اتصال مجدد اجتماعی بازبینی شده: اثرات خطر طرد اجتماعی در روابط متقابل، اعتماد و ریسک پذیری عمومی

We hypothesize that people at risk of exclusion from groups will engage in actions that can socially reconnect them with others and test the hypothesis in four studies. We show that participants at risk of exclusion reciprocated the behavior of an unknown person (Study 1a) and a potential excluder (Study 1b) more compared to two control groups (people who received a non-social negative feedback and people who were actually excluded). Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1a with trust as the dependent variable. Study 3 showed that people who were at risk of exclusion took less general risk compared with both control groups. These results demonstrate socially adaptive responses of people who are at risk of social exclusion.

Psychologists have long viewed an individual’s desire to belong to a group as a fundamental human need (e.g. Bowlby, 1969, Bowlby, 1973, Freud, 1930 and Maslow, 1968). In a large-scale review encompassing a number of studies, Baumeister and Leary concur that “a need to belong, that is, a need to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of interpersonal relationships, is innately prepared (and hence nearly universal) among human beings” (1995, p. 502). Consequently, people react negatively when belongingness needs are unmet. Indeed, many empirical studies that followed the Baumeister and Leary review (1995) demonstrate negative consequences following social exclusion, defined as a “perceived deficit in belongingness” (Stillman et al., 2009, p. 687). These studies show that individuals who are excluded by others exhibit a variety of negative emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. For example, they show a greater preference for risky long-shot lotteries, procrastinate more, and make more unhealthy food choices (Baumeister et al., 2005 and Twenge et al., 2002). Social exclusion also appears to affect performance in complex cognitive tasks (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002) and results in other cognitive deficiencies, such as overestimation of time intervals, a focus on the present rather than the future and a failure to delay gratification (Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003). When looking at the effects of social exclusion on interpersonal social behavior, a common sense expectation is that people who are socially excluded should make efforts to reconnect with other people. Indeed, most people would say that they are aware of insecure people who are eager to curry favor and volunteer to do things that may mitigate the sense of isolation that they feel in the group. This would be consistent with the rational-choice argument that people should seek alternative methods to satisfy needs that are thwarted (Thau, Aquino, & Poortvliet, 2007). Yet, quite surprisingly, many studies show that rather than attempting to make new friends or build social capital by being prosocial, socially excluded individuals appear to engage in self-defeating social behaviors that further isolate them from social collectives. Socially excluded people are less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as donating money to charity, volunteering, and cooperating in a prisoner’s dilemma game (Twenge, Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Bartels, 2007). More surprisingly, Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, and Stucke (2001) show that excluded people engage in aggression even towards innocent bystanders compared to people who were not excluded. And ethnographic analysis of school shooting incidents also found a link between exclusion and aggression (Leary, Kowalski, Smith, & Phillips, 2003). Despite this fairly compelling evidence showing that excluded individuals act in ways that alienate others (see Blackhart, Baumeister, & Twenge (2006), for a review), some studies hint at increased reconnection efforts by those who are socially excluded. For example, Maner, DeWall, Baumeister, and Schaller (2007) show that participants who were socially excluded were increasingly motivated to make connections with new sources of affiliation compared to participants who were not socially excluded. However, these reconnection efforts are seen only when a future face-to-face interaction is expected to occur and only for people who do not fear negative evaluation. Other studies that show increased social conformity following exclusion (Willams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000), improved detection and a higher preference of real versus fake smiles (Bernstein et al., 2010 and Bernstein et al., 2008), increased attendance to signs of acceptance (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, 2009), and selective memory of socially relevant stimuli (Gardner, Pickett, & Brewer, 2000) all suggest that social reconnection may be a salient goal for excluded people. While these studies are interesting, they provide only indirect evidence of reconnection, as they show an increased motivation to reconnect but for the most part do not show reconnecting behavior (see Baumeister, Brewer, Tice, & Twenge, 2007 for a review). The mixed evidence of past research raises the question about the set of circumstances that lead socially excluded people to try and