The Desire to Be With Others: Exploring Social Rejection and Gender
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51200/sapj.v2i1.5669Keywords:
Rejection, Social Monitoring System (SMS), Need to BelongAbstract
Social relationships are a big part of human life and threats to such relationships have vast implications. This study tested the contention of social monitoring system (SMS) suggesting that socially rejected individuals experience higher need to belong. A 2 (men/women) by 2 (acceptance/rejection) experimental design was conducted to explore gender’s role in the need to belong after a rejection experience. Participants (N = 68) wrote rejection or acceptance stories and responded to a Need to Belong Scale. Two-Way ANOVA results showed that felt rejection elicited heightened need to belong especially among women, F(3, 64) = 5.78, p = .019, partial eta = .083. This provides evidence in the SMS literature pointing to the role of gender in the need to belong of rejected individuals.
Implications and limitations of the study were further discussed.
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