Rejecting another pains the self: The impact of perceived future rejection

Abstract

The current investigation examined whether people would experience a higher level of pain after rejecting another person, especially for those high in evaluative concern, through increased perceptions of future rejection. Three experiments provide converging support to these predictions. After reliving a past rejecting experience (Experiments 1 and 2) and concurrently rejecting another person (Experiment 3), the source of rejection experienced a higher level of pain than participants in the control conditions. We also found that evaluative concern, either primed (Experiment 2) or measured (Experiment 3) moderated the above effect, such that this effect was only observed among participants high in evaluative concern, but not among those low in evaluative concern. Moreover, perceived future rejection mediated the moderating effect of evaluative concern and rejecting another person on the levels of pain people experience (Experiment 3). These findings contribute to the literature by showing a mechanism explaining why rejecting another person pains the self and who are more susceptible to this influence.

The Push of Social Pain: Does Rejection’s Sting Motivate Subsequent Social Reconnection?

“…McGill Pain Questionnaire -Short Form: To measure participants' experience of social pain due to social rejection, participants completed a well-validated measure of both sensory and affective pain, the McGill Pain Questionnaire (Melzack, 1987). Previous research on social rejection has shown that social rejection increases reports of the affective subscale of this measure, and have effectively used it as an index of social pain (e.g., Chen, Poon, Bernstein, & Teng, 2014;Chen, Williams, Fitness, & Newtown, 2008). This measure includes 15 adjectives regarding the subjective intensity of one's current pain levels, 0 (none) to 3 (severe).…”

The push of social pain: Does rejection’s sting motivate subsequent social reconnection?

“…Previous research on social rejection has shown that social rejection increases reports of the affective subscale of this measure, and have effectively used it as an index of social pain (e.g., Chen, Poon, Bernstein, & Teng, 2014; Chen, Williams, Fitness, & Newtown, 2008). This measure includes 15 adjectives regarding the subjective intensity of one’s current pain levels, 0 (none) to 3 (severe).…”

When Saying Sorry May Not Help: The Impact of Apologies on Social Rejections

“…However, social rejection is not always punitive: there are times when people cannot accept all invitations or wish to avoid a social encounter but are not trying to injure the target ( Freedman et al, 2016 ). In cases where punishment is not the goal, rejectors often find it difficult and unpleasant to engage in social rejection ( Folkes, 1982 ; Baumeister et al, 1993 ; Kets de Vries and Balazs, 1997 ; Ciarocco et al, 2001 ; Clair and Dufresne, 2004 ; Grunberg et al, 2006 ; Chen et al, 2014 ; however, see Zadro et al, 2005 for evidence that ostracism may be less difficult if you have peers also engaging in ostracism) and want to protect targets’ feelings ( Goffman, 1967 ; Folkes, 1982 ; Baumeister et al, 1993 ; Besson et al, 1998 ; Tom Tong and Walther, 2010 ). But almost nothing is known about how rejectors can protect targets’ feelings.…”