How the Incidental Emotions of Anger and Guilt Influence Our Judgments

Incidental emotions, unrelated to the decision at hand, can significantly influence judgments and choices. The aim of the current study is to investigate the role of the trait and state emotions—specifically anger and guilt—in affecting evaluative judgments. A sample of 204 male participants was randomly assigned to one of the three induced-state emotion conditions (anger, guilt, or neutral). Participants read a forensic report describing an argument that ended with the offender’s decision to violently strike the opponent. The participants were asked to identify with the offender as much as possible and to judge the immoral and risky choice in terms of causality, responsibility, predictability, intentionality, severity, counterfactual thoughts, reversibility willingness, and anticipated emotions. Results showed that trait anger was linked to external causal attribution, judgment of others’ responsibility, and anticipated negative and positive emotions, while state anger was associated with less internal attribution and fewer upward counterfactual thoughts. Trait guilt was linked to a desire to reverse one’s decision and anticipated moral emotions, while state guilt correlated with internal attribution and judgments of severity. No interaction between trait and state emotions was found. These findings deepen our understanding of the role of incidental emotions in judgment and decision-making.