How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs.

Sufis
 

Thought Provoking Insights on How Anger

Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs.
Sufis
AATIK TASNEEM
ABDULLAH NAEEM
INTESAM KHAN
MUHAMMED JUNAID
SHAHROZE TARIQ
ZUNAIR TALAT

This article examines how decision-making is influenced when a person is

primed with anger in comparison to when the decision is taken when a
person is calm. For that we conducted four sets of experiments with
respondents being divided into two groups of people, “Common Man” and
“Sufis” (The Control Group), “Common Man – Anger” and “Sufis – Anger”
(The Experimental Group). Across the control group respondents were
asked to solve five logical questions with time being the only pressure. On
the other hand the experimental group along with time was also primed with
anger and then asked to solve the questions. Findings suggested though
there was a miniscule difference between the average score in the control
group however the score differed to a great extent in the experimental
group. Sufis (individuals who are trained to control and suppress anger)
were able to out perform the common man. This result helped us to
establish he fact that suppression of anger can lead to superior decision-
making. This article further highlights the vast implications of these results
from the field of management to decision-making on daily bases.

____________________________________________

Speak when you are angry - and you'll

make the best speech you'll ever regret.
(Laurence J. Peter)

D
ecision-making research started with economists assuming that we humans are
rational decision makers and will always tend to maximize our benefits. Many
researchers believed in the notion that emotions play a less significant role in
decision-making (e.g., Von Neuman & Morgenstern, 1944). Simon in (1955,1968) first
critiqued the rational decision-making model; where numerous studies have shown the
importance of emotions in decision-making (Damasio, 1998; Forgas, 1995). To date research
pertaining to the effect of anger has been either limited to laboratory studies or focused on
generalized mood rather than on direct emotional experience. The aim of this study is to
specifically focus on one type of affect – anger, and its influence on decision making process
of both the Sufis, who are high on resilience and emotions control, and the normal humans on
the other hand, whose emotions and moods mold their decisions.

  1
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
 
In this section, we first discuss the influence of affect on a person’s cognition. We
then briefly lay down its implications in different fields of work. Finally, we determine the
gap in the literature and how we try to fill it through our study. Affect means the explicit
quality of “goodness” or “badness” which is experienced consciously or unconsciously as a
feeling state and it also discriminates the positive or negative features of stimulus (Slovic et.
al). In other words, affect refers to the emotions or feelings that can positively or negatively
influence a person’s behavior without that person noticing these influences.
Baron (2008) categorizes affect into two categories – namely state affect and trait
affect. He says that the ‘state affect’ refers to the shifts in current moods due to exposure to
external events. This relates to the spontaneous reaction caused by a stimulus when exposed
to it. On the other hand; the ‘trait affect’ refers to stable tendencies to experience specific
affective reactions across many situations. This deals with the person’s personality or traits to
behave specifically in different situations. However, the research suggests that both produce
parallel effects in most of the situations on human cognition.
Many common judgmental errors in everyday life occur because people are often
inattentive information processors – making decisions being a victim to a number of biases
and the most pervasive of which is the affect heuristic. Different mood states, through their
influence on processing styles, can possibly increase or reduce judgmental errors in
individual as well as group-based decision making. There is abundant evidence that our
social cognition is strongly influenced by our affective states. For example, whatever current
mood we are experiencing can influence our judgments of people we meet.
This comes handy in such a way that marketers of affect-laden products could
manipulate, or influence, the cognitive process of customers from actions designed to
constrain processing resources such as having distracting music or displays in the shopping
environment. Apart from influencing the decision making process in a physical framework,
these tactics by marketers could be operationalized in online shopping. The growing
popularity of the Internet and cybershopping suggests that more and more shopping situations
are likely to involve presentation modes that are symbolic (i.e., alternatives being presented
as digital photographs and/or as descriptions), which in turn is likely to result in choices
being based less on affect and more on cognitions.
Furthermore, the effect of affect heuristic is deeply rooted in the investment market
with an abundance of research on it. Selden (1912) writes in a book of psychology of the
stock market that the ups and downs of prices in stock exchanges depend upon a very
substantial degree of psychological approach of investing and trading community. As a
person’s evaluation about other people, events, and his or her environment is colored his or
her own affect (positive or negative), this has a major impact when people overestimate or
underestimate investment valuations as a function to their moods. The framework that Ehsan
ul Hassan sketched out in their study “Impact of Affect Heuristic, Fear and Anger on the
Decision Making of Individual Investor” shows that the affects like fear and anger have a
potential impact on the investor’s judgment and decision making.
Now we seek to extend this previous work by developing a theoretical framework for
understanding the role of affect in Sufism or, in other words, spirituality. Sufism, according
to Encyclopedia Britannica, is the mystical Islamic belief and practice in which people i.e.
Sufis seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience
of God. The body of research enlightens the notion that those who are high on spirituality or
religiosity have a greater grasp over their emotions and can control their feelings. Durkheim’s

