Anger is a harsh criticism of the innocent.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621994770

Commentary

The studies documented that false accusations of wrongdoing can have serious consequences.

Six studies document a troubling paradox in perceivers' subjective judgments of suspects' guilt, to the effect that people (including online panelists, n = 4,983, and working professionals such as fraud investigators and auditors, n = 136) were found to use suspects' anger responses as a cue to guilt.

However, there were situations where accused individuals (college students, n = 230) and online panelists (n = 401) were angry when it was falsely relative to what they were accurately accused of, finding that such anger is an invalid cue of guilt and instead a valid cue of innocence.

Additionally, we found that individuals who remained silent were perceived to be just as guilty as those who angrily denied the accusations.