as a form of jealousy. I find this to be an unnecessary consumption of time, emotions and energy. I prefer to move onto the next challenge/obstacle.

Participant number 16657636 It was an unfamiliar feeling which came suddenly and unexpectedly while I was talking to someone on the phone. Perhaps it had been building and I hadn't really noticed, but suddenly I started to shake and seemed to see flashes of light or colour. The shaking got so bad I could no longer hold the phone - it was like having as electric shock - and I wanted it gone! So I threw the phone... all very out of character for me.

239

What sort of sensations did you feel in your body at the time of the event?

Participant number 16666507 Nervous.

Participant number 17515115 Weight loss and hate for myself and body image.

Participant number 18960013 Let’s not get into too much detail here, huh?

Participant number 18960037 Anger, fear, uncertainty.

Participant number 21998607 Don’t remember.

Participant number 16894580 Bad vibes, an evil energy...probably caused by hatred. A horrible sensation.

What sorts of urges did you feel in your body at the time of the event?

Participant number 19270997 I felt like I wanted to do something dramatic.

Participant number 25504907 As much as I could. What did you do at the time of the event?

Participant number 15830469 Got arrested.

Participant number 23668764 Vented my anger.

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Appendix E

Participant Sign-up Message for Study 3

Study An Online Study. Individual Differences in Emotion Memory

Name

Study Type Standard (lab) study This is a standard lab study. To participate, sign up, and go to the specified location at the chosen time.

Study Visible to participants: Approved Active study: Appears on list of available studies Status

Duration 45 minutes

Credits 1 Credit

Abstract Complete this ONLINE study at your leisure. Sign up to the earliest available timeslot and I will email a link to your student email address ASAP

Description This is an online study that can be completed in your own time. Because of the setup of this system I need to set this up in timeslots. Please register for the closest available timeslot and I will email you the link to complete the survey. When you have completed the survey, I will send a confirmation email that you keep as a receipt for credit purposes. I will also acknowledge it in the system. It will take approximately 45 mins to complete. Your email will not be associated with the survey as it is only used to email you a link and confirmation of completion. The survey is submitted via the website. More information is provided in the information sheet preceding the survey. The following is a brief outline of the study: Emotions are a part of our everyday life. Sometimes they are enjoyable, and sometimes they are not. Despite the importance of emotion, scientists know surprisingly little about the impact of emotion on our well-being. Recent research does, however, suggest that the emotions we experience in our daily lives may well have a profound influence on our physical, social and psychological well-being. Our research is designed to increase current understanding of a number of different emotions. Your participation is much appreciated.

241

Information Sheet for Study 3

INFORMATION SHEET

Dr. Penelope Davis, Senior lecturer, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology Ph. (+617) 3735 3315 Email: [email protected]

Rhonda Stoertebecker, BPsych (Hons), PhD student, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, School of Applied Psychology, Ph: (+617) 3735 3343, Email: [email protected]

