Men Can Get Angry, but Women Can’t Afford To

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has put the spotlight on the question of whether anger hurts a female candidate. It looks as if it does. According to studies reported in the journal Psychological Science, an angry woman loses status, no matter what her position, while an angry man does not.

Men and women were shown videos of actors portraying job applicants. Participants were asked to rate applicants on how much responsibility they should be given, whether they should be hired, and so on. Both men and women reached the same conclusions. Angry men scored better – they were perceived as deserving more status and a higher salary than angry women. But no differences in perception were found when non-angry men were compared with non-angry women.

Another aspect was investigated when the actors were asked to express sadness. This time there was no gender bias – both sexes were ranked equally in status and competence, although not in suggested salary.

Interestingly, there were no differences in these findings when different levels of job-offers were used. Results obtained for a female trainee and a female CEO showed that both were given lower status if they expressed anger than if they didn’t. In interpreting their judgment, the participants attributed the candidate women’s anger to internal feelings (e.g. “she’s an angry person”), while the men’s anger was attributed to external circumstances.

These findings may have some implication in evaluating our responses to anger in others - presidential candidates, for example. It means we should try to take a candidate’s display of anger out of consideration in making our voting selection. Perhaps easier said than done . . .