Title

Retribution and emotional regulation: The effects of time delay in angry economic interactions

Authors

Authors

C. S. Wang; N. Sivanathan; J. Narayanan; D. B. Ganegoda; M. Bauer; G. V. Bodenhausen;K. Murnighan

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process.

Keywords

Time delay; Retribution; Emotional regulation; Anger; Rumination; INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES; 3RD-PARTY PUNISHMENT; DISPLACED AGGRESSION; CORTISOL RESPONSES; ANGER RUMINATION; ULTIMATUM GAME; NEGATIVE MOOD; SOCIAL NORMS; DISTRACTION; NEGOTIATION; Psychology, Applied; Management; Psychology, Social

Abstract

Individuals driven by negative emotions often punish non-cooperators at a cost to themselves. The current research demonstrates that, although time delays can attenuate this effect, they can also produce unintended consequences. Five experiments investigated the effects of time delays and thought patterns on punishments in direct and third party interactions. The results show that time delays decreased punishment (Experiment 1) by reducing negative emotions (Experiments 2A and 2B). However, thought patterns during a delay were crucially important (Experiments 3A and 3B): People who engaged in a distraction task punished less; people who engaged in affective rumination punished more; and people who engaged in cognitive reappraisal were unaffected by a delay. These differences meant that, after a time delay, affective ruminators administered greater punishments than cognitive reappraisers or distracted individuals. Implications of these findings for managing punitive impulses via time delays are discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Journal Title

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Volume

116

Issue/Number

1

Publication Date

1-1-2011

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

46

Last Page

54

WOS Identifier

WOS:000294579500004

ISSN

0749-5978

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