People who are sensitive to social rejection tend to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to it. This article shows that this cognitive-affective processing disposition undermines intimate relationships. Study 1 describes a measure that operationalizes the anxious-expectations component of rejection sensitivity. Study 2 provides experimental evidence that people who anxiously expect rejection readily perceive intentional rejection in the ambiguous behavior of others. Study 3 shows that people who enter romantic relationships with anxious expectations of rejection readily perceive intentional rejection in the insensitive behavior of their new partners. Study 4 demonstrates that rejection-sensitive people and their romantic partners are dissatisfied with their relationships. Rejection-sensitive men's jealousy and rejection-sensitive women's hostility and diminished supportiveness help explain their partners' dissatisfaction. The desire to achieve acceptance and to avoid rejection is widely acknowledged to be a central human motive (

This article reviews the various literatures on the adjustment of children of depressed parents, difficulties in parenting and parent-child interaction in these families, and contextual factors that may play a role in child adjustment and parent depression. First, issues arising from the recurrent, episodic, heterogeneous nature of depression are discussed. Second, studies on the adjustment of children with a depressed parent are summarized. Early studies that used depressed parents as controls for schizophrenic parents found equivalent risk for child disturbance. Subsequent studies using better-defined samples of depressed parents found that these children were at risk for a full range of adjustment problems and at specific risk for clinical depression. Third, the parenting difficulties of depressed parents are described and explanatory models of child adjustment problems are outlined. Contextual factors, particularly marital distress, remain viable alternative explanations for both child and parenting problems. Fourth, important gaps in the literature are identified, and a consistent, if unintentional, "mother-bashing" quality in the existing literature is noted. Given the limitations in knowledge, large-scale, long-term, longitudinal studies would be premature at this time.

The authors proposed a process model whereby experiences of rejection based on membership in a devalued group can lead people to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to status-based rejection. To test the model, the authors focused on race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) among African Americans. Following the development and validation of the RS-Race Questionnaire (Studies 1 and 2), the authors tested the utility of the model for understanding African American students' experiences at a predominantly White university (Study 3). Students high in RS-race experienced greater discomfort during the college transition, less trust in the university, and relative declines in grades over a 2-to 3-year period. Positive race-related experiences, however, increased feelings of belonging at the institution among students high in RS-race.Every day, I wear a suit and tie. I get on the train. I always have The New York Times, and a cup of coffee too. But you know what? Every day, I am the last person people sit next to on the train! Especially White women. Do you know that one day I got off the train and I happened to be walking behind this woman and she clutched her bag, started walking faster, and kept turning around, as if I was following her! Like I wanted to take her purse . . . I'm so used to this happening that even when a woman might be in a rush to get to work, and maybe she didn't even see me, I think she's scared and running away from me. Your mind starts to play tricks on you like that, after a while.-Ian, African American focus group participant Whether one is a disabled person entering the workplace, a woman entering the U.S. military, or an African American student entering a predominantly White university, a history of rejecting experiences based on status characteristics can lead to doubts about one's acceptance by members of these social institutions (Aronson, Quinn, & Spencer, 1998;Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999;Crocker, Luhtanen, Broadnax, & Blaine, 1999;Goffman, 1963;Tyler, 1990;Tyler & Smith, 1998). Despite the removal of legal and other structural barriers to achieving diversity, research suggests that some members of historically excluded groups continue to experience such doubts in social institutions that have marginalized them in the past (Bowen & Bok, 1998;Frable, Blackstone, & Sherbaum, 1990;Jones, 1972Jones, /1997Steele, 1997;Steele & Aronson, 1995;Terrell & Terrell, 1981). In this article, we examine how expectations of rejection based on membership in a stigmatized social category or status group influence people's personal and interpersonal experiences in majoritydominated social institutions. In particular, we examine whether anxious expectations of rejection based on such group membership can strain social relationships and undermine people's confidence in the institution's fairness and legitimacy, diminishing the motivation to persist in the pursuit of valued personal goals. Support for this proposition would provide evidence that maximizing individual and instit...

The authors hypothesized a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein rejection expectancies lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection from their dating partners. The hypothesis was tested in 2 studies of conflict in couples: (a) a longitudinal field study where couples provided daily-diary reports and (b) a lab study involving behavioral observations. Results from the field study showed that high rejection-sensitive (HRS) people's relationships were more likely to break up than those of low rejection-sensitive (LRS) people. Conflict processes that contribute to relationship erosion were revealed for HRS women but not for HRS men. Following naturally occurring relationship conflicts, HRS women's partners were more rejecting than were LRS women's partners. The lab study showed that HRS women's negative behavior during conflictual discussions helped explain their partners' more rejecting postconflict responses. example, theorized that people's internal working models of relationships, incorporating expectations of rejection and acceptance, shape their relationships. In an example of what Merton (1948) termed the self-fulfilling prophecy, Sroufe (1990) suggested that rejection expectations can lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection from others. In this article we examine whether and how this proposed self-fulfilling prophecy operates in the romantic relationships of people high in rejection sensitivity (RS).Drawing selectively on attachment and social-cognitive approaches to close relationships, we have conceptualized RS as the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection

Predictions from the Rejection Sensitivity (RS) model concerning the social causes and consequences of RS were examined in a longitudinal study of 150 middle school students. Peer nominations of rejection, self-report measures of anxious and angry rejection expectations, and social anxiety, social withdrawal, and loneliness were assessed at two time points. Results indicate that peer rejection at Time 1 predicted an increase in anxious and angry expectations of rejection at Time 2, but only for boys. Being liked by peers, irrespective of level of dislike, predicted a reduction in anxious rejection expectations in both boys and girls. Further, anxious expectations of rejection were uniquely predictive of increased social anxiety and withdrawal. Angry expectations of rejection, an established unique predictor of increased aggression, predicted decreased social anxiety. Both anxious and angry expectations predicted increased loneliness, but neither were unique predictors of loneliness. Implications of viewing anxious and angry expectations of rejection as distinct cognitive-affective vulnerabilities for adolescents are discussed.Being rejected by one's peers is a potent predictor of both current and future relational difficulties