Excluded emotions: The role of anger in antisocial responses to ostracism

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Abstract

In this article, we examined the role of anger in the link between social exclusion and antisocial behavior. We compared the effects of anger to another negative emotion, sadness. In Study 1, social exclusion was associated with feelings of anger, and anger was associated with antisocial behavior. In contrast, sadness was not associated with antisocial behavior. In Study 2, feelings of anger were manipulated by excluding participants for either a fair or unfair reason. Unfairly excluded participants were more angry and were more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than fairly excluded participants. Implications for the study of emotions in the context of social exclusion are discussed.

Section snippets

Exclusion, affect, and antisocial behavior

Previous research on behavioral responses to social exclusion has found that although sometimes exclusion can increase prosocial behaviors (e.g. behaviors designed to help or increase affiliation with another), other times exclusion can foster antisocial behaviors (e.g. behaviors designed to harm another). For example, some studies have shown that ostracized individuals will engage in prosocial behaviors such as doing favors for others (Williams & Sommer, 1997) or conforming to group attitudes (

Study 1

Study 1 tested the hypothesis that participants who feel angry after being socially excluded will respond with antisocial behavior. We also contrasted the effects of anger with another negative emotion, sadness, which is often considered a prototypic negative emotion (Feldman Barrett and Russell, 1998, Forgas, 2003, Russell and Carroll, 1999), to highlight the effects of anger on antisocial responses. Participants were either included or excluded from an online ball tossing game. After playing

Study 2

In Study 2, our goal was to manipulate individuals’ levels of anger after being excluded. Previous research has shown that people feel angry when they think they have been treated unfairly (Berkowitz & Harmon-Jones, 2004). For example, surveys in which people describe their anger experiences indicate that anger co-occurs with a sense that something is illegitimate or unjust (Mikula et al., 1998, Roseman, 1991). Thus, in Study 2, we manipulated participants’ reactions to ostracism by exposing

General discussion

Why does social rejection sometimes lead to prosocial behavior and sometimes lead to antisocial behavior? In this paper, we suggested that when people feel angry about being rejected, they are more likely to respond with antisocial behavior.

Previous research on the emotional link between ostracism and antisocial behavior has generally concluded that negative affect is not the mediator of the relationship (Baumeister et al., 2002, Buckley et al., 2004, Twenge et al., 2001, Twenge et al., 2002).

Conclusion

Our present findings suggest that the emotions that individuals feel in response to social exclusion play a large role in determining their behavioral response to the exclusion. Specifically, individuals who feel angry at being excluded are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors. By illuminating the role of emotions in the link between social exclusion and antisocial behavior, our research indicates that in order to effectively remedy some of the social problems arising from exclusion,

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