The effect of social exclusion on the perception of the similarity of group members

Abstract

After being socially excluded, people try to reconnect with others. Previous research indicated that excluded people show an enhanced ability to distinguish between-category differences relative to withincategory differences of group members. It is important that excluded people distinguish in-group members from out-group members to avoid making an unnecessary effort for social reconnection or further ostracism, because in-group members afford more opportunities to reconnect compared with out-group members. We hypothesized that this perceptual change would heighten the perception of the similarity of group members. Participants were included or excluded by Cyberball (a ball-tossing computer game) and constructed imagined histograms of the perceived distribution of members of four groups across a trait dimension. As predicted, social exclusion heightened the participants perception of the similarity of group members.