Exposure to anger and performance

I study the link between exposure to anger in others and one’s performance. To my knowledge, there are no formal empirical studies that focus on how anger in others may be associated to one’s performance. I exploit the U.S. version of the nationally syndicated television cooking competition MasterChef and collect data on every instance in which judges objectively demonstrate anger to individual participants in each of the episodes in 10 years, from 2010 to 2020, of this competition. Contestants exposed to anger from judges end up higher in the final rankings and increase their probability of success in cooking challenges, as well as their probability of reaching the top three and even winning the competition. I test the robustness of my findings by repeating the exercise using the Canadian version MasterChef for the years 2014 to 2020 and find analogous results. In order to explore for causality, I control for potential endogeneity by exploiting the use of red clothing by contestants as an instrument of anger. My instrumental variables result provide modest, nonrobust support for causality.