Anger motivates costly punishment of unfair behavior

In this article we provide empirical support for anger as an underlying mechanism of costly punishment in three studies. A first study showed that participants punished other players more the less these players cooperated in a Public Goods Game and that this effect was mediated by experienced anger. A second study showed that participants appraised non-cooperation in a Sequential Trust Game (STG) as more unfair than cooperation and that they imposed more costly punishment on unfair others as compared to fair others. The effect of appraised unfairness on imposed punishment was mediated by anger. Moreover, a third study showed that following an anger induction in an unrelated task, participants imposed more costly punishment on unfair players in a subsequent STG.