Social exclusion causes a shift toward prevention motivation

• Chronic loneliness was associated with greater strength of prevention motivation and lower strength of promotion motivation. • Recall of an experience of social exclusion increased prevention goals. • Computer-stimulated ostracism led to fewer goal-promoting strategies. • Reading a hypothetical scenario of social exclusion caused a cautious, conservative response bias. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Four studies demonstrated that social exclusion caused a shift from promotion toward prevention motivation. Lonely individuals reported stronger prevention motivation and weaker promotion motivation than non-lonely individuals (Study 1). Those who either recalled an experience of social exclusion or were ostracized during an on-line ball tossing game reported stronger prevention motivation and generated fewer goal-promoting strategies (Studies 2 and 3) than those who were not excluded. Last, a hypothetical scenario of social exclusion caused a conservative response bias, whereas a scenario of social acceptance yielded a risky response bias in a recognition task (Study 4). Being excluded from social groups is aversive and often threatening. Not only do people have a fundamental need to feel socially accepted and to maintain strong, stable social bonds — that need drives a great many cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Individuals who are deprived of social connection experience depression, emotional distress, and low self-esteem (Baumeister & A lack of social belonging can also cause physical problems such as low blood pressure, poor sleep efficiency, and even premature death (Cacioppo et al. Given the importance of the need to belong, an adaptive response to social exclusion would be initiating attempts to reconnect with others. However, past research on social exclusion has provided, at best, mixed support for this view and even found seemingly contrary trends. Social exclusion leads to defensive and even hostile or antisocial responses , which seem hardly conducive to making new friends (see Baumeister, Brewer, Tice, & Twenge, 2007). Excluded people become aggressive toward another person, decline to donate money to a student emergency fund, and cooperate less with another person If people evolved to cooperate and work together so that belonging-ness is a fundamental motivation, why do excluded people seem tentative about seeking affiliation? One possible answer is that the very strength of the motivation to connect makes people highly averse to experiencing rejection, and being rejected triggers a strong desire to avoid being rejected again. In our …