It is axiomatic in social psychology that people protect the perceived worth and integrity of the self-in other words, to self-affirm. But occasionally, people may express a desire for self-deprecation, such as causing the self to feel pain. Five studies explored this possibility, namely whether anger propels people toward self-inflicted pain. Compared with both sad and emotionally neutral participants, angered participants rated painful activities as more desirable (Study 1), evidenced greater mental accessibility of pain (Study 2), were more likely to choose a painful-sounding candy (jawbreaker) following a choice between two candies (Study 3), gave themselves more electrical shocks (Study 4), and scored higher on a clinical survey used to measure self-inflicted pain (Study 5). These findings suggest people have a love-hate relationship with the self: Generally, people trump up and self-affirm their intelligence, attractiveness, and benevolence, yet, when people are angry, they deprecate the self and willingly cause the self to feel pain.
