Workplace Anger -- Who WIns

Workplace anger -- who wins?
Story Highlights
Study: Angry men rewarded, angry women penalized
Unemotional women "deserved" higher pay than angry women
If good reason noted, then anger OK for women
Men, women surveyed had similar reactions to angry women


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A man who gets angry at work may well be admired for it but a woman who shows anger in the workplace is liable to be seen as "out of control" and incompetent, according to a new study presented Friday.
What's more, the finding may have implications for Hillary Clinton as she attempts to become the first female U.S. president, according to its author Victoria Brescoll, a post-doctoral scholar at Yale University.

Her research paper "When Can Angry Women Get Ahead?" noted that Clinton was described last year by a leading Republican as "too angry to be elected president."
Previous research has indicated that anger can communicate that an individual feels entitled to dominate others, and therefore perhaps is. But Brescoll said such studies focused on men.
"As Senator Clinton's experience suggests, however, for a professional woman anger expression may lead to a decrease rather than an increase in her status," Brescoll wrote.
She conducted three tests in which men and women recruited randomly watched videos of a job interview and were asked to rate the applicant's status and assign them a salary.
In the first, the scripts were identical except where the candidate described feeling either angry or sad about losing an account due to a colleague's late arrival at a meeting.
Participants conferred the most status on the man who said he was angry, the second most on the woman who said she was sad, slightly less on the man who said he was sad, and least of all by a sizable margin on the woman who said she was angry.

Salary gap
The average salary assigned to the angry man was almost $38,000 compared to about $23,500 for the angry woman and in the region of $30,000 for the other two candidates.
In a second experiment, the script was similar except that the job applicant also described his or her current occupation as a trainee or a senior executive.
"Participants rated the angry female CEO as significantly less competent than all of the other targets, including even the angry female trainee," Brescoll wrote. She said they viewed angry females as significantly more "out of control."
That impacted salaries. Unemotional women were assigned on average $55,384 compared to $32,902 for the angry ones. Male executive candidates were assigned more than trainees, regardless of anger, with an average $73,643.

A third experiment tested whether a good reason for anger made any difference. The script was changed so that some angry candidates explained that the co-worker who arrived late had lied beforehand, indicating he had directions to the meeting.
Sure enough, the angry woman with a good reason to be angry was awarded a much higher salary than the angry woman who provided no excuse, though it was still less than the men.

The study, to be presented this weekend at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, a research and teaching organization with nearly 17,000 members, found similar attitudes to anger among male and female participants.

"It's an attitude that is not conscious," Brescoll said. "People are hardly aware of it."
Brescoll said the findings revealed a "difficult paradox" for professional women -- while anger can serve as a powerful tool to achieve status at work, women may have to behave calmly in order to be seen as rational. E-mail to a friend

Motivational Quotes

The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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When I hear somebody sigh that Life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, Compared to what?
Sydney J. Harris

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Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
Ronald E. Osborn
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If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.
Louis D. Brandeis
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Our greatest battles are that with our own minds.
Jameson Frank
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The man of character finds an especial attractiveness in difficulty since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.
Charles de Gaulle
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No matter how difficult the challenge, when we spread our wings of faith and allow the winds of God's spirit to lift us, no obstacle is too great to overcome.
Roy Lessin
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If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, "I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.
Ann Landers
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Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.
B. C. Forbes
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The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.
George Santayana
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It is surmounting difficulties that makes heroes.
Louis Kossuth
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Into each life some rain must fall, some days be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by Conflict.
William E. Channing
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Triumphs without difficulties are empty. Indeed, it is difficulties that make the triumph. It is no feat to travel the smooth road.
Source Unknown
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Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Henry Ford
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It is a good rule to face difficulties at the time they arise and not allow them to increase unacknowledged.
Edward W. Ziegler
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In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
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To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can't just accept the ones you like.
Mike Gafka
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Troubles, like babies, grow larger by nursing.
Lady Holland
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For every mountain there is a miracle.
Robert H. Schuller
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I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
Mother Teresa
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Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it.
Washington Irving
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A desire can overcome all objections and obstacles.
Gunderson
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Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them... they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.
Orison Swett Marden
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The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors.
African Proverb
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It's not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get up again.
Vince Lombardi
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Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have.
Norman Vincent Peale
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You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Bernice Johnson Reagon

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The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything;they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.