Why is the research being conducted? Emotions are a part of our everyday life. Sometimes they are enjoyable, and sometimes they are not. Despite the importance of emotion, scientists know surprisingly little about the impact of emotion on our well-being. Recent research does, however, suggest that the emotions we experience in our daily lives may well have a profound influence on our physical, social and psychological well- being. Our research is designed to increase current understanding of a number of different emotions. Your participation is vital to our research. What you will be asked to do You will be asked to recall and describe an event from your past associated with a particular emotion. You will then be asked to rate your feelings and to complete a number of questions about the event. You will also be asked some questions about your health and well-being. Your participation in this research is much appreciated and will take approximately 45 minutes. You can do the whole survey in one go, or stop part way through and return to the survey later if you prefer. The basis by which participants will be selected or screened You have been asked to participate because your life experience is valuable in helping us better understand emotion. The expected benefits of the research This research will be beneficial for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will contribute to our understanding of emotion. Emotions can feel like they rule our lives at times and we want to know more about them. Secondly, this understanding can 242 better inform future psychological and health interventions. This is important to make psychological and health interventions more effective. Risks to you It is highly unlikely that there are any risks associated with your participation in this study. In the unlikely event that you feel distressed at the end of this procedure you will find contact numbers at the end of this information s heet to assist with this matter. Your confidentiality No names or addresses will be collected as part of this survey. IP addresses and your student number will be collected with your questionnaires so the appropriate credit can be attributed to you. This information will be removed from the data set once all data is downloaded from the secure website and you have received credit for your participation. All responses will be wiped from the website at the same time. This will occur as soon as all students wanting to participate have completed surveys. All data used for analysis will include no identifying information and will be stored in password protected folders. Your participation is voluntary Your participation in this study is voluntary. You can withdraw from the study at any time without penalty or explanation. Expression of consent If you complete the survey, then it will be understood that you have consented to participate in this research. Please print this sheet and retain it for your later reference. Mechanism for distribution and return / Web backend Completed questionnaires will be stored securely on the web for a short time until the required number of participants is reached. After this, all the data will be downloaded to password protected files and wiped permanently from the web storage. Questions / further information The investigators can be contacted if you require any further information about this research project. If at any time you feel disturbed or upset as a result of participation in this research, please contact Dr Penelope Davis on the above number or email address. The ethical conduct of this research Griffith University conducts research in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans. If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the research project please contact the Manager, Research Ethics on (07) 3735 5585 or [email protected]. Feedback to you At the conclusion of this research project, a summary of results will be available from the 243 investigators for all who request it. The aggregated data from this assessment will be used as part of a PhD thesis for the second investigator and may be used in journal publications. Since no identifying information will be analysed, your anonymity will be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (+617) 3735 5585

We would greatly appreciate your allowing us to include you in this research project. Thank you for your support

Please print this page for later reference

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Online Questions for Study 3 (Resentment Example)

1.) What is your student number? ______2.) What is your age in years? ______3.) What is your Gender?  Male  Female 4.) Is English your first language?  Yes  No 5.) How Fluent is your English? Not Very Fluent Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6.) What I would like you to do is to let your mind wander back over your life and think of an experience, situation or event in which you, yourself felt Resentful towards a person but NOT Angry.

Please describe your Resentment experience in as much detail as possible in the box provided below

The online textbox allowed for unlimited description

245

7.) Please rate on the following scales how you felt DURING the resentment experience described earlier. Choose the number that best describes how you felt DURING the event. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Extremely

Angry          

Resentful          

Fearful          

Happy          

Envious          

Sad          

Jealous          

Embarrassed          

Surprised          

Anxious          

246

8) Please rate on the following scales how you feel NOW, at the present time, about the resentment experience described earlier. Choose the number that best describes how you feel NOW.

Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Extremely

Angry          

Resentful          

Fearful          

Happy          

Envious          

Sad          

Jealous          

Embarrassed          

Surprised          

Anxious          

9.) How long did your resentment last? ______

10.) When did the resentment experience happen? How long ago?

______

11.) Are Anger and Resentment different?  Yes  No

247

12.) Aggression Questionnaire - Anger Subscale (AQ: Buss & Perry, 1992).

Indicate how uncharacteristic or characteristic each of the following statements is in describing you.

Extremely Somewhat Neither Somewhat Extremely Uncharacteristic uncharacteristic uncharacteristic characteristic Uncharacteristic Of me of me nor of me Of me characteristic of me

Some of my friends 1 2 3 4 5 think I am a hothead.

I am an even- 1 2 3 4 5 tempered person.

I flare up quickly but 1 2 3 4 5 get over it quickly.

I have trouble 1 2 3 4 5 controlling my temper.

When frustrated, I let 1 2 3 4 5 my irritation show.

I sometimes feel like 1 2 3 4 5 a powder keg ready to explode.

Sometimes I fly off 1 2 3 4 5 the handle for no good reason.

