Formidability and the logic of human anger

Aaron Sell; John Tooby; Leda Cosmides

doi:10.1073/pnas.0904312106

Edited by Gordon H. Orians, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, and approved June 24, 2009 (received for review April 22, 2009)

Abstract

Eleven predictions derived from the recalibrational theory of anger were tested. This theory proposes that anger is produced by a neurocognitive program engineered by natural selection to use bargaining tactics to resolve conflicts of interest in favor of the angry individual. The program is designed to orchestrate two interpersonal negotiating tactics (conditionally inflicting costs or conditionally withholding benefits) to incentivize the target of the anger to place greater weight on the welfare of the angry individual. Individuals with enhanced abilities to inflict costs (e.g., stronger individuals) or to confer benefits (e.g., attractive individuals) have a better bargaining position in conflicts; hence, it was predicted that such individuals will be more prone to anger, prevail more in conflicts of interest, and consider themselves entitled to better treatment. These predictions were confirmed. Consistent with an evolutionary analysis, the effect of strength on anger was greater for men and the effect of attractiveness on anger was greater for women. Also as predicted, stronger men had a greater history of fighting than weaker men, and more strongly endorsed the efficacy of force to resolve conflicts—both in interpersonal and international conflicts. The fact that stronger men favored greater use of military force in international conflicts provides evidence that the internal logic of the anger program reflects the ancestral payoffs characteristic of a small-scale social world rather than rational assessments of modern payoffs in large populations.

Footnotes

¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sell{at}psych.ucsb.edu
Author contributions: A.S., J.T., and L.C. designed research; A.S. performed research; A.S., J.T., and L.C. analyzed data; and A.S., J.T., and L.C. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
See Commentary on page 14743.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0904312106/DCSupplemental.
↵* The welfare weighting function should generate a relationship-specific vector—the WTR function—that, for each absolute magnitude of sacrifice potentially made by the actor, produces a WTR—a variable that defines the ratio of the weights placed on the welfare of the actor versus the target, in determining as a decision-making threshold the maximum sacrifice the actor will make for the target.
↵† Functionally, a given WTR_ij in actor i toward target j should be quasi-stable—that is, it should be constant until the actor is exposed to new information indicating that recalibrating the WTR would increase fitness (e.g., the cheater detection circuit detects j cheating i in social exchange).
↵‡ Indeed, a theory of the grammar of arguments can be derived from the recalibrational theory of anger (6, 7). The angry individual and the target of anger each communicate their formidabilities, their histories of reciprocity and grievance, and especially their respective views of the costs and benefits involved in the triggering act.
↵§ Of course, those with less leverage will defer more often to those with more leverage. Still, in a noisy social world in which individuals are designed to press in a self-interested direction, even after adjusting for greater deference, a greater proportion of acts should still be unacceptable to those with more leverage. For example, individuals with less bargaining power may probe to see for which cases those with more bargaining power will act to enforce their bargaining power.