Summerell Elizabeth, Shuttleworth Liberty, Lin Carmen, Denson Thomas F
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
Aust J Psychol. 2025 Jan 19;77(1):2426661. doi: 10.1080/00049530.2024.2426661. eCollection 2025.
Anger in crowds can be dangerous and lead to violence. Accurately assessing anger in crowds can be difficult, and people tend to overestimate the average intensity of a crowd's anger relative to an individual's anger (i.e. the crowd emotion amplification effect).
Across three experiments, we investigated the emotion amplification effect in crowds (versus individuals) displaying angry facial expressions. We also investigated the influence of gender, race, and alcohol cues as influences on this effect.
In two of the three experiments, we replicated the emotion amplification effect and found an interaction with race. Participants overestimated anger in White crowds more so than anger in Black crowds, but overestimated anger to a greater extent for Black individuals more than White individuals. There was also a main effect such that participants overestimated anger for men relative to women in both individuals and crowds and in both races.
These findings highlight the bias to overestimate anger in White crowds, men, and Black individuals. These findings may affect policies around policing and crowd control.
群体中的愤怒可能很危险并导致暴力。准确评估群体中的愤怒可能很困难，而且人们往往会相对于个体的愤怒高估群体愤怒的平均强度（即群体情绪放大效应）。
在三项实验中，我们研究了展示愤怒面部表情的群体（相对于个体）中的情绪放大效应。我们还研究了性别、种族和酒精线索作为对这种效应的影响。
在三项实验中的两项中，我们复制了情绪放大效应，并发现了与种族的相互作用。参与者高估白人群体中的愤怒程度比高估黑人群体中的愤怒程度更甚，但相对于白人个体，对黑人个体的愤怒高估程度更大。还存在一个主效应，即参与者在个体和群体中以及在两个种族中都高估男性的愤怒程度相对于女性而言。
这些发现凸显了高估白人群体、男性和黑人个体愤怒程度的偏差。这些发现可能会影响围绕治安和人群控制的政策。
