A new study by Arizona State University has found that both men and women are more influenced by angry men than by angry women.
The study took 210 people and showed them a 17 minute video about a murder trial. The participants were asked to decide whether they believed the accused was innocent or guilty, then they all interacted online with five other people to discuss their decision. Four of the five had gender neutral names and agreed with them, one disagreed. The dissenting person had a clearly gender specific name and used various emotionally loaded words to make their point.
ASU psychologist Jessica Salerno, co-author of the study:
Our study suggests that women might not have the same opportunity for influence when they express anger. We found that when men expressed their opinion with anger, participants rated them as more credible, which made them less confident in their own opinion. But when women expressed identical arguments and anger, they were perceived as more emotional, which made participants more confident in their own opinion.
This effect can’t be explained by women communicating anger less effectively or looking different when they express anger because we took all of that out of the equation. The effect was due to participants thinking that anger came from a man versus a woman.
Participants confidence in their own verdict dropped significantly after male holdouts expressed anger. Participants became significantly more confident in their original verdicts after female holdouts expressed anger, even though they were expressing the exact same opinion and emotion as the male holdouts.
This was true for both male and female participants.
The influence effect was evident in both male and female participants.
What is most disturbing about the findings is that they were produced by anger, specifically. If you think about when we express anger, it is often when we really care about something, when we are most passionate and most convicted about a decision. Our results suggest that gender gaps in influence are most likely to materialize in these situations — when we are arguing for something we care about most.
Our results have implications for any woman who is trying to exert influence on a decision in their workplace and everyday lives, including governing bodies, task forces and committees.
The results from this study suggest that if female political candidates express their opinion with anger, during the debates for example, it is possible that they might have less influence than if they do not express anger. This might explain why Bernie Sanders is able to freely express his passion and conviction, while Hilary Clinton clearly regulates her emotions more carefully.
It would be interesting to know if the result was because people find male anger more persuasive or it’s just intimidating, or possibly that it could be because male anger is more familiar. Women are so trained to be gentle and placatory that we are not accustomed to hearing strong expression of female anger.
In which case, perhaps the solution is not for women to be careful about expressing anger, but to do it more often, less apologetically and in wider public view.