The company you keep: Fear of rejection in intergroup interaction

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o People use many cues to infer the likelihood of acceptance or rejection in intergroup interactions. Nearly all prior research has focused on personal cues directly given off by the potential interaction partner (e.g., eye contact and smiling). However, we argue that in the context of intergroup interactions, individuals may be especially sensitive to broader social cues, such as an interaction partner's social network. Across three experiments we explored differences in White participants' evaluations of a smiling Black man presented with a Black or White friend. When this Black man was featured with a Black friend, White participants reported greater rejection concerns and a greater inclination to reject this Black man compared to when he was featured with a White friend (Experiments 1–3) or featured alone (Experiment 2). Furthermore, when participants received a simple intervention designed to buffer against social rejection, the race of the Black man's friend no longer influenced participants' interests in befriending the Black man (Experiment 3). This research demonstrates the power of friendships in interracial interactions and provides evidence for a simple intervention to reduce the weight of rejection concerns in interracial interactions. " When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. " Japanese proverb. Whether it is the first day of work, a party at a colleague's house, or deciding where to sit in a cafeteria, we face the challenge of identifying who will socially reject or accept us., whether it comes from a meaningful interaction partner such as a loved one or friend, or a stranger in a computer ball-tossing game (e. Sakamoto, 2006), often due to concerns about rejection. For example, research finds that both Whites and Blacks desire greater levels of contact between groups (Shelton & Richeson, 2005). However, both parties tend to enter into intergroup interactions with negative expectations (Mallett, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2008) and believe members of the other group have little to no interest in intergroup contact (Shelton & Richeson, 2005). Not surprisingly, both White and minority individuals concerned about rejection avoid interracial contact …