Social rejection
Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection), romantic rejection, and familial estrangement. A person can be rejected or shunned by individuals or an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment". The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. The word "ostracism" is also commonly used to denote a process of social exclusion (in Ancient Greece, ostracism was a form of temporary banishment following a people's vote).[2]
Although humans are social beings, some level of rejection is an inevitable part of life. Nevertheless, rejection can become a problem when it is prolonged or consistent, when the relationship is important, or when the individual is highly sensitive to rejection. Rejection by an entire group of people can have especially negative effects, particularly when it results in social isolation.[3]
The experience of rejection can lead to a number of adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, and depression.[4] It can also lead to feelings of insecurity and a heightened sensitivity to future rejection.[5]
Need for acceptance[edit]
Social rejection may be emotionally painful, due to the social nature of human beings, as well as the essential need for social interaction between other humans. Abraham Maslow and other theorists have suggested that the need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation.[6] According to Maslow, all humans, even introverts, need to be able to give and receive affection to be psychologically healthy.
Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfill this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships. People need both stable relationships and satisfying interactions with the people in those relationships. If either of these two ingredients is missing, people will begin to feel lonely and unhappy.[7] Thus, rejection is a significant threat. In fact, the majority of human anxieties appear to reflect concerns over social exclusion.[8]
Being a member of a group is also important for social identity, which is a key component of the self-concept. Mark Leary of Duke University has suggested that the main purpose of self-esteem is to monitor social relations and detect social rejection. In this view, self-esteem is a sociometer which activates negative emotions when signs of exclusion appear.[9]
Social psychological research confirms the motivational basis of the need for acceptance. Specifically, fear of rejection leads to conformity to peer pressure (sometimes called normative influence, cf. informational influence), and compliance to the demands of others. The need for affiliation and social interaction appears to be particularly strong under stress.[10]
Peer rejection has been measured using sociometry and other rating methods. Studies typically show that some children are popular, receiving generally high ratings, many children are in the middle, with moderate ratings, and a minority of children are rejected, showing generally low ratings. One measure of rejection asks children to list peers they like and dislike. Rejected children receive few "like" nominations and many "dislike" nominations. Children classified as neglected receive few nominations of either type.
According to Karen Bierman of Pennsylvania State University, most children who are rejected by their peers display one or more of the following behavior patterns:
Bierman states that well-liked children show social savvy and know when and how to join play groups. Children who are at risk for rejection are more likely to barge in disruptively, or hang back without joining at all. Aggressive children who are athletic or have good social skills are likely to be accepted by peers, and they may become ringleaders in the harassment of less skilled children. Minority children, children with disabilities, or children who have unusual characteristics or behavior may face greater risks of rejection. Depending on the norms of the peer group, sometimes even minor differences among children lead to rejection or neglect. Children who are less outgoing or simply prefer solitary play are less likely to be rejected than children who are socially inhibited and show signs of insecurity or anxiety.[11]
Peer rejection, once established, tends to be stable over time, and thus is difficult for a child to overcome.[12] Researchers have found that active rejection is more stable, more harmful, and more likely to persist after a child transfers to another school, than simple neglect.[11] One reason for this is that peer groups establish reputational biases that act as stereotypes and influence subsequent social interaction.[13] Thus, even when rejected and popular children show similar behavior and accomplishments, popular children are treated much more favorably.
Rejected children are likely to have lower self-esteem, and to be at greater risk for internalizing problems like depression.[4] Some rejected children display externalizing behavior and show aggression rather than depression. The research is largely correlational, but there is evidence of reciprocal effects. This means that children with problems are more likely to be rejected, and this rejection then leads to even greater problems for them. Chronic peer rejection may lead to a negative developmental cycle that worsens with time.[14]
Rejected children are more likely to be bullied and to have fewer friends than popular children, but these conditions are not always present. For example, some popular children do not have close friends, whereas some rejected children do. Peer rejection is believed to be less damaging for children with at least one close friend.