248

13.) Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory-Resentment Subscale (BDHI: Buss &

Durkee, 1957).

Indicate how uncharacteristic or characteristic each of the following statements is in describing you.

Extremely Somewhat Neither Somewhat Extremely Uncharacteristic uncharacteristic uncharacteristic characteristic Uncharacteristic Of me of me nor of me Of me characteristic of me

I don't seem to get 1 2 3 4 5 what's coming to me.

Other people always 1 2 3 4 5 seem to get the breaks.

When I look back on 1 2 3 4 5 what's happened to me, I can't help feeling mildly resentful.

Almost every week I 1 2 3 4 5 see someone I dislike.

Although I don’t 1 2 3 4 5 show it, I am sometimes eaten up with jealousy.

I don't know any 1 2 3 4 5 people that I downright hate.

If I let people see the 1 2 3 4 5 way I feel, I'd be considered a hard person to get along with.

At times I feel I get a 1 2 3 4 5 raw deal out of life.

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14) SF-36v2 Health Survey (SF-36v2: Ware et al., 2007).

CHAPTER 6 Standard Form – 36 (SF-36)

Patient Name: Date:

Standard Form 36 Survey: The SF-36 Form is one of many outcomes assessments designed by the Medical Outcomes Trust in Boston, MA. INSTRUCTIONS: This survey asks for views about your health. This information will help keep track of how you feel and how well you are able to do your usual daily activities. Answer every question marking the answer as indicated. If you are unsure about how to answer a question, please give the best answer you can. 1. Excellent 1. In general, would you say your health is: (Circle 2. Very Good One) 3. Good 4. Fair 5. Poor 1. Much better now than one year ago 2. Compared to one year ago, how would you rate 2. Somewhat better now than one year ago your health in general at this time? (Circle 3. About the same as one year ago One) 4. Somewhat worse than one year ago 5. Much worse now than one year ago 3. The following items are about activities you might do during a typical day. Does your health now limit you in these activities? If so, how much? (Circle the appropriate number for each question) Yes, limited Yes, limited No, not Activities a lot a little limited a. Vigorous activities, such as running, lifting heavy 1 2 3 Objects, or participation in strenuous sports b. Moderate activities, such as moving a table, 1 2 3 Vacuuming, bowling or golfing c. Lifting or carrying groceries 1 2 3 d. Climbing several flights of stairs 1 2 3 e. Climbing one flight of stairs 1 2 3 f. Bending, kneeling, or stooping 1 2 3 250

g. Walking more than a kilometre 1 2 3 h. Walking several hundred metres 1 2 3 i. Walking one hundred metres 1 2 3 j. Bathing or dressing yourself 1 2 3 4. During the past 4 weeks, have you had any of the following problems with your work or other regular activities as a result of your physical health? (Circle the appropriate number for each question) a. Cut down on the amount of time you spent on work or Yes = 1 No = 2 other activities

b. Accomplished less than you would like Yes = 1 No = 2

c. Were limited in the kind of work or other activities Yes = 1 No = 2

d. Had difficulty performing the work or other activities (For example Yes = 1 No = 2 – requiring an extra effort) 5. During the past four weeks, have you had any of the following problems with your work or other regular daily activities as result of any emotional problems (such as feeling depressed or anxious)? (Circle the appropriate number for each question) a. Cut down on the amount of time you spent on work or other Yes = 1 No = 2 activities b. Accomplished less than you would like Yes = 1 No = 2 c. Didn’t do work or other activities as carefully as usual Yes = 1 No = 2 1. Not at all 6. During the past 4 weeks, to what extent has your physical health or 2. Slightly emotional problems interfered with your normal social activities with 3. Moderately family, friends, neighbours or groups? (Circle one) 4. Quite a bit 5. Extremely 1. None 2. Very mild 7. How much bodily pain have you had during the past 4 weeks? (Circle 3. Mild one) 4. Moderate 5. Severe 6. Very severe 251

