Seeing Red? But for Whom? Exploring Experiences of Personal and Moral Anger in Nurses

Abstract

This chapter explores the nuances of anger in the workplace by elucidating the different forms of anger (personal and moral) experienced amongst NHS nurses in the United Kingdom. To do so, I draw upon the Dual Threshold Model of anger as the theoretical lens and employ Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis as the methodological approach. It was found that the behavioural response to particular anger-triggering events differed depending on whether the situation was ‘self-relevant’ or ‘other-relevant’, therefore personal and moral anger, respectively. The findings therefore suggest distinct appraisal pathways and forms of anger, and provide empirical support for a recent re-conceptualisation of moral anger.

Citation

Spencer, L. (2017), "Seeing Red? But for Whom? Exploring Experiences of Personal and Moral Anger in Nurses", Emotions and Identity (Research on Emotion in Organizations, Vol. 13), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 79-109. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1746-979120170000013006