The place and role of (moral) anger in organizational behavior studies

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2065
• Published date: 01 July 2016
• Date: 01 July 2016
• Author: Deanna Geddes,Dirk Lindebaum

The place and role of (moral) anger in

organizational behavior studies

DIRK LINDEBAUM

1

*

,†

AND DEANNA GEDDES

2

1

The University of Liverpool Management School, Liverpool, U.K.

2

Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Summary The aim of this article is to conceptually delineate moral anger from other related constructs. Drawing upon social

functional accounts of anger, we contend that distilling the finer nuances of morally motivated anger and its ex-

pression canincrease the precisionwith which we examine prosocial forms of anger (e.g., redressing injustice),

in general, andmoral anger, in particular.Without this differentiation,we assert that (i) moral angerremains the-

oretically elusive, (ii) that this thwarts our ability to methodologically capture the unique variance moral anger

can explain in important work outcomes, and that (iii) this can promote ill-informed organizational policies

and practice. We offer a four-factor definitionof moral anger and demonstrate the utility of this characterization

as a distinct construct with application for workplace phenomena such as, but not limited to, whistle-blowing.

Next, we outline a future researchagenda, including how to operationalize the construct and address issues of

construct, discriminant,and convergent validity. Finally, we argue for greaterappreciation of anger’s prosocial

functions and concomitant understanding that many anger displays can be justified and lack harmful intent. If

allowed and addressed with interest and concern, theseemotional displays can lead to improved organizational

practice. © 2015 The Authors Journal of Organizational Behavior Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Keywords: anger; aggression; indignation; morality; moral anger; revenge; righteous anger; moral outrage;

empathic anger; personal anger; whistle-blowing; injustice; conflict; emotion

Don’t make me angry, you won’t like it when I’m angry.

(Bruce Banner, in The Incredible Hulk)

Anger is antisocial, unpleasant, negative, and very common

(Kemp & Strongman, 1995, p. 407)

Introduction

Anger regularly getsbad press, and the earlier quotes are a clear testamentto this effect. Anger is generically definedas

“a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism”(Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2008). Consequently,

it is not difficult to understand why anger is often provided as a prime example of “negative”emotion (Barclay,

Skarlicki, & Pugh, 2005; Bodenhausen, Sheppard, & Kramer, 1994; Tiedens, 2001; Waldman, Balthazard, & Peterson,

2011). Anger is associated with an exhaustive list of adverse if not destructive consequences in the workplace and be-

yond, ranging from aggression, violence, and bullying (Chen & Spector, 1992; Matthiesen & Einarsen, 2007; Novaco,

*Correspondence to: Dirk Lindebaum, University of Liverpool Management School (UK) and Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki

(Finland). E-mail: mail@dirklindebaum.eu

The copyright line for this article was changed on 18 December 2015 after original online publication.

†[Update made on 26 January 2016, after first online publication: The previous corresponding author affiliation details has now been updated to

Cardiff Business School College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Cardiff University, U.K. and Dirk Lindebaum is now a Professor in

Management at Cardiff Business School. This is also updated in the Author biographies section in the article.]

© 2015 The Authors Journal of Organizational Behavior

Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Received 3 July 2015

Revised 20 October 2015, Accepted 2 November 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 738–757 (2016)

Published online 7 December 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2065

Research Article

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in

any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1994) to ineffective leadership (Waldman et al., 2011) and deviance (Geddes & Callister, 2007; G eddes & Stickney,

2011). Indeed, many descriptions of anger circulating in psychological and management studies reflect this squarely.

For instance, many psychologists associate the expression of anger “with an urge to injure some target”(Berkowitz

& Harmon-Jones, 2004, p. 108, italics added). Others characterize anger as “asignificant social problem worthyof clin-

ical attention and systematic research”(Beck & Fernandez, 1998, p. 63, italics added), while Waldman et al. (2011)

generalize that anger expressions constitute a “problem”in the context of leadership studies.