reconnect back to social groups. One possibility is that people who are socially excluded approach others with mixed feelings (Baumeister et al., 2007). They may want to reconnect, but are also afraid of being further exploited (Vohs, Baumeister, & Chin, 2007). It seems right to assume that people will not (and can not) make any attempt to reconnect with people once they have been definitely excluded. How about situations where exclusion is not definite? The current paper argues that when the exclusion is not final and there is an opportunity to reconnect people at risk of exclusion should behave in ways that increase chances of inclusion. The finality of exclusion is an important contingency that appears to have been overlooked in past research. In most experimental manipulations of social exclusion, people are told that they have been excluded and are given no reason to believe that they can change that state of affairs. As a result, they view attempts to reconnect as futile and react aggressively to their difficult situation. People may respond rationally by increasing their efforts at reconnecting with their group if the exclusion is not final. In this paper, we study the responses of people who are at risk of exclusion which, we define, building on the definition of social exclusion we cited earlier (Stillman et al., 2009), as “a perceived risk of deficit in belongingness.” By looking at people who are at risk of exclusion we contribute to the social exclusion literature by noting that social exclusion may be the end point of a long social process where people who are at risk of being excluded do nothing to mitigate the risk. Perhaps, they do nothing because they do not understand that they are at risk or they may think that they are unable to do anything about the exclusion. The lack of reconnection efforts are unlikely to be because of a lack of motivation to change their inclusionary status, as past research has shown that people are generally highly motivated towards making social reconnections when they are excluded (even though evidence is mixed about whether the heightened motivation leads to actual reconnection behaviors). This heightened motivation to reconnect must also be present when they are at risk of being excluded. And given that there is a chance that they will not be excluded, the increased salience of reconnection may lead to increased reconnection behaviors when the exclusion is not final unlike in situations where people are excluded with finality. It is reasonable to assume that people receive signals from others (e.g., leaders in groups) that they are at risk of being excluded before they are finally excluded. These signals may be communicated formally as in the case of people being told to become better team players in their annual performance reviews, or informally being told that they are not fitting in with others in the group. When people get these signals, they may actually engage in attempts to mitigate the risk of exclusion, either by exerting greater efforts on behalf of the group or by making efforts to connect socially with others (Allen and Badcock, 2003 and Pillutla and Thau, 2009). A recent study by Molden, Lucas, Gardner, Dean, and Knowles (2009), which contrasted the consequences of being rejected with being ignored, provides some support for our argument that people who face exclusion risks will engage in social reconnection behaviors. Their study showed that rejected participants were more likely to withdraw from social contact, while ignored participants were more likely to attempt to re-engage in social contact. Being ignored may be like a signal that one may be at risk of exclusion leading to the adaptive response of attempts at reconnection, while being rejected may be a signal of actual exclusion leading to the maladaptive response of withdrawal. The current paper tests the possibility that people are more likely to make social connections when they receive signals suggesting that they are at risk of being excluded compared to situations where they are actually excluded and therefore unable to make any corrections. Specifically, we look at whether those who are at risk of exclusion display greater trust in others and also reciprocate others’ trusting actions more than others who are not at risk. We study reciprocity and trust because they are considered to be fundamental actions involved in building social connections (Fukuyama, 1995; Putnam, 1995). We also examine the impact of social exclusion risk1 on non-social risk-taking by investigating whether the increased trust that may come from exclusion risk is due to an increase in a general tendency to take risks rather than a desire to make social connections.

To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating how reciprocity and trust is affected by potential exclusion. We believe the results obtained deserve further consideration in future research since they have important implications both from theoretical and practical perspectives. The results show how people who are at risk of social exclusion do signal to social groups that they want to be included and want to build relationships. Ignoring these signals, or not sending them, may result in the actual exclusion of those at risk people, with the various well documented ill-effects of actual exclusion.