Attraction and Rejection (Part 13) Wan Noraini bt Wan Razab 4.0 Rejection Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes both interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection) and romantic rejection. A person can be rejected on an individual basis or by an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active, by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive, by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment." The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. Although humans are social beings, some level of rejection is an inevitable part of life. Nevertheless, rejection can become a problem when it is prolonged or consistent, when the relationship is important, or when the individual is highly sensitive to rejection. Rejection by an entire group of people can have especially negative effects, particularly when it results in social isolation (Williams, Kipling D.; Joseph P. Forgas, William von Hippel, 2005). The experience of rejection can lead to a number of adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, reduced self-esteem, aggression, and depression (McDougall, P., Hymel, S., Vaillancourt, T., & Mercer, L., 2001). It can also lead to feelings of insecurity and a heightened sensitivity to future rejection. 4.1 Rejection sensitivity Karen Horney was the first theorist to discuss the phenomenon of rejection sensitivity. She suggested that it is a component of the neurotic personality, and that it is a tendency to feel deep anxiety and humiliation at the slightest rebuff. Simply being made to wait, for example, could be viewed as a rejection and met with extreme anger and hostility (Horney, K.,1937). An early questionnaire measure of rejection sensitivity was developed by Albert Mehrabian.( Mehrabian, A., 1976). Mehrabian suggested that sensitive individuals are reluctant brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Institutional Repository