Social exclusion influences attentional bias to social information

Abstract

Using three experiments, the present study investigates the impact of social exclusion on attention. Specifically, we investigate whether social exclusion promotes attentional bias to social acceptance cues (smiling faces) or social exclusion cues (angry faces) among an Asian population. The Cyberball game was adopted to manipulate social inclusion or exclusion, and a dot-probe task was used to measure individuals' responses to smiling or angry faces. In Experiments 1 and 2, each trial consisted of either a smiling or angry face that was paired with a neutral face. In Experiment 1, when the stimulus onset-asynchronies (SOA) were 500 ms, the inhibition of return emerged, indirectly indicating that social exclusion promotes sensitivity to social acceptance cues. In Experiment 2, after setting the SOA to 200 ms, we found that social exclusion promotes attentional bias to smiling faces compared to neutral faces. In Experiment 3, both smiling and angry faces were shown during each trial, and we found that social exclusion promotes attentional bias to smiling faces compared to angry faces. Therefore, the present study extends our understanding of the relationship between social exclusion and attention. Overall, it appears that after social exclusion, the desire for social reconnection trumps the desire to avoid social exclusion.

The effects of social exclusion on processing of social information – A cognitive psychology perspective

“…Cacioppo & Hawkley, ). Attending to affiliative cues might help them pick out the most likely sources of reinclusion (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, ), or attenuate the negative feelings elicited by exclusion (Xu et al ., ; although see Syrjämäki, Lyyra, Peltola, & Hietanen, ). Individual differences and situational factors might determine which coping strategies individuals utilize as a response to different kinds of exclusion experiences, explaining why exclusion influences attention differently in different individuals (Tanaka & Ikegami, ; Tuscherer et al ., ).…”

“…Xu et al . (, Experiments 2–3) found that excluded, but not included, participants showed an attentional bias to smiling faces as early as 200 ms after presenting the stimuli in a dot‐probe task. This is interesting, as people may be unable to voluntarily shift the locus of attention this fast (Johnson, ).…”

“…For instance, researchers do not always make a clear distinction between perceptual and attentional level processes (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, ; Tanaka & Ikegami, ), or between perception and the entailing judgements (Knowles et al ., ; Pitts et al ., ). Moreover, some terms are vaguely used as follows: For instance, ‘sensitivity’ has been used to refer to discrimination accuracy (as the term is typically used in signal detection theory [SDT]; Bernstein et al ., ), but also to attentional biases (Xu et al ., ) and biased judgements (Smart Richman, Martin, & Guadagno, ). We hope that by providing a cognitive psychology framework, we will help readers form a more detailed understanding of the different phenomena involved in social information processing.…”

Physical pain induces negative person perception

“…Other research manifested that social exclusion, which generates social pain, may bias interpersonal perception. Being socially rejected leads to selective attention to smiling faces (DeWall, Maner, & Rouby, ), more positive impressions of new social targets, except those who caused the exclusion (Maner, DeWall, Baumeister, & Schaller, ), biased attention to social information (Xu et al ., ), and hostile perception of ambiguous others (DeWall, Twenge, Gitter, & Baumeister, ). Another branch of research confirmed that some physical factors also could change the way people perceive others.…”

The Modulation of Spatial Working Memory by Emotional Stickers and Facial Expressions

“…In our daily life, facial expressions can serve as social communicative signals to allow us to better estimate a person's motivational state (Xu et al, 2015). The N170 component, which is shown in the temporo-occipital areas approximately 170 ms after the onset of a face stimulus, has been shown to be sensitive to facial stimuli (Bentin et al, 1996) and emotional facial expression (Schupp et al, 2004).…”