Aaron Hoskins
SDSU Marketing & Communications
Office (619) 594-1119, Mobile (619) 987-6356
ahoskins@mail.sdsu.edu

SAN DIEGO, Wednesday, April 27, 2005 – People who are excluded by social groups are more likely to eat fattening foods, less likely to drink healthy beverages, give up more quickly on challenging tasks, and, on the whole, are substantially less able to self-regulate their behavior, revealed a joint study out of San Diego State University, Florida State University and Florida Atlantic University published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The study participants were randomly assigned to experience social rejection or control group feedback. “Because these were lab experiments, we know that the rejection causes this breakdown in self-control – and not the other way around,” said SDSU Psychology professor Jean Twenge, whose extensive work in the area of social rejection has also helped to better understand acts of violence and aggression. “So there is some truth to the popular image of people eating cookies and ice cream after a break-up. They also won’t want to get up from the couch to do anything challenging.”

Past work has found that socially excluded individuals show increased aggression, poorer intellectual performance, a susceptibility to self-defeating behavior patterns and other effects.

“These studies help explain why rejection leads to such negative outcomes,” Twenge said. “Because rejected people find it difficult to regulate their behavior, they are more likely to lash out aggressively and do other things that show a lack of control.”

The study included six separate experiments with 245 participants in all. In one experiment, participants who were led to believe that they would be alone later in life were less able to drink a healthy but poor-tasting beverage. In another experiment, participants who were told that no one else in their group wanted to work with them later ate more chocolate-chip cookies than other participants. In a third experiment, participants who were isolated from the group quit a challenging task more quickly than participants who remained in the group. Three additional experiments showed that excluded people failed to pay as much attention in a verbal task, but that their performance improved if they were paid for correct answers or if they faced a mirror.

Twenge said the broader implication of these results is that self-regulation requires great effort and discipline.

“Messages of rejection or exclusion can make people less willing to make the sacrifices needed for effective self-regulation, with potentially tragic results for that person and others,” Twenge said.

San Diego State University is the oldest and largest higher education institution in the San Diego region. Since it was founded in 1897, the university has grown to offer bachelor’s degrees in 81 areas, master’s degrees in 72 areas and doctorates in 16 areas. SDSU’s nearly 33,000 students participate in an academic curriculum distinguished by direct contact with faculty and an increasing international emphasis that prepares them for a global future. For more information, visit www.sdsu.edu.

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Editor’s Note: For a complete copy of the study, please contact Aaron Hoskins at 619-594-1119 or at ahoskins@mail.sdsu.edu.