Expectations of Social Inclusion and Exclusion

Individuals engage in social interactions generally expecting inclusion (Kerr and Levine, 2008; Wesselmann et al., 2010, 2013). This expectation seems reasonable, given individuals’ basic need to establish and maintain social connections to sustain physical and psychological well-being (Baumeister and Leary, 1995). However, individuals often experience social exclusion; situations broadly involving someone being disengaged or separated from others physically or emotionally (Riva and Eck, 2016). Exclusion experiences include various phenomena, such as interpersonal rejection, ostracism, and various types of discrimination (Smart Richman and Leary, 2009; Wesselmann et al., 2016). These diverse threats to social inclusion are so detrimental, researchers argue that humans likely developed mechanisms safeguarding social inclusion (Lieberman, 2013), facilitating quick detection of threats to inclusionary status (Pickett and Gardner, 2005; Kerr and Levine, 2008; Wesselmann et al., 2012b). When threats occur, individuals experience cognitive and behavioral changes to facilitate recovery (Smart Richman and Leary, 2009; Williams, 2009). Considerable research has examined individuals’ responses to exclusion, but less has focused on how expectations of inclusion or exclusion moderate those responses. In this article, we highlight research focused on how individuals calibrate their expectations of social inclusion and exclusion, and how these expectations influence the effect of exclusion on individuals’ feelings of relational value and other adverse effects of social exclusion.