Rejection sensitivity and schema-congruent information processing biases Nilly Mor * , Mika Inbar School of Education, Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel article info Keywords: Rejection sensitivity Depression Social anxiety Information processing Attentional bias Self-referential encoding Memory abstract Rejection Sensitivity (RS) refers to the tendency to anxiously anticipate, readily perceive and overreact to rejection. The current research assesses schema-congruent information processing biases related to RS. Specifically, we predicted that high RS individuals would show biases in attention and self-referential encoding and recall of rejection-relevant information. Similarly, we predicted stronger concordance between these biases among high RS than low RS individuals. People high in RS showed biases in self-ref- erential encoding and recall of negative socially relevant material. However, RS was not characterized by an attention bias or by stronger concordance between information processing biases. Implications of these findings to the understanding of RS and its long lasting effects are discussed. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction While everyone experiences rejection, people differ in the man- ner they respond to rejection. Some people respond adaptively, whereas others respond in ways that impair their social relations (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998) and make them sus- ceptible to low self-esteem, social anxiety and depression (e.g., Ay- duk, Downey, & Kim, 2001; Gailliot & Baumeister, 2007). Individual differences in responses to rejection have been construed as a cog- nitive-affective processing disposition, termed rejection sensitivity (RS; Downey & Feldman, 1996). RS refers to the tendency to anx- iously anticipate, readily perceive and overreact to rejection. The concept of RS is rooted in attachment (Bowlby, 1980) and interpersonal theories (Horney, 1937; Sullivan, 1953), but social cognitive models of personality (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995) have been central to the conceptualization of RS. These models can be seen (e.g., Caprara & Cervone, 2000) as relying on schema theory to explain information processing and behavioral patterns in RS. According to schema theory, schemas are organized interconnected knowledge structures that develop through past experiences and guide the processing and interpretation of new information (Bart- lett, 1932; Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Markus, 1977). People typically hold schemas about themselves, others, and their relationships with oth- ers (i.e., relational schemas; Baldwin, 1999, 2005). Schemas are thought to lead to increased attention allocation, cognitive elabora- tion, and enhanced memory of schema-congruent material. Conse- quently, the activation of schemas is often assessed using information processing tasks that examine attention allocation to schema-congruent material (e.g., Ingram, Bernet, & McLaughlin, 1994) and incidental recall of self or other-encoded information (e.g., Derry & Kuiper, 1981; Whisman & Delinsky, 2002). Schema-based information processing, particularly the process- ing of affective, schema-congruent information, has been associated with a variety of personality traits. Neuroticism (Chan, Goodwin, & Harmer, 2007), extroversion (Rusting & Larsen, 1998) and trait depression and anxiety (Rusting, 1998 for a review) have been re- lated to processing of emotional stimuli. This work has suggested that individuals selectively attend to, retrieve, and reconstruct events in ways that are consistent with these personality traits. Sim- ilarly, low self-esteem and insecure attachment orientations have been linked to biased processing of interpersonal information denot- ing rejection (e.g., Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004; Dewitte, Koster, De Houwer, & Buysse, 2007; Gyurak & Ayduk, 2007; Koch, 2002). Because current models of RS can be construed as relying on schema theory, and given that related personality traits have been associated with schema-congruent processing, the aim of the cur- rent research was to examine the link between RS and schema- based processing. The RS model suggests that among people high in RS, the rejection schema is chronically accessible and rejection is readily primed by interpersonal situations (e.g., Downey, Mou- gios, Ayduk, London, & Shoda, 2004; Pietrzak, Downey, & Ayduk, 2005). The heightened accessibility of this schema can lead to schema-congruent information processing, increase sensitivity to rejection cues and facilitate the development of anxious expecta- tion of rejection. In turn, these expectations may lead to faulty interpretations of social situations and eventually to behaviors that bring about actual rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996). Empirical evidence provides some support for this depiction of RS. High RS people show increased arousal in the face of rejection- 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.001 * Corresponding author. Fax: +972 2 588 1311. E-mail address: nmor@huji.ac.il (N. Mor). Journal of Research in Personality xxx (2009) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Research in Personality journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp ARTICLE IN PRESS Please cite this article in press as: Mor, N., & Inbar, M. Rejection sensitivity and schema-congruent information processing biases. Journal of Research in Personality (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.001