ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION Social Exclusion Impairs Self-Regulation

Six experiments showed that being excluded or rejected caused decrements in self-regulation. In Experiment 1, participants who were led to anticipate a lonely future life were less able to make themselves consume a healthy but bad-tasting beverage. In Experiment 2, some participants were told that no one else in their group wanted to work with them, and these participants later ate more cookies than other participants. In Experiment 3, excluded participants quit sooner on a frustrating task. In Experiments 4–6, exclusion led to impairment of attention regulation as measured with a dichotic listening task. Experiments 5 and 6 further showed that decrements in self-regulation can be eliminated by offering a cash incentive or increasing self-awareness. Thus, rejected people are capable of self-regulation but are normally disinclined to make the effort. Human beings rely on group life for their health, well-being, comfort, and other positive outcomes. Being accepted into a social group is therefore an almost indispensable goal of human striving. Obtaining such acceptance is, however, a long and difficult task that may entail years of learning how to behave in socially accept-able ways, acquiring marketable skills, cultivating good relation