Excited to announce new paper in Emotion by me, @dznycer, & @pdurkee: "Are self-conscious emotions about the self? Testing competing theories of shame and guilt across two disparate cultures” https://t.co/AtvFxIc5da 🧵

Had a good chat with the Davids about the so-called self-conscious emotions

Also, shoutout Anthony Lopez @EvoPolitics—should have tagged you!!

As work in these areas continues, an evolutionary-functional lens helps explain how these emotions differ and remains a powerful tool for understanding human nature /END

For instance, if someone confronts you out of anger, sincerely apologizing to them may pacify them; if instead that same person confronts you out of hate (which may appear to you the same), apologizing to them may just signal your weakness and vulnerability to attack.

Beyond the theoretical importance, this matters because calling hatred “anger” leads us to prescribe negotiation, apologies, and reconciliation where they won’t work—and may even backfire. Calling anger “hatred” pushes needless rupture when dialogue could repair the relationship.

Might hatred just be a lot of anger rather than a distinct emotion? Doesn't seem like it: Recalibrational behavior increased as intensity of anger increased but *decreased* as intensity of hatred increased. Not the pattern you'd expect if these were differences in degree only.

Apologies/listening: ✔️help in anger; ❌don’t move hatred “If this person lost their job and was in distress, and you knew your company was hiring, would you tell them?” ✔️ likely to tell them in anger ❌ don't tell them in hatred.

In anger → explain, be heard, desire apology. In hatred → avoid, cut ties, de-power, desire the other's physical/financial suffering. Hatred, not anger, led to "irrational avoidance" (wanting to sell your used car if you found out the person you hate used to own it).

Key results: Anger → higher recalibrational strategies & goals. Hatred → higher neutralizing strategies & goals. This pattern replicated across both countries with large effects.

In two preregistered samples (US + UK; total n = 725), participants recalled a real moment of anger or hatred, then rated 16 strategy/goal items (8 recalibration, 8 neutralization) + 7 additional “distinguishing” judgments (e.g., are apologies effective?).

What we find in short: When you’re angry, you’re trying to fix a relationship—confront, explain your view, demand an apology, watch for behavior change. When you hate, you’re trying to neutralize—avoid, withhold info, use reputation attacks, or (in extremes) predatory aggression.

Big idea: What makes anger and hatred different? Based on evolutionary theorizing, researchers have proposed that anger recalibrates how others treat you, while hatred neutralizes toxic people (e.g., distances/destroys). We provide the first empirical evidence of this distinction

🚨🚨 New paper out now in Evolution and Human Behavior: "The evolutionary logic of anger and hatred: an empirical test" with Aaron Sell, Coltan Scrivner @MorbidPsych, and Anthony Lopez. https://t.co/IV1ddNYTmx View the full paper here:

Trending article: The evolution of shame and its display - https://t.co/hOckr37w8c By Mitchell Landers & Daniel Sznycer #shame #emotion #evolution

Why this matters: provides an easy tool for ruling out false moderators of envy, clarifying theoretical debates & helping emotion researchers better distinguish between emotions, which also matters for better diagnosing envy-related issues in practice (schools, workplaces). /END

We scoured the literature and used the third-party criterion to assess some of the commonly proposed moderators of envy. We find that deservingness and likeability both fail (undeserving and unlikeable people upset everyone), while audience admiration passes.

If yes → that factor is possibly envy-specific. If no → it's unlikely the factor moderates envy specifically (more likely fairness/outrage/liking).

To help resolve this issue, we propose a simple tool for helping envy researchers determine if a variable really moderates envy specifically. We call it "the third-party criterion," which asks, "Does a factor make competitors feel worse than uninvolved bystanders?"

Think Bernie Madoff, who got caught running a Ponzi scheme. Did people feel ill will because they envied his success or because he cheated? So, more generally, how can we know whether ill will towards successful people stems from envy or somewhere else (e.g., outrage)?

For example, being upset at another person's success is the traditional hallmark of envy, but sometimes another's success upsets us because we feel that success is truly unfair or because the person who succeeded is genuinely unlikeable, not because we envy them.