Paper Title
Social exclusion causes self-defeating behavior
Keywords
- Social Exclusion
- Self-Defeating Behavior
- Social Exclusion Effects
- Irrational Risks
- Unhealthy Behavior
- Procrastination
- Emotional Distress
- Risk-Taking
- Unhealthy Choices
- Test Procrastination
- Self-Defeating Actions
- Behavior Patterns
- Exclusion Feedback
- Psychological Impact
- Mood Measures
- Negative Feedback
Research Impact Tools
Publication Info
Volume: 83 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 606–615
Published On
March, 2002
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Abstract
Four experiments tested the idea that social exclusion leads to (unintentionally) self-defeating behavior. Exclusion was manipulated by telling some people that they were likely to end up alone later in life. This randomly assigned feedback caused people to take irrational, self-defeating risks (Experiments 1 and 2), choose unhealthy, rather than healthy, behaviors (Experiment 3), and procrastinate longer with pleasurable activities rather than practicing for an upcoming test (Experiment 4). A control group, who heard that their future would be marred by frequent accidents, did not show these self-defeating patterns. Thus, the effect goes beyond just hearing bad news. Emotional distress did not significantly mediate these effects across 3 different mood measures.
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