If you can't join them, beat them: effects of social exclusion on aggressive behavior.
Social exclusion was manipulated by telling people that they would end up alone later in life or that other participants had rejected them. These manipulations caused participants to behave more aggressively. Excluded people issued a more negative job evaluation against someone who insulted them (Experiments 1 and 2). Excluded people also blasted a target with higher levels of aversive noise both when the target had insulted them (Experiment 4) and when the target was a neutral person and no interaction had occurred (Experiment 5). However, excluded people were not more aggressive toward someone who issued praise (Experiment 3). These responseswere specific to social exclusion (as opposed to other misfortunes) and were not mediated by emotion
Twenge
J M
JM
Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, California 92182-4611, USA. jtwenge@mail.sdsu.edu
Baumeister
R F
RF
Tice
D M
DM
Stucke
T S
TS
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D012918:Social Alienation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires