Social exclusion and the deconstructed state: time perception, meaninglessness, lethargy, lack of emotion, and self-awareness.
The authors hypothesize that socially excluded individuals enter a defensive state of cognitive deconstruction that avoids meaningful thought, emotion, and self-awareness, and is characterized by lethargy and altered time flow. Social rejection led to an overestimation of time intervals, a focus on the present rather than the future, and a failure to delay gratification (Experiment 1). Rejected participants were more likely to agree that "Life is meaningless" (Experiment 2). Excluded participants wrote fewer words and displayed slower reaction times (Experiments 3 and 4). They chose fewer emotion words in an implicit emotion task (Experiment 5), replicating the lack of emotion on explicit measures (Experiments 1-3 and 6). Excluded participants also tried to escape from self-awareness by facing away from a mirror (Experiment 6).
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012059:Rejection, Psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology*; D012918:Social Alienation / Q000523:psychology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*