  2
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

study of religiosity/spirituality and suicidal behaviors suggested that those with increased
spirituality had greater levels of social support, which effectively shielded against
psychopathology and suicidal behaviors (Durkeim). Another mechanism may be that greater
spirituality protects against mental disorders and/or suicide by increasing the ability to cope
with stressors (Koenig, 2004), deepening one’s sense of purpose or meaning (Williams,
2007), and/or reducing feelings of hopelessness, which have been indicated as a predictor of
suicide. Other studies have examined interventions that include a spirituality component to
help promote resilience.

EXPERIMENT

The purpose of this experiment was to test the hypothesis whether the Sufis react to
anger differently from an average person. Although the anger was hypothesized to reduce the
rational decision making the magnitude was to be tested. Sufis because of years of meditation
have greater control over their emotions and thus are able to control them more effectively.
The test first primed the respondent in anger according to his or her class before proceeding
to gauge rationality.

METHODOLOGY
 
The survey was conducted on 120 respondents divided into 4 groups of 30 each. Each
group was assigned to a separate variable of interest. The primary independent variables of
interest were anger and Sufism and the dependent variable was rationality. The purpose of
this model construct was to allow us to observe the effect of anger mediated through Sufism.
The four assigned categories were:

Control  Group Sufis

High  on  anger 1 3
Low  on  anger 2 4

The respondents were informed that the survey was aimed to study the cultural impact
on IQ. The respondents at the beginning of the survey were primed into anger if they were in
the category of “high on anger” by exposing them to a video.

Anger to emotion ratio

The video was chosen with great care. Initially sets of videos were selected all aimed
at inducing anger. The videos were shown to a panel of undergrad students and they were
asked to rank their emotions on a prepared grid that included a range of emotions including
sadness, anger and disgust. This panel was kept blind to the emotion we were focused upon
(anger). Anger to emotion ratio was calculated in which the anger score was divided by the
average score of all other emotions (excluding anger) caused by the video. The video with the
highest anger to emotion’s ratio was chosen to ensure that the responses selected reflect the
effect caused by anger while minimizing the distortion caused by the injection of other
emotions.

  3
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

After the respondents were primed into anger they were given a set of questions that
aimed to measure the rationality of the individual. The questions were carefully designed to
ensure they were generally accessible and understandable by the target respondents. The
difficulty of the questions was progressively increased so that the first few questions were
simple and required little reasoning. However difficulty continued to increase as the
respondents move forward. The difficulty of questions was measured through conducting a
separate online experiment where under-grads were asked to attempt every question in a time
limit (120 seconds). The average correct responses formed the basis for the ranking. Also the
language of the questions was kept simple to ensure that all the respondents easily understood
the questions. Incomplete responses were discarded to ensure standardization in all the
responses. The next set of questions was designed to gain an insight on respondents’
emotional state of mind and the effect of priming. These were rating based questions that
inquired about the emotional response caused by the priming. It was primarily done to gauge
the degree to which the desired emotions were induced in the respondent.

The responses were divided into two sections, rationality and emotions. While coding
rationality, each question was given equal weightage. A correct response was equal to 1 point
and a wrong response equal to zero. The final score was the summation of all the correct
responses. They were than scaled down to a total score of 5 where the maximum that could
be scored was 5 and the minimum 0. The questions in the section of emotions were primarily
ordinal in nature and hence were measured on a Likert scale. The response of strongly agree
was given a rating of 5 and strongly disagree was given a rating of 0. The anger scale was
calculated by averaging the score of all questions in emotion sections.

RESULTS
Manipulation checks

To ensure the success of the experiment, priming of anger had to deliver the expected
results. Before the results could be studied, it was integral that priming anger was induced in
the respondents. The respondents that were not primed were assumed to have an anger level
to 1, where 1 represents the average anger in individuals without inconsequential external
stimuli. It can be seen from the following graph that the respondents in high anger category
experienced much higher levels of anger signifying successful priming in anger. The Y-axis
in the following graph represents anger levels.

