people have the ability to whip themselves into a very sincere feeling of offense given the incentive to do so. Although sincere, these feelings will usually subside if they realize that nothing's to be gained.

I agree with what you're saying and it sounds logical, and I'm just wondering if you (or anyone, actually) would have some experimental evidence from psychology (or any related field) that people do that.

This view does seem to be somewhat intuitive to lesswrongers, but if you try to present it to outsiders, it would be nice if it's backed by evidence from experimental research.

So anyone?