The present research proposes that individuals who are socially excluded can turn to religion to cope with the experience. Empirical studies conducted to test this hypothesis consistently found that socially excluded persons reported (a) significantly higher levels of religious affiliation (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and (b) stronger intentions to engage in religious behaviors (Study 2) than comparable, nonexcluded individuals. Direct support for the stress-buffering function of religiousness was also found, with a religious prime reducing the aggression-eliciting effects of consequent social rejection (Study 5). These effects were observed in both Christian and Muslim samples, revealing that turning to religion can be a powerful coping response when dealing with social rejection. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Building on the emotion-centered model of voluntary work behavior, this research tests the relations between leader narcissism, followers' malicious and benign envy, and supervisor-targeted counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Results across five studies (i.e., one pilot study (N = 50), two experimental studies (N = 74 and 50), and two field surveys (N = 365 and 100) indicate that leader narcissism relates positively to followers' negative emotions (i.e., malicious envy), which in turn mediates the positive relation between leader narcissism and supervisor-targeted CWB. Proposed negative relations between leader narcissism and positive emotions (i.e., benign envy) were only partly supported. Our findings advance the understanding of envy and the detrimental impact of leader narcissism on organizational functioning.

We investigated how participants with collectivistic and individualistic orientation cope with social exclusion on a behavioral level. In Studies 1 and 2, we found participants with more individualistic orientation to indicate more antisocial behavioral intentions in response to exclusion than participants with more collectivistic orientation. In a third and fourth study we replicated our findings across cultures: German and US participants indicated more antisocial and avoiding behavioral intentions when excluded compared to Turkish and Indian participants who did not differ in their behavioral intentions between inclusion and exclusion.In Studies 3 and 4, only German and US participants were significantly affected by exclusion, Imagine yourself walking through a park in your neighborhood. Around one of the benches you see a group of people you know from a professional course; you hear them laughing and talking about a social event. You decide to stop and greet them. As you arrive at the group, they stop talking; the conversation fades into an awkward silence. You realize that these people did not want to invite you to the event they were talking about. You are feeling excluded. How will you react in this situation? Angrily, shocked, or friendly?Research shows that a person's reaction to social exclusion may depend on their cultural self-construal: People with a more interdependent self-construal are less affected by negative psychological consequences of social exclusion than people with a more independent selfconstrual (Gardner, Knowles, & Jefferis, 2012;Ren, Wesselmann, & Williams, 2013).Therefore, there is reason to expect differences in how people experience social exclusion. Does this also hold true for behavioral intentions? The present article investigates how people with different self-construal respond to incidents of social exclusion on the level of behavioral intentions. Immediate and downstream reactions to social exclusionThe need to belong is a fundamental motivation of human nature that has been compared to hunger or thirst (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). A threat to this need can have tremendously painful and stressful outcomes for the individual. The psychological consequence is a decrease in the feelings of belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000;Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004). In the above example, the immediate reaction is characterized by an initial feeling of being rejected.This first reaction is associated with a physiological alarm system being mobilized in the body: Blood pressure increases (Zadro, 2004) and the anterior cingulated cortex-the neuronal alarm system that is associated with physical pain-is activated (Eisenberger, Liebermann, & Williams, 2003). The urgency of this initial reaction to social exclusion EXCLUSION, IND/COL, AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS 4 indicates the existence of a pre-cognitive warning system . Williams (2007) refers to these reactions as reflexive reactions.In a second step, excluded people try to ...

Religious affiliation has consistently been shown to help individuals cope with adversity and stressful events. The present paper argues that this proposition is valid for both Christians and Muslims, but that these religious identities foster different types of coping. In accordance with historical, cultural, and psychological accounts, it is proposed that the Christian core self is relatively individualistic, whereas the Muslim core self is oriented more toward the collective. As a consequence, it is hypothesized that when confronted with a stressful life event, Muslims are more likely to adopt interpersonal (collective) coping strategies (such as seeking social support or turning to family members), while Christians are more likely to engage intrapersonal (individualistic) coping mechanisms, such as cognitive restructuring or reframing the event. Evidence from the literature on coping strategies is reviewed and systematized. Evidence lend support to the analysis by indicating that Muslims indeed tend to use an interpersonally oriented (collective) coping style when dealing with adversity, whereas Christians are more likely to employ intrapersonally oriented (individualistic) strategies when facing comparable scenarios. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

No abstract

No abstract

We examined how individualistic versus collectivistic cultural backgrounds affected the psychological experience of social exclusion. We found that Turkish, Chinese and Indian participants (collectivistic background) differed in their experience of social exclusion from German participants (individualistic background): German participants experienced lower fulfilment of psychological needs in response to social exclusion, whereas Turkish, Chinese and Indian participants were affected to a lesser extent (Turkey, India, Hong Kong) or not at all (mainland China) by social exclusion manipulations. Testing two different explanatory mechanisms in Study 3, we found that the difference in dealing with social exclusion was not associated with activating social representations in participants with collectivistic background but with exclusion being associated with more threat in participants with individualistic background. In Study 4, cultural differences emerged also on the physiological level: German

Other persons' laughter, normally perceived as a signal that persons are friendly and inviting others to approach, can also be perceived as a cue of social rejection. In this study, prerecorded laughter was placed in a realistic and personally relevant context, and participants' responses were related to gelotophobia, a trait predisposing to perceiving laughter as a cue of social rejection. Individuals with gelotophobia showed marked heart rate deceleration in response to the laughter stimulus, possibly indicating a "freezing-like" response. Moreover, cardiac responses to anger provocation by overtly insulting statements indicated heightened aggressive anger in response to cumulated social threat. The study adds to recent research showing specific cardiac responses to social rejection and to the literature on social rejection sensitivity by demonstrating the value of using well interpretable physiological measures in this research context.