Individual Differences in Self-Esteem in Response to Different Forms of Social Exclusion

Social exclusion is a dynamic interactive process, yet previous research has mostly focus on the effect of different social exclusions in general terms. In this study, we investigated that whether peoples self-esteem after different categories of social exclusions is moderated by individual differences in Rejection Sensitivity. Participants are first engaged in a Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (Downey & Feldman, 1996) and an explicit self-esteem measurement. After a few weeks, they finished an explicit self-esteem measurement questionnaire which involved one of three kinds of social exclusion occasions. Each questionnaire pointed out the same situation: the participants met a friendly stranger at the weekend party and wanted to deepen their relationship. However, they all received different types of rejection and were in the exclusion condition. Implication of this research is to understand how individual differences in Rejection Sensitivity will affect the consequences in three circumstances of social exclusions: explicit rejection, ostracism, and ambiguous rejection. We expect to find that people with different rejection sensitivity will have different fluctuations in self-esteem in the face of three kinds of social exclusion. For example, people with high rejection sensitivity may suffer a more serious blow to their self-esteem in the face of direct rejection since they feel more anxious and sensitive to being rejected.