Effects Of Self-affirmation On The Ostracizer’s Belonging Needs

Social exclusion refers to the process when individuals being rejected by other people or a social group, the fulfillment of relational needs and the needs of belonging of individuals is hindered. Social exclusion research showed that those who were excluded in exclusion process often experience a sense of belonging being damaged; and since belongingness is considered to be one of basic needs of human being, if it weren’t met, a series of negative cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses would occur among those who are excluded. While few of previous researches fixed on the changes of those who rejected others in exclusion process. Williams and Sommer found that during the course of the experiment, it was difficult for participants to voluntarily implement rejections toward others; on the other hand, the study of Sommer also found that motivations of social exclusion were diverse. There are studies showed that those who excluded others gain a sense of control over those who were excluded and enhanced their sense of power; but the study of Williams also found out that those who excluded others and those who were excluded both reported their sense of belonging being damaged in the exclusion process. Above all, even those who exclude others eventually won the right to control those who were excluded, they also sacrificed a degree of security relationsSelf-affirmation is a kind of psychological defense mechanism that individuals restore their self-balance and maintain stable self-concept when being threatened, by affirming one’s self value which is not directly related to domain concerning threat. When individuals are lack of belongingness, group self, as an important aspect of one’s self-system, is often under threat. Through self-affirmation, individuals could maintain a stable self-concept, thus to reduce its demand for belong. Recent research about self-affirmation also found that when the participants affirmed their important value or quality, they would report more positive feelings of others’ relationship, that is, the feeling of love and connection. And as the need of belonging being to seek and maintain connections with others or groups, individuals can also enhance the sense of connection by self-affirmation, thus to reduce its demand for belong.Communion traits and agency traits are two basic dimensions related to self-description, and researches showed that individuals can achieve self-affirmation by affirming their communion traits and agency traits. In our study, by modifying the classic exile paradigm, in which participants can voluntarily choose to reject others, to explore the need of belong among those who reject others, and whether self-affirmation by affirming their communion traits and agency traits would influence their need of belong.Experiment one explored the need of belong among those who reject others in social exclusion process; experiment two explored the influence of self-affirmation effects by affirming their communion traits on the need of belong; Experiment three explored the influence of self-affirmation effects by affirming their agency traits on the need of belong. The result of experiment one showed that after the exclusion of others, belonging needs of those who reject others increased; experiment two showed that by affirming communion traits of those who reject others, their need of belong decreased; experiment three showed that by affirming communion traits of those who reject others, their need of belong also decreased.To sum up, we can get the following conclusions:belonging needs of those who reject others enhanced in social exclusion process, and affirming their communion traits and agency traits related to self-descriptions would reduce their need for belong; The mechanism of which may be that after voluntarily implementing rejection and exclusion toward others, individuals’ self-concept would also be damaged, in the meantime, group self as one significant part of ones’self-concept would be threatened, thus causing belonging needs enhancement of those who reject others; while by the self-affirmation of affirming one’s self-value, restoration of ones’damaged self-concept occur, further alleviate the negative reaction of individuals’unbalanced self-system, thus effectively reduce the need of belong among those who exclude others. It may be also because that writing about important values reminding people what they care about that transcends their egos or self-images and eliciting more other-oriented feelings, such as love and connection.