We propose that these undifferentiated and negatively skewed perceptions of anger partly reflect what Stearns and

Stearns (1985, p. 813) refer to as emotionologies, defined as “the attitudes or standards that a society …maintains

toward basic emotions and their appropriate expression; ways that institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes

in human conduct.”When scholars suggest that leader anger hinders attainment of their full (inspirational) leader-

ship potential (Waldman et al., 2011) and psychologists “claim that they spend more time helping clients manage

their anger than in dealing with any other emotion”(Kristjánsson, 2005, p. 679), anger appears to serve no redeem-

ing individual nor societal function and should be, wherever possible, suppressed or eradicated. Further, of particular

interest in the context of our article is the recent claim by management scholars that “reducing anger among

employees is one potential avenue for decreasing unethical behavior in the workplace”(Motro, Ordonez, &

Pittarello, 2014, p. 1, italics added).

For scholars concerned with the study of morality and justice, however, these assertions are likely to be unsatisfac-

tory. Even researchers who argue that angry individuals (minimally) are “biased decision-makers”acknowledge that

“anger, even strong anger, is not inherently dysfunctional”(Novaco, 1994, p. 21). Thus, in our quest to better under-

stand anger’sprosocial capabilities, we endorse Haidt’s (2003) view that anger is likely the “most underappreciated

moral emotion”(p. 856), and functionally—when not a lingering trait—more moral than immoral. Social functional

accounts define emotions, and especially anger,in terms of consequences of goal-directed behaviors (Keltner & Haidt,

1999). From this perspective, redressing injustice, for instance, is both a function and a consequence of anger.

In juxtaposing emotionologies with social functional accounts of anger, however, we see challenges for organiza-

tional theory, research, and practice alike. Specifically, varying anger definitions and imprecise differentiations

between antisocial and prosocialaspects of anger contribute to the construct of moral anger remaining theoretically elu-

sive and underdeveloped. Thus, the extantliterature is in a state of disarray. Evidence of thisis found in recent efforts to

delineatethe parameters of moralanger. For instance,the label “moral anger”is sometimesused as a key construct guid-

ing empirical investigations without being defined in clear conceptual terms (Master, 2009). Frequently, moral anger is

defined simply as anger provoked by perceptions that a moral standard—especially fairness or justice—was violated

(Hoffman, 1989; Montada & Schneider, 1989). Elsewhere, the concept of moral anger can be so narrowly constrained

for clinical experimentation as to limit practical application outside the laboratory (Batson et al., 2007).

We identify several issues here. First, the noted brief definition of moral anger does not capture processes asso-

ciated with this prosocial form of anger in sufficient depth to allow a distinct conceptual construct to emerge. For

instance, when does a violation appraisal occur and what action tendencies ensue that allow the phenomenon to

remain “moral”? Critics argue further that such a simplified, undifferentiated definition can allow individuals to

justify and apply the moniker of moral anger to anger that is only self-serving (Batson et al., 2007; O’Mara, Jackson,

Batson, & Gaertner,2011). In addition, moral angeris often equated with moral outrageand conceptualized as part of a

“moral hostility triad”(i.e., contempt, anger, and disgust or CAD) hypothesis (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt,1999),

suggesting moral anger can have hostile intent (Gutierrez, Giner-Sorolla, & Vasiljevic, 2012). Still others argue that

expressed angeron behalf of unfair treatment toward a significant otherdoes not fall under the categoryof moral anger,

as it is empathetic toward others’harm (i.e., empathic anger; Batson et al., 2007). Given the degree of conceptual

imprecision in the literature, subsequent experimental manipulations may have limited applicability. In summary, the

existing confusionover what constitutes moral anger thwarts our ability to study—theoretically, empirically, and prac-

tically—anger’s more socially functional, adaptive, and fairness-enhancing components. This conceptual imprecision

may also contribute to the promotion of ill-informed organizational and societal policies and practice.

Part of the problem identifying what is moral anger stems from how scholars define the root emotion of anger.

Scholars have cautioned on the lack of sufficient differentiation in terms of negative valence in emotion research

REDEFINING MORAL ANGER 739

© 2015 The Authors Journal of Organizational Behavior

Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 738–757 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job