Abstract
The expression of emotions play an important role in conflict resolution. When an event is incongruent with a person’s goals or positive expectancies, negative emotions such as anger and disappointment can arise. At the interpersonal level, expressing anger or disappointment at another’s behavior can thus signal the wish that the other would have behaved differently.
Disappointment arises when the progress towards a goal is below expectation or when a desired outcome has not been achieved. Disappointment is associated with a lack of control over the situation and the feeling of weakness. The expression of disappointment thus signals a need for help, without assigning blame or entailing a threat of aggression. Anger is often seen as a destructive emotion, causing aggressive behavior that escalates conflicts. Several recent studies, however, seem to suggest that it can actually have positive effects, leading to conciliatory behaviors in specific situations. The way people cognitively appraise a performance situation is important because it may affect people’s levels of attack. Thus, for example, “threat” appraisals are central to interpersonal conflict. Disappointment also has an effect on the threat appraisals. Anger is elicited from the appraisal that an unfair or unjust act has been committed against oneself or one’s group.
The interpersonal effect of emotions means that one’s emotions may influence the behavior of others by eliciting affective reactions in them or by triggering inferential processes. As mentioned above, Disappointment and anger play an important role in conflict resolution. Previous work has shown that negotiators tend to concede when confronted with disappointment. the express of anger reduces tendencies toward interpersonal conflict because it stresses the value of maintaining a positive long term relationship. It is this positive relational signal that increases empathy in the recipients of the communicated anger for those who communicated it. In addition, previous research has shown that trait information of the alternative offers available to the proposer can alter the decisions of the responder in interpersonal conflict. Furthermore, we postulated that this effect also occurred in conflict between doctors and patients. The impact of the trait of information and other people's emotional feedback on social decision-making under interpersonal conflict has not been investigated. Consequently, In two experiments, we used “the ultimatum game” paradigm to investigate the trait of information and other people's emotional feedback on social decision-making under conflict between doctors and patients . Results indicated that: (i) When the doctor's ability is high, compared with the low ability of doctors, the patient's threat assessment of the situation is higher. but in the doctor's disappointment feedback the result is the opposite . (ii) When the doctor is angry, compared with the low warmth of doctors, the high warmth of the patient's threat assessment is higher. (iii) When the doctor is high- warmth, compared with the low warmth of doctors, The patient's bid is higher and the conflict is less. (iiii) In the case of a high level of warmth and ability ,when there is a doctor's anger feedback the patient's bid is less than no emotional feedback.
In addition, the current series of studies provide some useful strategies to resolve interpersonal conflicts. On practical implications, this research examines the social psychological mechanism underlying interpersonal conflicts in China and would help managers and administrators understand ways to resolve interpersonal conflicts.
Key words
interpersonal conflict /
disappointment effect /
anger effect /
threat assessment /
conflict behavior
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Ai huaTAO Wang Pei.
The Influence of Doctor 's Trait Information and Negative Emotion Feedback on Conflict Behavior[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2021, 44(5): 1171-1178
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