An analysis of 15 school shootings between 1995 and 2001 found that peer rejection was present in all but two of the cases (87%). The documented rejection experiences included both acute and chronic rejection and frequently took the form of ostracism, bullying, and romantic rejection. The authors stated that although it is likely that the rejection experiences contributed to the school shootings, other factors were also present, such as depression, poor impulse control, and other psychopathology.[15]
There are programs available for helping children who suffer from social rejection. One large scale review of 79 controlled studies found that social skills training is very effective (r = 0.40 effect size), with a 70% success rate, compared to 30% success in control groups. There was a decline in effectiveness over time, however, with follow-up studies showing a somewhat smaller effect size (r = 0.35).[16]
Romantic rejection[edit]
In contrast to the study of childhood rejection, which primarily examines rejection by a group of peers, some researchers focus on the phenomenon of a single individual rejecting another in the context of a romantic relationship. In both teenagers and adults, romantic rejection occurs when a person refuses the romantic advances of another, ignores/avoids or is repulsed by someone who is romantically interested in them, or unilaterally ends an existing relationship. The state of unrequited love is a common experience in youth, but mutual love becomes more typical as people get older.[48]
Romantic rejection is a painful, emotional experience that appears to trigger a response in the caudate nucleus of the brain, and associated dopamine and cortisol activity.[49] Subjectively, rejected individuals experience a range of negative emotions, including frustration, intense anger, jealousy, hate, and eventually, resignation, despair, and possible long-term depression. However, there have been cases where individuals go back and forth between depression and anger.
Rejection sensitivity[edit]
Karen Horney was the first theorist to discuss the phenomenon of rejection sensitivity.[50] She suggested that it is a component of the neurotic personality, and that it is a tendency to feel deep anxiety and humiliation at the slightest rebuff. Simply being made to wait, for example, could be viewed as a rejection and met with extreme anger and hostility.[51]
Albert Mehrabian developed an early questionnaire measure of rejection sensitivity.[52] Mehrabian suggested that sensitive individuals are reluctant to express opinions, tend to avoid arguments or controversial discussions, are reluctant to make requests or impose on others, are easily hurt by negative feedback from others, and tend to rely too much on familiar others and situations so as to avoid rejection.
A more recent (1996) definition of rejection sensitivity is the tendency to "anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact" to social rejection.[53] People differ in their readiness to perceive and react to rejection.[53] The causes of individual differences in rejection sensitivity are not well understood. Because of the association between rejection sensitivity and neuroticism, there is a likely genetic predisposition.[54] Rejection sensitive dysphoria, while not a formal diagnosis, is also a common symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, estimated to affect a majority of people with ADHD.[55][56][57] Others posit that rejection sensitivity stems from early attachment relationships and parental rejection;[54] peer rejection is also thought to play a role.[54][58] Bullying, an extreme form of peer rejection, is likely connected to later rejection sensitivity.[54] However, there is no conclusive evidence for any of these theories.[54]
Health effects[edit]
Social rejection has a large effect on a person's health. Baumeister and Leary originally suggested that an unsatisfied need to belong would inevitably lead to problems in behavior as well as mental and physical health.[7] Corroboration of these assumptions about behavior deficits were seen by John Bowlby in his research.[59] Numerous studies have found that being socially rejected leads to an increase in levels of anxiety.[60][61][62][63] Additionally, the level of depression a person feels as well as the amount they care about their social relationships is directly proportional to the level of rejection they perceive.[63] Rejection affects the emotional health and well being of a person as well. Overall, experiments show that those who have been rejected will suffer from more negative emotions and have fewer positive emotions than those who have been accepted or those who were in neutral or control conditions.[64]
In addition to the emotional response to rejection, there is a large effect on physical health as well. Having poor relationships and being more frequently rejected is predictive of mortality.[65] Also, as long as a decade after a marriage ends, divorced women have higher rates of illness than their non-married or currently married counterparts.[66] In the case of a family estrangement, a core part of the mother's identity may be betrayed by the rejection of an adult child.[67] The chance for reconciliation, however slight, results in an inability to attain closure.[68] The resulting emotional state and societal stigma from the estrangement may harm the psychological and physical health of the parent for the rest of their life.[69][70][71]
The immune system tends to be harmed when a person experiences social rejection.[72][73] This can cause severe problems for those with diseases such as HIV. One study by Cole, Kemeny, and Taylor investigated the differences in the disease progression of HIV-positive gay men who were sensitive to rejection compared to those who were not considered rejection sensitive.[73] The study, which took place over nine years, indicated significantly faster rates of low T helper cells, therefore leading to an earlier AIDS diagnosis. They also found that those patients who were more sensitive to rejection died from the disease an average of two years earlier than their non-rejection sensitive counterparts.[73]
Other aspects of health are also affected by rejection. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure increase upon imagining a rejection scenario.[74] Those who are socially rejected have an increased likelihood of suffering from tuberculosis, as well as suicide.[75] Rejection and isolation were found to affect levels of pain following an operation[76] as well as other physical forms of pain.[62] Social rejection may cause a reduction in intelligence.[77] MacDonald and Leary theorize that rejection and exclusion cause physical pain because that pain is a warning sign to support human survival. As humans developed into social creatures, social interactions and relationships became necessary for survival, and the physical pain systems already existed within the human body.[78]