TY - JOUR

T1 - Anger in Wikipedia

T2 - Perceived intentionality and threat appraisal as mediators of anger about man‐made attacks

AU - Greving, Hannah

AU - Cress, Ulrike

AU - Kimmerle, Joachim

N1 - Funding Information: The authors wish to kindly thank Hannah Engelhardt, Laura Hertner, Elena Nendza, Lisa Rau, Carolin Sanzenbacher, Hannah Schmidt, Antonia Seitz, Corinna Suck, Kerstin Treiber, Imke Weiser, and Birka Zapf for their help with study preparation and data collection.

PY - 2019/2/11

Y1 - 2019/2/11

N2 - The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has established strict guidelines for the objectivity of content. At the same time, Wikipedia includes articles on negative events, such as disasters or man-made attacks. These events can elicit strong emotions, which in turn may spill over into Wikipedia articles. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia articles on man-made attacks contain more anger-related content than Wikipedia articles on disasters. Building on these findings, we aimed to investigate whether the threat that Wikipedia authors experience when they learn of an attack is relevant as a factor in explaining the anger effect. Threat is known to elicit active and engaged reactions, such as anger, which is why it is a likely explaining factor. Our research also aimed to replicate the findings from the linguistic analysis of the Wikipedia articles using controlled scenario-based laboratory experiments. Three studies demonstrated that man-made attacks (terrorist attack, shooting rampage) elicited more threat, more anger, and more expressions of anger-related content in Wikipedia texts than nature-made disasters (earthquake, flood) and man-made disasters (train accident). Moreover, threat was relevant as a factor in explaining the effects on anger and anger-related content in the Wikipedia texts. These mediations could be explained by the perceived intentionality of the event. This research highlights the findings that perceived intentionality and threat are relevant mediating factors for feelings and expressions of anger after man-made attacks.

AB - The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has established strict guidelines for the objectivity of content. At the same time, Wikipedia includes articles on negative events, such as disasters or man-made attacks. These events can elicit strong emotions, which in turn may spill over into Wikipedia articles. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia articles on man-made attacks contain more anger-related content than Wikipedia articles on disasters. Building on these findings, we aimed to investigate whether the threat that Wikipedia authors experience when they learn of an attack is relevant as a factor in explaining the anger effect. Threat is known to elicit active and engaged reactions, such as anger, which is why it is a likely explaining factor. Our research also aimed to replicate the findings from the linguistic analysis of the Wikipedia articles using controlled scenario-based laboratory experiments. Three studies demonstrated that man-made attacks (terrorist attack, shooting rampage) elicited more threat, more anger, and more expressions of anger-related content in Wikipedia texts than nature-made disasters (earthquake, flood) and man-made disasters (train accident). Moreover, threat was relevant as a factor in explaining the effects on anger and anger-related content in the Wikipedia texts. These mediations could be explained by the perceived intentionality of the event. This research highlights the findings that perceived intentionality and threat are relevant mediating factors for feelings and expressions of anger after man-made attacks.

KW - anger

KW - disasters

KW - emotions

KW - intentionality

KW - man-made attacks

KW - threat

KW - Wikipedia

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059666867&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/jasp.12568

DO - 10.1111/jasp.12568

M3 - Article

VL - 49

SP - 99

EP - 116

JO - Journal of Applied Social Psychology

JF - Journal of Applied Social Psychology

SN - 0021-9029

IS - 2

ER -