Collaborative Research: Social exclusion as a determinant of individuation and stereotyping

保持积极的社会关系对个人的幸福很重要。尽管如此，人们经常受到社会排斥（俗称“排斥”）。社会排斥的经历使人们感到他们不属于这里，让他们想要重新联系。研究表明，被排除在外的人不会试图与任何人建立联系，而是会选择特定的人。具体而言，他们将注意力集中在确定最佳和最容易接受重新联系的伙伴上。因此，与那些没有被排斥的人相比，被排斥的人更有可能根据个人特征和个性来评价别人--这一过程被称为“个性化”--而不是基于对群体成员身份的信念的特征--这一过程被称为“刻板印象”。“三条研究路线将审查社会排斥和个性化之间的关系。这些研究将采用多种社会排斥方法，审查几个不同的定型群体。具体的实验将调查（1）在排斥后重新联系的愿望在产生更大的个性化方面的作用，（2）在何种情况下排斥更有可能和更不可能引发个性化，以及（3）社会排斥在维持刻板印象方面发挥的作用。虽然大量的文献存在于社会排斥以及基于群体的信息，如刻板印象的处理，拟议的研究将是第一个综合这两个领域的社会心理学。此外，拟议的工作还将促进教育，扩大代表性不足的群体对科学的参与。例如，一些本科生和研究生将帮助进行，分析和传播拟议的研究。这些学生中的许多人将来自传统上在科学领域代表性不足的群体，如女性、少数民族和那些来自不太富裕背景的人。最后，研究表明，排斥可能会在实验室和现实世界中引发攻击性反应。一些学者认为，社会排斥可能是导致校园枪击等悲剧的一个因素。为了帮助防止被排斥的个人从事破坏性的行为，拟议的研究可以帮助科学家确定被排斥的个人可以积极科普的方式。虽然有许多因素可能决定哪些排斥受害者能很好地科普，哪些不能，但其中一个因素可能涉及他们在被排斥后如何看待其他人。被排除在外的人仔细评估他人（例如，通过个体化）可以通过寻找新朋友来更好地科普排斥，因此可能不太可能猛烈抨击。鼓励被排斥者个性化他人可能提供一种培养适应性应对的方法。在欺凌和排斥事件司空见惯的学校，这些努力可能特别有用。因此，目前的工作可以帮助研究人员了解个人如何处理排斥，并最终可以提供策略，部署在学校和其他相关环境中，以抵御排斥的潜在破坏性后果。

Maintaining positive social relationships is important for individuals' well being. Despite this, people often experience social exclusion (colloquially referred to as "ostracism"). The experience of social exclusion makes people feel that they do not belong and leaves them wanting to re-connect. Rather than attempting to connect with just anyone, research shows that excluded people pick certain individuals. Specifically, they focus their attention on the identification of the best and most receptive re-affiliation partners. As a result, people who are excluded, compared to those who are not, are more likely to evaluate people based on their individual characteristics and personalities -- a process called "individuation" -- rather than characteristics based on beliefs about their group memberships -- a process called "stereotyping." Three lines of research will examine the relation between social exclusion and individuation. These studies will examine several different stereotyped groups, using multiple methods of social exclusion. Specific experiments will investigate (1) the role of the desire to reconnect in producing greater individuation after exclusion, (2) the circumstances under which exclusion is more and less likely to trigger individuation, and (3) the role that social exclusion plays in maintaining stereotypes. While extensive bodies of literature exist on social exclusion as well as the processing of group-based information such as stereotypes, the proposed research will be the first to synthesize these two areas of social psychology. Moreover, the proposed work will also further education and broaden participation of underrepresented groups in science. For instance, several undergraduate and graduate students will aid in conducting, analyzing, and disseminating the proposed research. Many of these students will come from groups traditionally underrepresented in science, such as women, racial minorities, and those from less affluent backgrounds.Finally, research shows that exclusion can trigger aggressive responses in both the laboratory and real-world settings. Some scholars suggest that social exclusion may be a contributing factor to tragedies such as school shootings. To help prevent excluded individuals from engaging in destructive actions, the proposed research could help scientists identify ways that excluded individuals can cope positively. Though many factors likely determine which victims of exclusion cope well and which do not, one factor may concern how they subsequently think about others following exclusion. Excluded individuals who evaluate others carefully (e.g., via individuation) may cope better with exclusion by finding new friends and therefore may be less likely to lash out. Encouraging the excluded to individuate others may provide one method of fostering adaptive coping. These efforts could prove especially useful in schools where incidents of bullying and exclusion are common. Therefore, the current work may help researchers understand how individuals handle exclusion and, ultimately, could provide strategies to deploy in schools and other relevant settings to defend against exclusion's potentially damaging consequences.