5.00  

4.00  

3.00  

2.00  

1.00  

0.00  
Primed   Not  Primed  

  4
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

The next logical step was than to check for the effects caused by anger. As was
hypothesized, anger was likely to reduce rationality of the respondents. The following graph
displays the average score of rationality in the classes of low anger and high anger where Y-
axis represents the score in rationality.

3.500  

3.000  

2.500  

2.000  

1.500  
Low  Anger   High  anger  

A significant difference was observed in the rationality score of those in high anger
class from those in low anger. This tends to prove the original hypothesis. The average score
of respondents that were primed (high on anger) was significantly lower than those that were
not primed (low on anger).

Rationality

The following is the regression output where rationality was regressed on 2 binary
variables i.e. Sufi and anger (1 = high on anger, 0 = low on anger).

Rationality Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]

Sufism .4540507 .1898001 2.39 0.018 .0779115 .8301898

Angercatogory -.6238369 .1830998 -3.41 0.001 -.9866978 -.2609761
_cons 2.688703 .1418205 18.96 0.000 2.407648 2.969758

It can be seen that the P-value (statistical significance) for both the variables is less
than 0.05; hence both of them are statistically significant. The beta coefficient for Sufism is
positive 0.454 which means that Sufism on average are likely to score 0.45 higher on the
scale of rationality. The negative coefficient of anger represents that angry people are less
likely to be rational and hence the rationality score decreases by 0.623 in the presence of
anger.

However our variable of interest was the interaction of Sufism with anger. We
hypothesized that Sufism will mediate the anger, hence the degree of effect that anger would
have over Sufi’s would be less in magnitude than it would have on non-Sufi. The following
chart combines the results from all the conditions.

  5
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

Y-variable:
Rationality
Control
Total Sufi's only Group
Anger - - -
coefficient 0.623 0.129 0.911
Statistical 0 0.68 0.00
significance .001 9 01

The section of Total shows regression results ran on all the respondents (Sufi’s as
well as control group) whereas the category Sufi only includes the responses from Sufis’ and
the category control group only includes the responses from control group. Anger coefficient
represents the correlation between rationality and anger (anger representing the binary
variable, 1 for high anger group and 0 for low anger group). The coefficient is negative under
all conditions that were only expected since it has already been established that anger reduces
the chance of rational thinking. The Statistical significance represents the P-value of the beta
coefficients that is the test of statistical significance. A P-value of less than 0.05 signifies that
the beta-coefficient is significant. A P-value greater than 0.05, signifies that there was no
inherent relationship found within the data. The beta coefficient of Anger is almost 8 times
for the control group than it is for Sufi’s that indicates that the effect of anger for Sufis’ was
significantly less than it was on control group. Sufi’s were not affected by priming to the
same degree as control group. However the more important result is the significance value for
the anger coefficient in Sufis’ group. This value is 0.689 which is much higher than the
critical value of 0.05, hence signifying that there was no inherent distinction found in the
Sufi’s that were primed into anger. The effect of priming was significantly less for the Sufi’s
than it was for control group that could either be because the priming was biased and hence
was unable to induce anger into Sufis or the Sufis do possess a greater control over their
anger and hence are able to significantly reduce its effects.

The following chart plots average anger level of Sufi in class “high on anger” against
average anger in control group class “high on anger”:

3.5  

3  

2.5  

2  

1.5  

1  
Control  Group   Su@i  
Anger  Level  

It can be seen from the above graph that the priming has significantly less effect on
Sufis than it did on focus group. Despite the fact that Sufis practice self-restraint for years,

  6
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

which makes them resistant to events inducing anger as, is evident from the above chart still
the Sufi’s were affected with anger as the average of 2.47 (Sufi average of anger level in high
anger group) is significantly more than 1. Thus it can be concluded than not only the Sufi’s
are less likely to get angry, the anger they feel is also less likely to affect their rational
decision making.

IMPLICATIONS

Our work noticeably points to the impact of anger on decision-making. Previous

empirical work in this area like mentioned in Fuel in the Fire: How Anger Impacts Judgment
and Decision-Making suggests that anger is an unpleasant emotion when an individual is
reflecting back on the anger’s source. This article has implications for the literature on anger
behavior. It extends previous work in this area by providing evidence that we normally tend
to get angry recalling memories of the past and phases of life we are uncomfortable with. It is
hard for us to confront these situations and with that added cognitive load we start taking
wrong decisions; however Sufi’s who are in control of their emotions tend to fight this malice
are able to take better decisions.

