Combating the sting of rejection with the pleasure of revenge
A new look at how emotion shapes aggression
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6200029 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David S Chester (0000-0002-9383-7138, Virginia Commonwealth University), C Nathan Dewall (0000-0001-5469-6849, University of Kentucky) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 112 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 413-430 |
| Publication date | 2017-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/pspi0000080 |
| PMID | 27808535 |
| OpenAlex | W2546493633 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 61 |
| References cited | 55 |
How does emotion explain the relationship between social rejection and aggression? Rejection reliably damages mood, leaving individuals motivated to repair their negatively valenced affective state. Retaliatory aggression is often a pleasant experience. Rejected individuals may then harness revenge's associated positive affect to repair their mood. Across 6 studies (total N = 1,516), we tested the prediction that the rejection-aggression link is motivated by expected and actual mood repair. Further, we predicted that this mood repair would occur through the positive affect of retaliatory aggression. Supporting these predictions, naturally occurring (Studies 1 and 2) and experimentally manipulated (Studies 3 and 4) motives to repair mood via aggression moderated the rejection-aggression link. These effects were mediated by sadistic impulses toward finding aggression pleasant (Studies 2 and 4). Suggesting the occurrence of actual mood repair, rejected participants' affective states were equivalent to their accepted counterparts after an act of aggression (Studies 5 and 6). This mood repair occurred through a dynamic interplay between preaggression affect and aggression itself, and was driven by increases in positive affect (Studies 5 and 6). Together, these findings suggest that the rejection-aggression link is driven, in part, by the desire to return to affective homeostasis. Additionally, these findings implicate aggression's rewarding nature as an incentive for rejected individuals' violent tendencies. (PsycINFO Database Record
Affect (linguistics) · Aggression · Anger · Developmental psychology · Mood · Pleasure · Poison control · Psychotherapist · PsycINFO · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Social Psychology · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
Revenge among Parents Who Have Broken up Their Relationship through Family Law Courts
Sour sleep, sweet revenge? Aggressive pleasure as a potential mechanism underlying poor sleep quality’s link to aggression
The flux, pulse, and spin of aggression-related affect
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Revenge in Couple Relationships and Their Relation to the Dark Triad
The effects of cyber-ostracism on college students' aggressive behavior
The Effects of Trait Anger on Proactive and Reactive Online Aggression
The influence of social exclusion on bystanders’ retaliatory malevolent creativity
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The Development and Validation of the Trait and State Vindicated Anger and Revenge Scale
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The Contribution of Desire for Revenge and Perceptions of Injustice to Adolescent CSA Survivors’ Wellbeing
Asymmetric Effects of Holding Power Versus Status
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Direct and displaced aggression after exclusion
Narcissism and Passive-Aggression
Validating a Standardized Approach to the Taylor Aggression Paradigm
Sweet Revenge Feels Less Bitter
The tethered humanity hypothesis among victims of interpersonal harm
Collective Narcissism
On the relation of boredom and sadistic aggression
Trait anger and aggression among male violent offenders
Will rumination necessarily amplify the impact of cyber-ostracism on college students' cyber-aggression? Evidence from longitudinal data
Repercussions of Rejecting Unwanted Advances
Aggression’s Longitudinal Links With Forecasted (and Felt) Aggressive Pleasure
How does emotion shape aggressive behavior of violent offenders? An explanation based on emotion regulation theory
Internet trolling and everyday sadism
Cruelty in the Everyday
Anticipated emotional and behavioral responses to ambiguous rejection by a significant other, friend, or acquaintance
Cultural differences in revenge fantasies using drawings
Are everyday sadists specifically attracted to violent video games and do they emotionally benefit from playing those games
Neural correlates of intertemporal choice in aggressive behavior
Aggression is associated with greater subsequent alcohol consumption
The Pleasure of Revenge Predicts Both Vengeful and Benevolent Motivations Toward the Provocateur
P ‐Curve analysis of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm
Exposure to nature counteracts aggression after depletion
Beyond the aggregate score
Personality correlates of revenge‐seeking
Why do we share aggressive online content? Testing a short cycle model
Frustration–aggression hypothesis reconsidered
Sadism in the context of intergroup aggression
Confrontation as an interpersonal response to ostracism
Relative deprivation
Tethered humanity
The effect of objectification on aggression
Do Fans of Violent Stories Show a Higher Potential for Creative Harm? True Crime as a Stimulating Environment for Malevolent Creativity
Cruel Creativity Delight in Malevolence
Anger, Anxiety, and Selective Exposure to Terrorist Violence
Revenge is sour, but is forgiveness sweet? Psychological health and cortisol reactivity among women with experiences of abuse
Sorry, I already have a boyfriend
Toward a Science of Mood Regulation
Getting a Cue
External Validity of “Trivial” Experiments
Behavioral Confirmation of Everyday Sadism
Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency
The pain of social disconnection
Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding
Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion
How Emotion Shapes Behavior
Some determinants of impulsive aggression
Current Directions in Mediation Analysis
The psychometric properties and utility of the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS).
Rejection Elicits Emotional Reactions but Neither Causes Immediate Distress nor Lowers Self-Esteem
“Isn’t It Fun to Get the Respect That We’re Going to Deserve?” Narcissism, Social Rejection, and Aggression
Social Exclusion and Selective Memory
Interpersonal Rejection as a Determinant of Anger and Aggression
Equivalence of the Mediation, Confounding and Suppression Effect
Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models
A Grateful Heart is a Nonviolent Heart
Insights from sadness
Aggressive behavior and physiological arousal as a function of provocation and the tendency to inhibit aggression1
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Beyond Baron and Kenny
Maladaptive perfectionism's link to aggression and self‐harm
Adding injury to insult
A hot new way to measure aggression
The voodoo doll task
Sugar or spice
Teasing, rejection, and violence
Reactions to acceptance and rejection
Individual differences in the rejection–aggression link in the hot sauce paradigm
When ostracism leads to aggression
How long does it last? The persistence of the effects of ostracism in the socially anxious
When rejection by one fosters aggression against many
Excluded emotions
It's the thought that counts
How attributional ambiguity shapes physiological and emotional responses to social rejection and acceptance
State anger and prefrontal brain activity
Using I3 theory to clarify when dispositional aggressiveness predicts intimate partner violence perpetration
Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence
Cyberostracism
Putting the brakes on aggression toward a romantic partner
Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding
Operation of the laws of sympathetic magic in disgust and other domains
Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control
Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression
Mood influences on helping
Ghosts, UFOs, and magic
Anxious uncertainty and reactive approach motivation (RAM)
"Does social exclusion motivate interpersonal reconnection? Resolving the "porcupine problem
Alone but feeling no pain
Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain
The need to belong
| Unique citing works | 61 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7,63 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 58 |