Speaking to the heart: Social exclusion and reliance on feelings versus reasons in persuasion

Abstract

The authors of this study identify an alternative frame of communication for persuading people who feel socially excluded to behave in ways that benefit individual and social wellbeing, regardless of future connection possibilities. The authors suggest that socially excluded (included) consumers tend to rely on affect (cognition) in processing information, and to consequently prefer persuasive messages based on feelings (reasons). The effect occurs because people tend to ruminate about exclusionary events, which depletes self‐regulatory resources. Thus, distraction that interferes with rumination can mitigate the social exclusion effect on affective processing. The authors present findings from five studies across various paradigms promoting personal and social wellbeing (i.e., donating blood, recycling, and consuming healthful foods) and discuss the theoretical and policy implications.

Underdogs make an alliance: The co‐experience of rejection promotes cooperation

“…This may be because social rejection activates a hostile mindset that increases the tendency to view others as aggressive (e.g., DeWall et al, 2010;DeWall, Twenge, Gitter, & Baumeister, 2009), or it may be because rejection causes individuals to inaccurately believe that the inclusive others had engaged in exclusion (Chernyak & Zayas, 2010). Other research, however, showed that rejected individuals may act pro-socially or cooperatively towards those who might provide renewed social connection (De Cremer, 2002;De Cremer & Leonardelli, 2003;Lee, & Shrum, 2012;Maner et al, 2007) to satisfy the need to belong (Lu & Sinha, 2017;Smart & Leary, 2009). These findings are valuable, but one implicit assumption that this literature makes is that social rejection is an 'individual social experience'.…”

“…A large body of research shows that social rejection threatens the need to belong (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007;Goodwin, Williams, & Carter-Sowell, 2010;Williams, 2007;Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004), an extremely basic and powerful human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Maslow, 1943). When the need to belong is threatened by social rejection, the rejected individuals are motivated to pursue social connection so as to re-establish their belongingness (Lu & Sinha, 2017;Smart & Leary, 2009;Tai, Zheng, & Narayanan, 2011). Some research showed that rejection led individuals to be more attentive towards socially related information (Bernstein, Sacco, Brown, Young, & Claypool, 2010).…”

Rise of ‘Lonely’ Consumers in the Post-COVID-19 Era: A Synthesised Review on Psychological, Commercial and Social Implications

“…Affects refer to feelings or emotions, and information processing based on affects is automatic and faster. Meanwhile, cognition involves reasons and logics, and information processing based on cognition is deliberate and consumes more cognitive resources [ 53 ]. For consumers who experience loneliness, our review suggests that loneliness impair individuals’ cognitive thinking, which makes affective persuasions more effective to emotionally vulnerable consumers.…”

“…For consumers who experience loneliness, our review suggests that loneliness impair individuals’ cognitive thinking, which makes affective persuasions more effective to emotionally vulnerable consumers. In other words, consumers tend to rely on feelings and emotions to process external information and, thus, the affect-based messages may be more effective in swaying lonely consumers’ product choices [ 53 ].…”

“…After the prolonged period (nearly a year to date) of social isolation due to COVID-19, it is unclear if the exclusion gives rise to a group of ‘loners’ who prefer uniqueness in their consumption or a group of ‘conformers’ who favour consensus and popular choices. To this end, our identified literature suggests an affect-based persuasion strategy that may appeal to the vulnerable emotions of lonely consumers [ 53 ]. The persuasion strategy is also found to be more effective in individualistic cultures compared with the collectivist culture.…”