A real life example from the corporate world helps us to understand this in a more
profound manner. Anger traps even the most brilliant and skilled managers into taking the
wrong decisions. There are often moments at the work place when managers get angry and
lose their control. The reasons for the temper may be many but the outcome is the same
leading to low performance, failure in understanding colleagues, and sudden bursting of
unknown strong feelings. On the biggest examples is of Wal-Mart. When Lee Scott CEO
Wall-Mart (from 2000-2009), established a culture where you could not question the
company's direction or offer critical feedback to the leadership. One account of an employee
summarizes her experience in the following words:

I remember a Store Manager asked Lee Scott why Wal-Mart didn't

offer its store associates a pension program so they could have the ability to
retire. Lee Scott blasted this store manager for asking this question and I was
quite surprised that he even allowed this example to be posted. Nonetheless
'Ask Lee' was eliminated and I wouldn't be surprised if so was the store
manager.

This mentality extends all the way down to the lowest level of the company. This
behavior of not being open and taking decision in anger led to poor performance and
employee demotivation. The negative emotion translated into higher cost for the firm

Labor turnover at Wal-Mart is 44% a year, close to the industry

average. In skilled and semi-skilled jobs, the fully loaded cost of replacing a
worker who leaves (excluding lost productivity) is typically 1.5 to 2.5 times
the worker’s annual salary. Wall-Marts competitor Costco’s Turnover is
unusually low, at 17% overall...
…As a result, Costco generated $21,805 in U.S. operating profit per
hourly employee, compared with $11,615 at Sam’s Club (A sub-brand of Wal-
Mart). Costco’s stable, productive workforce more than offsets its higher
costs. - HBR

  7
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

Furthermore understanding the impact for anger has more than just managerial
implications. For example in group decision making where the information needs to flow
back and fourth, anger towards a particular individual can lead to a possible breakdown of the
communication. Additionally it increases the probability of a person being confined by the
confirmation trap. If A holds ill feelings against B, any information or ideas presented by B
will be disregarded by A. As now A will not search for counter evidence or even consider a
possibility that B can be correct. This bias in return restricts knowledge creation, which can
lead on to a permanent divergence if not dealt with. So our recommendation is that in every
group should appoint a leader who analyzes these negative emotions and regulate them in the
best interest of the group. By developing a culture where emotions are expressed, confusions
are cleared, and better decision can take place.

This research also insists us to look into biological insights of an angry individual.
When an individual gets angry their body automatically releases a stress hormone called
cortisol. Having that hormone released in emergencies is a good thing. It helps to protect a
person in threatening situations, but high levels of cortisol comes with additional side effects
it causes wear and tear on the heart and cardiovascular system. This in turn results in more
anger the next time and with the passage of time starts affecting your brains rational ability.
(Jerry Kiffer, MA, a heart-brain researcher at the Cleveland Clinic’s Psychological Testing
Center). Laura Kubzansky, PhD, MPH, an associate professor at the Harvard School of
Public Health in Cambridge, Mass backs this up. She says that,

“People who are angry a lot tend to have other chronic negative emotions as well.”

She further states that this leads to creation of anxiety and distrust that piles up to
form several biases like anchoring. Individuals will tend to base their decisions on
information retrieved from past events and are less open to make adjustments in their thought
process while taking decisions. They do not seek other information that goes against their
judgment rather prefer to stick with the one that they are anchored with.

LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Our research design had some limitation as well. Due to less number of contacts of
Sufis we used the online medium to reach them. One such site is DeenPort and majority of
their members practice meditation and spirituality. However we cannot assure that all of the
members who filled up our survey was indulged in spirituality or not. The questionnaire for
the control group (Common Man, Sufis) simply contained five questions. On the other hand,
in the experimental group (Common Man-Anger, Sufis-Anger), anger was induced by asking
the respondents to recall incidences that made them angry and by showing a video in which
mass killing of Palestinians by Israel. However these questions along with the video might
fail to invoke anger in some people. Since the experiment was conducted online, some of the
respondents might not pay attention to the video. Another possible limitation could be that
mental stability varies from person to person being an external factor cannot be controlled in
this experiment. Similarly the variation in the IQ levels between two groups quantified.

