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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Belonging (Social psychology); Interpersonal relations; Rejection (Psychology); Academic theses;

Abstract

Following rejection, people experience both reflexive and reflective reactions. According to the multimodal model of rejection (Smart Richman & Leary, 2009), relational construals surrounding the rejection impact the subsequent reflective behavior. The purpose of this study is to predict the behavior following rejection based on the theoretical model. It is hypothesized that when partner "relationship value" is high, rejection will result in more pro-social behaviors, compared to when partner "relationship value" is low, in which rejection will result in more anti-social behaviors. Though belonging is a fundamental motivation, not all humans exhibit the same level of sensitivity as others. Therefore it was hypothesized that baseline "Need to Belong" will moderate the relationship between "value of relationship" and subsequent behavior. Forty-seven previously unacquainted women completed in a "getting to know you" activity which either increased or maintained relational value. Afterward, all participants were told their partner did not want to complete the activity with them but they would need to split a series of tickets between the two. If more tickets were distributed to the partner, this was a "pro-social" response; if more tickets were kept for the self, this was an "anti-social" response. Analysis of tickets assigned indicated that participants in the high-value condition were more likely to show an anti-social response, opposite than predicted by the multimodal model. "Need to Belong" did not add any additional support to the relationship found. These results may be due to the inherent interconnectedness of the model and additional research on multiple construals may show the predicted pattern.

Year of Submission

2012

Degree Name

Master of Arts

First Advisor

Nicholas Terpstra-Schwab

Second Advisor

Helen Harton

Third Advisor

Robert Hitlan

Comments

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Date Original

2012

Object Description

1 PDF file (97 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Included in

Psychology Commons

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