1. Not at all 8. During the past 4 weeks, how much did pain interfere with your normal 2. Slightly work (including both work outside the home and housework)? (Circle 3. Moderately one) 4. Quite a bit 5. Extremely 9. These questions are about how you feel and how things have been with you during the past 4 weeks. For each question, please give the one answer that comes closest to the way you have been feeling. How much of the time during the past 4 weeks: (Circle one number on each line) All of Most A good Some A little None of the of the bit of the of the of the the time time time time time time a. Did you feel full of pep? 1 2 3 4 5 6 b. Have you been a very nervous person? 1 2 3 4 5 6 c. Have you felt so down in the dumps that 1 2 3 4 5 6 nothing could cheer you up? d. Have you felt calm and peaceful? 1 2 3 4 5 6 e. Did you have a lot of energy? 1 2 3 4 5 6 f. Have you felt downhearted and blue? 1 2 3 4 5 6 g. Did you feel worn out? 1 2 3 4 5 6 h. Have you been a happy person? 1 2 3 4 5 6 i. Did you feel tired? 1 2 3 4 5 6

10. During the past 4 weeks, how much of the time has your physical health 1. All of the time or emotional problems interfered with your social activities (like visiting 2. Most of the time friends, relatives etc.)?(Circle one) 3. Some of the time 4. A little of the time 5. None of the time 11. How TRUE or FALSE is each of the following statements to you? (Circle one for each line). Definitely Mostly Don’t Mostly Definitely True True Know False False a. I seem to get sick easier than other 1 2 3 4 5 people b. I am as healthy as anybody I know 1 2 3 4 5 252

c. I expect my health to get worse 1 2 3 4 5

d. My health is excellent 1 2 3 4 5

Please indicate the response that best describes your experience. 15. I thought the event was fair.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 16. I felt powerful.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 17. The event was pleasant.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 18. The event was expected

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 19. I am certain I understand what happened.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20. The event required a lot of effort.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 21. The outcome of the event was predictable.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 22. The event was predictable.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 23. I felt worthless.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 24. I was to blame.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 25. I felt small.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 26. I felt in control.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 27. This was a typical Anger/Resentment event for me.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

253

28. Was another person involved in the event?  Yes  No

Please indicate the response that best describes your experience of the other person in the event. 29. The other person in the event was important or significant to me.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 30. The other person was to blame for the event.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 31. The character of the other person is bad.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 32. I wanted the other person to apologise.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 33. I wanted to get even with the other person

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 34. I wanted to break the relationship with the other person.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 35. Contact with this person has reduced since the event.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 36. I wanted the other person to realise he or she had gone too far.

Not at all Extremely 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Appendix F

Manipulation Check Study 3

Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD) and Independent t-test Statistics for Anger (n=69) and Resentment (n=73) Groups

DV Group M SD t df p

Age Anger 21.57 5.99 1.51 140 .13 Resentment 20.22 4.44

Fluency Anger 9.61 1.43 0.54 140 .59 Resentment 9.47 1.68

Resentment Anger 20.09 5.77 -0.30 140 .77 Resentment 20.37 5.63

Anger Anger 17.55 5.66 0.30 140 .77 Resentment 17.27 5.37

Physical Anger 86.23 19.90 0.50 140 .62 Functioning Resentment 84.45 22.54

Role Anger 79.35 32.92 0.54 140 .59 Physical Resentment 76.34 32.77

Vitality Anger 46.95 21.46 -1.91 140 .06 Resentment 53.15 17.00

Bodily Anger 73.97 23.09 -0.05 140 .96 Pain Resentment 74.15 20.92

General Anger 63.97 22.78 -0.24 140 .81 Health Resentment 64.85 20.17

Social Anger 71.19 25.48 -1.41 140 .16 Functioning Resentment 76.88 22.50

Role Anger 54.59 42.38 -1.54 140 .13 Emotional Resentment 64.84 36.80

Mental Anger 60.93 20.38 -1.15 140 .25 Health Resentment 64.49 16.45

255

Appendix G

Factor Matrix for the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory Resentment 7-item

