Excluded emotions: The role of anger in antisocial responses to ostracism
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,
References (40)
- et al.
Emotional and behavioral responses to interpersonal rejection: Anger, sadness, hurt, and aggression
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(2004) Anger and aggression: An essay on emotion
(1982)Studies on anger and aggression: Implications for theories of emotion
American Psychologist
(1983)- et al.
The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation
Psychological Bulletin
(1995) - et al.
Effects of social exclusion on cognitive processes: Anticipated aloneness reduces intelligent thought
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(2002) - et al.
Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger
Emotion
(2004) - et al.
Negative affects and social judgment: The differential impact of anger and sadness
European Journal of Social Psychology
(1994) - et al.
Modeling: An analysis in terms of category accessibility
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(1983) - et al.
Reactions to stigma: The moderating role of justifications
- et al.
Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(2006)
Social information processing bases of aggressive behavior in children
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Independence and bipolarity in the structure of current affect
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Affective influences on attitudes and judgments
Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness
Journal of personality and Social Psychology
White guilt and racial compensation: The benefits and limits of self-focus
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Interpersonal rejection
Interpersonal rejection as a determinant of anger and aggression
Personality and Social Psychology Review
Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice
Cognition and Emotion
Portrait of the angry decision maker: How appraisal tendencies shape anger’s influence on cognition
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
Intergroup emotions: Explaining offensive action tendencies in an intergroup context
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Cited by (198)
Do targets of ostracism truthfully communicate their emotional reactions to sources?
2023, Acta PsychologicaThe influence of social exclusion on adolescents' social withdrawal behavior: The moderating role of connectedness to nature
2023, Journal of Environmental PsychologyIt is not only what you do, but why you do it: The role of attribution in employees' emotional and behavioral responses to illegitimate tasks
2023, Journal of Vocational Behavior