Four studies demonstrated that social exclusion caused a shift from promotion toward prevention motivation. Lonely individuals reported stronger prevention motivation and weaker promotion motivation than non-lonely individuals (Study 1). Those who either recalled an experience of social exclusion or were ostracized during an on-line ball tossing game reported stronger prevention motivation and generated fewer goal-promoting strategies (Studies 2 and 3) than those who were not excluded. Last, a hypothetical scenario of social exclusion caused a conservative response bias, whereas a scenario of social acceptance yielded a risky response bias in a recognition task (Study 4).
Being excluded from social groups is aversive and often threatening. Not only do people have a fundamental need to feel socially accepted and to maintain strong, stable social bonds — that need drives a great many cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Individuals who are deprived of social connection experience depression, emotional distress, and low self-esteem (Baumeister and Tice, 1990, Cacioppo, Hughes, Waite, Hawkley and Thisted, 2006, Leary, 1990 and Leary et al., 1995). A lack of social belonging can also cause physical problems such as low blood pressure, poor sleep efficiency, and even premature death (Cacioppo et al., 2002, Herlitz et al., 1998 and Uchino et al., 1996).
Given the importance of the need to belong, an adaptive response to social exclusion would be initiating attempts to reconnect with others. However, past research on social exclusion has provided, at best, mixed support for this view and even found seemingly contrary trends. Social exclusion leads to defensive and even hostile or antisocial responses, which seem hardly conducive to making new friends (see Baumeister, Brewer, Tice, & Twenge, 2007). Excluded people become aggressive toward another person, decline to donate money to a student emergency fund, and cooperate less with another person ( DeWall et al., 2009 and Twenge et al., 2007). Although some studies have found that rejected individuals seek affiliation, the attempts to reconnect with others tend to be cautious and contingent (e.g., Gardner et al., 2000 and Maner et al., 2007).
If people evolved to cooperate and work together so that belongingness is a fundamental motivation, why do excluded people seem tentative about seeking affiliation? One possible answer is that the very strength of the motivation to connect makes people highly averse to experiencing rejection, and being rejected triggers a strong desire to avoid being rejected again. In our view, the most promising explanation to integrate all these findings is that excluded people would like to make new social connections but above all want to make sure that they will not suffer through being rejected again. That is, the socially excluded would give priority to preventing further experiences of rejection rather than promoting social connection.
In sum, social exclusion may increase security concerns (prevention motivation) at the expense of advancement concerns (promotion motivation; Higgins, 1997 and Molden et al., 2008). This motivational shift from promotion to prevention was the central hypothesis of our investigation.