Scale

Factor Loadings for Principal Axis Factor Analysis With Varimax Rotation of Buss Durkee Hostility Inventory Resentment Subscale

BDHI Question Factor Loading

Q1. I don’t seem to get what’s coming to me. .657

Q2. Other people always seem to get the breaks. .740

Q3. When I look back on what’s happened to me, I can’t .805 help feeling mildly resentful.

Q4. Almost every week I see someone I dislike .418

Q5. I am sometimes eaten up with jealousy. .560

Q7. If I let people see the way I feel, I’d be considered a .550 hard person to get along with.

Q8. At times I feel I get a raw deal out of life. .595

256

Appendix H

Examples of Scenarios for Eliciting Event Categories

Category Example Descriptions

Unjust treatment Recently at a party somebody made some very offensive Respondent or other being criticised, racist comments towards me, and I felt very angry that badly treated, falsely accused, someone could be so ignorant and feel comfortable saying onerous workload, unfairness awful things to somebody they don’t even know. I didn’t emphasised, humiliated, feel angry for long, you can’t take things like that to heart, embarrassed, and I felt angry also because I was embarrassed by how public their comments were.

Morally reprehensible lying, stealing, cheating, betrayed, Got ripped off a lot of money, my anger I feel was mostly affairs, wrongdoing/selfishness/ let from not being able to understand why someone could do down by another/another something like rip off a 15 year old kid. There was a lot of reneges on promise or frustration and negative thoughts that developed from the agreement/breaking ones anger, which turned into negative self-talk as though I confidentiality/ inconsiderate should have seen it coming. behaviour by another/hypocrisy

Incompetence/goal obstruction I was running late to uni to hand in an assignment by the due time. Finally when I was ready to drive off, I fi nd that Mistakes, incompetence, goal my sister has decided to borrow my car without my obstruction/controlled permission or even giving me a heads up and letting me know that she will be using the car at the time I need it. I was so angry at her for doing what she did as it made me late to drop off my assignment because I had to take the bus.

Envy/Jealousy When my best friend was asked by the guy that I liked to the formal and she accepted it, I was very resentful and Another fairly or unfairly getting jealous of her. I was resentful for the weeks leading up to more benefits/having more the formal and at the formal because I didn't have a date things/more luck than respondent and she did. Whenever I saw her, I got frustrated and /getting more annoyed easier than I usually would as the resentment attention/jealous/having qualities I would make me flare up faster. Some resentment still want/having relationships I want lingers as I'll always have the memory that I was dateless to my formal while she wasn't.

Overlooked/Rejected/ I was having a last get together with friends before Not being considered/overlooked/left moving to Brisbane for uni. A "best friend" of mine and out/ignored/discounted/excluded/ my other best friend promised he'd attend but didn't end unimportant/rejected/ostracised/ up coming. He then promised he'd see me some other time abandoned / before I left but he never did. It made me feel displeased and bitter towards him and made me remember all the other times that he would not show up to things or ditch me and my other best friend to hang with other friends of his. 257

Not heard/Not understood I feel resentment for my cousin when I see her because Not listened to/not heard/not she is always so argumentative. She always has to be understood/not seeing my point of right, even when she is wrong. One time she had a fight view. with other family members about political correctness which was absolutely ridiculous. I would have let the issue drop if it was me; she wasn't getting anything out of it.

Regret at own decision or dislike of I was really angry at myself, I felt couldn't get along own behaviour within anyone, I felt like I hated who I had become and those around me didn't do anything to stop me. I became angry at myself because I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't stop becoming this person that I didn't like. It was someone who didn't speak up for herself, let people talk about her and take advantage of her. I didn't like that person and I was angry at her because I couldn't change it.