by: jon tritley
“I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.” – Billy Joel
We’ve all been there at one point or another – that sinking feeling in your stomach when you feel that you’ve been rejected. Whether it’s due to a botched attempted at becoming romantically involved with another person, not being invited to a social event, or losing a close friend due to a fight. Being rejected hurts. It lowers our self-esteem. We all feel the need to belong, and do not like when we are denied access to that feeling. In fact, we have an intense need to belong that begins at birth – skin-to-skin contact between newborns and their mother has been found to have numerous benefits (Gray, Watt, & Blass, 2000). Why does rejection need to hurt so much, and why does it make us feel that way? This is a question that many researchers have attempted to answer, and some believe that they have found the answers.
“Ostracism is a metaphor for death – this is what life would be like if you didn’t exist.” – Kipling Williams
Richman and Leary (2009) feel that the answer to this question is not a simple one. It involves many different processes that comprise our emotions. We do not like when our need to belong is threatened, and there are negative consequences in place when we perceive a threat – we may feel ostracized, humiliated, neglected, or excluded. Which, in turn, causes us to feel some sort of combination of sadness, loneliness, hurtfulness, anger, or perhaps jealousy. Richman and Leary’s (2009) model is comprised of three main motives that occur after an experience of rejection. The first motive is we feel a desire to feel socially connected and will seek out these connections for support. The second motive involves anger, where we feel upset and desire to defend ourselves and attack the source of rejection as a kind of coping mechanism. The third motive they describe is we will seek to avoid further rejection by engaging in behaviors that prevent it, such as removing that source (a person) from their life. In essence, we have prosocial responses, withdrawal/avoidance, and antisocial responses that can take place following a feeling of rejection. There are also many other factors that affect how rejection impacts us, such as the perception that we’ve fallen prey to unfairness/injustice, how much we value a particular relationship, and the amount of social support one receives. These are just a few examples of the many facets that are at play when we feel rejected. These researchers established a model that helps us understand rejection, what it is, and how we can overcome it. Whether it is correct or not may have yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure – rejection is a complicated topic that involves a multitude of different factors and is difficult to explain in simple terms.
Conforming to Others
Continuing to explain the model proposed by Richman and Leary (2009), one of the ways in which we try to reconnect to those we feel rejected from is to conform to that person or group (DeWall, 2010). Being excluded can result in being more likely to be influenced by peer attitudes and opinions, and thus become more likely to fall in line with their beliefs in order to feel more accepted. Our attitudes tend to be shaped by those we feel we have been excluded from, particularly if we feel we may have future contact with them.
Perspective-Taking
DeWall (2010) suggested we conform our attitudes when we feel rejected. But what if we do not agree with that particular attitude? How do we reconcile that thought? Knowles (2014) believes we will engage in perspective taking when feeling socially rejected. According to this researcher, we are, by default, constantly taking the perspective of the self throughout our normal, day-to-day functioning. However, we will move from a more inward focus to a more outward focus when we feel threatened by social rejection. In other words, when we feel socially rejected, we tend to move beyond only thinking about ourselves and place ourselves in others’ shoes. It seems we attempt to view ourselves and how we appear in their view in order to justify or rationalize why we have become the victim of social rejection.
Negative Outcomes
So far, being rejected has seemed to result in positive outcomes such as taking the perspective of others or neutral outcomes such as conforming to others. However, being rejected doesn’t always end in positive outcomes. Rejection can have some severe, negative outcomes as evidenced by Twenge, Catanese, and Baumeister (2002). These researchers found that being excluded can sometimes result in behaviors that are self-defeating, such as overeating, drinking copious amount of alcohol, or even avoiding and separating yourself from others to the point where you experience a great deal of loneliness. Being socially excluded seems to increase these types of behaviors.
Conclusion
Rejection seems to have effects on people that can vary greatly depending on the circumstances and the individual it happens to. It can lead an individual to engage in prosocial outcomes in order to repair damages to relationships, taking the perspective of others, and in negative ways where individuals will engage in behaviors that are not productive to their well-being in order to cope with or avoid the situation. The answer? It varies. There are many factors that play into each instance of social rejection and each must be taken into account in order to ascertain why rejection feels so isolating and negative.
References
- DeWall, C. N. (2010). Forming a basis for acceptance: Excluded people form attitudes to agree with potentional affiliates. Social Influence, 5(4), 245-260.
- Gray, L., Watt, L., & Blass, E. M. (2000). Skin-to-skin contact is analgesic in healthy newborns. Pediatrics, 105, e14.
- Knowles, M. L. (2014). Social rejection increases perspective taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 126-132.
- Richman, L. S., & Leary, M. R. (2009). Reactions to discrimination, stigmatization, ostracism, and other forms of interpersonal rejection: A multimotive model. Psychological Review, 116(2), 365-383.
- Twenge. J. M., Catanese, K. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Social exclusion causes self-defeating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(3), 606-615.