An added limitation was that no incentive was given for correct answers and a wrong
answer would not result in any kind of loss for the respondents. Therefore respondents did
not try at their maximum potential while attempting the questions. Hence it could not be

  8
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

determined whether the respondent deliberately marked a question wrong without reflecting
much or he/she actually did not know the correct answer. This problem can be overcome by
providing respondents with incentives, such as giving away gifts to four or five respondents
with full scores via lucky draw. It was mentioned in the instructions that they have to
complete the survey in 2 minutes but some of the respondents did not adhered with the
instructions. Therefore we had to discard the responses recorded after 2 minutes.

After inducing anger through the questions and the video, we asked them to rate their
anger level. Here we took the assumption that the respondents would be able to accurately
judge their anger level that might not be the real case. Therefore we had to rely on their
subjective assessment in order to gauge the anger level. Furthermore, our research was
focused only on ordinary person and Sufis, the two extremes. This research can be replicated
by taking other subjects such as managers, entrepreneurs etc. as well, so that we can see
whether the results change or not. Although we had about 30 respondents per group, a size
needed to achieve normality, but the sample size is still small in order to generalize the
findings and hence we need to conduct this survey with large samples as well. Lastly, in this
study we have just covered one aspect that is anger, which affects decision making several
other dimensions of feelings and emotions (fear, sadness, anxiety, depression) still needs to
be explored in order to make a holistic claim in favor of Sufis.

CONCLUSION
 
In this article we discussed how anger could hinder our abilities to take rational
decisions. Furthermore we witnessed that people that high on spirituality (Sufis) are less
affected by the anger emotion and maintain comparatively higher level of rationality. Finally
to further extend the implications future research needs to dissect, exactly how a normal
person can become a Sufi himself/herself. From rudimentary exploration it is found that they
practice meditation and self control however there is no proper model of to exactly how and
when a common man turns into a Sufi. They can gauge the neurological and physical changes
that a person is going through in the transformation of becoming a Sufi. This model will
contribute to identifying the habits that restricts us from having control over our emotions
and in conclusion makes us improved decision makers.

REFERENCES

• Cascio, Wayne F. "The High Cost of Low Wages." Harvard Business Review. N.p., 01 Dec. 2006. Web. 28 May 2015.

• D. R. Williams and M. J. Sternthal, “Spirituality, religion and health: evidence and research directions,” The Medical
Journal of Australia, vol. 186, no. 10, supplement, pp. S47–S50, 2007.

• E. Durkeim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, Free Press, New York, NY, USA, 1951, Translated by J. A. Spaulding &
G. Simpson.

• H. G. Koenig, L. K. George, and P. Titus, “Religion, spirituality, and health in medically ill hospitalized older
patients,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 554–562, 2004.

• FORGAS, JOSEPH P., and ERIC EICH. "Vestibular Influences on Cognition." Encyclopedia of Neuroscience (2009):
121-25. Web. <http://lp.wileypub.com/HandbookPsychology/SampleChapters/Volume4.pdf>.

• Schimmel, Annemarie. "Sufism." Http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/571823/Sufism.

EncyclopediaBritannica,n.d.Web.

  9
 How Anger Affects Decision Making: Common Man vs. Sufis
 

• Hourani, Laurel L. "Influence of Spirituality on Depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Suicidality in Active
Duty Military Personnel." Influence of Spirituality on Depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Suicidality in
Active Duty Military Personnel. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2015. <http://www.hindawi.com/journals/drt/2012/425463/>.

• Litvak, Paul M., Jennifer S. Lerner, Larissa Z. Tiedens, and Katherine Shonk. "Fuel in the Fire: How Anger Impacts
Judgment and Decision-Making." International Handbook of Anger (2009): 287-310. Web.
• Nolan, Hamilton. "Decades of Greed: Behind the Scenes With An Angry Walmart Manager." Http://gawker.com/.
N.p., 2 June 2014. Web. 28 May 2015.

• Selden, G.C., 1912. Psychology of the Stock Market: Human Impulses Lead to Speculative Disasters. New York:
Ticker Publishing.

• Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69(1), 99–118.

• Simon, H. A. (1968). Administrative behavior: A study of decision making processes in administrative organization.
New York: Macmillan.

• Slovic, P., M.L. Finucane, E. Peters and Personality and D.G. MacGregor, 2002. The affect heuristic. In T. Gilovich
and D. Griffin and D. Kahneman (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp: 397- 420.

• Von Neuman, J., & Morgenstern, O. (1944). Theory of games and economic behavior. New York: Wiley.

  10