Collaborative Research: Lessening the Blow of Social Rejection

社交拒绝是造成情绪和身体痛苦的主要原因，它往往会导致攻击性报复。例如，对校园暴力负有责任的个人往往有被社会排斥的历史。这个项目试图了解如何最好地减少社会排斥的有害后果。过去的研究将相当大的注意力集中在那些成为社会排斥的目标或受害者的人身上。对那些参与社会排斥的人的关注要少得多。已经进行的研究集中在那些出于造成伤害的目的而在社会上拒绝他人的人。然而，大多数日常社交拒绝都发生在那些不想伤害他人的人身上。例子很多，从拒绝社交邀请的人到拒绝求职者的人。在这种情况下，人们经常纠结于如何最好地减轻他们被拒绝的打击。这个项目建立在现有研究的基础上，通过调查人们可以使用的特定语言来减少他们拒绝他人的伤害，以及他们在什么条件下能够在当下使用这种有益的语言。具体地说，社会心理学理论和研究已经发现，人们在拒绝他人的时候会感受到权力的提升、对自己声誉的担忧，或者两者兼而有之。这个项目考察了这些核心经历如何支持或阻碍人们学习和实施语言原则的能力，这些原则使拒绝在情感上不那么具破坏性。如果人们能够学会以一种最大限度地减少伤害的方式拒绝，这可能会为防止随后的咄咄逼人的报复提供一条途径。该项目借鉴了社会心理学以及传播学、游戏设计和计算建模的理论和方法。这个项目的主要目的是揭示训练人们在社交拒绝他人时使用伤害最小的语言所需的机制和条件。该项目围绕六个行为实验组织，考察社交拒绝者的经历，以及这种经历如何塑造他们被拒绝时的语言和情感影响。这些研究侧重于将语言作为干预点，因为研究表明，人们表达了不想伤害他人的愿望，但却不知道说什么才能实现这一目标。该项目考虑了社会拒绝者的两种核心经历--权力和对个人声誉的担忧--是否会阻碍或支持语言的使用，从而缓解拒绝带来的情感打击。一个预期的效果是，在被社会拒绝的时刻专注于自己的社会权力的人，在那一刻不太可能使用有益的语言，并将努力学习适当的语言。另一个预期效果是，专注于自己声誉可能受到影响的人，将显示出学习减轻打击的语言的能力增强，并在当下更成功地实施这种语言。这项研究还旨在揭示社交拒绝者的情感优先是否会让被拒绝者付出代价。也就是说，社交拒绝者是否发现利用有益的语言原则做出回应会让人情绪疲惫，并决定不再努力，尽管知道这意味着拒绝会最终对被拒绝者造成更大的伤害？这项研究计划为本科生和研究生阶段的不同学生提供培训。结果和干预材料被广泛传播给专注于促进社区的组织。许多接触点都与科学研究的其他领域建立了联系，包括通信、游戏设计和计算建模。该项目开发了一个可访问的、有经验支持的培训计划，帮助人们知道该说些什么来减轻他们被社会拒绝的打击，并发展可用作进一步干预点的基本知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Social rejection is a major cause of emotional and physical distress, and it often leads to aggressive retaliation. As one example, individuals who are responsible for school violence often have a history of being socially excluded. This project seeks to understand how best to reduce the harmful consequences of social rejection. Past research has focused considerable attention on those who have been the target or victim of social rejection. Much less attention has been paid to those who engage in social rejection. The research that has been done focuses on those who socially reject others for the purpose of causing harm. Yet, most everyday social rejection occurs by people who do not intend to hurt others. Examples range from those who turn down social invitations to those who reject job candidates for employment. In such cases, people often struggle with how best to soften the blow of their rejection. This project builds on existing research by investigating the specific language that people can use to make their rejection of others hurt less and the conditions under which they are able to use that beneficial language in the moment. Specifically, social psychology theory and research has identified that people experience feelings of elevated power, concern about their reputation, or both in the moment when they are rejecting others. This project examines how those central experiences bolster or hinder people’s ability to learn and implement language principles that make the rejection less emotionally devastating. If people can learn to reject in a way that minimizes hurt feelings, it may offer an avenue to prevent subsequent aggressive retaliation. The project draws on social psychology as well as theories and methods from communications, game design, and computational modeling. The primary aim is to reveal the mechanisms and conditions needed to train people to use the least hurtful language when socially rejecting others.This project is organized around a set of six behavioral experiments that examine the experience of the social rejector and how that experience shapes the language and emotional impact of their rejection. The studies focus on language as a point of intervention because research has shown that people express a desire to not hurt others but feel at a loss about what to say to accomplish that goal. The project considers whether two central experiences of social rejectors, power and concerns about one’s reputation, hinder or bolster the use of language that softens the emotional blow of the rejection. One expected effect is that people who focus on their social power in the moment of social rejection will be less likely to use beneficial language in the moment and will struggle to learn the appropriate language. Another expected effect is that people who focus on how their own reputations may suffer will show enhanced ability to learn the language that softens the blow and greater success at implementing that language in the moment. The research also aims to uncover whether the emotional priorities of the social rejector may come at a cost to the rejected person. That is, do social rejectors find it emotionally draining to craft responses that draw on the beneficial language principles and decide not to put in the effort despite knowing it means the rejection will end up hurting the rejected person more? This research program provides training to a diverse group of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The results and intervention materials are broadly disseminated to organizations focused on promoting community. Many points of contact are made with other areas of scientific inquiry, including communications, game design, and computational modeling. The project develops an accessible, empirically-supported training program that helps people know what to say to soften the blow of their social rejection as well as develop basic knowledge that could be used as further points of intervention.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.