The effect of being shunned upon the desire to affiliate

The effect of being shunned upon the desire to affiliate* DAVID R. METIEE, SHELLEY E. TAYLOR, and STUART FISHER Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 06510 While sitting in a waiting room, each of 40 male Ss was exposed to a pair of confederates (Cs) who either did not speak to him (no explicit negative evaluation) or one of whom berated his beliefs on a specific topic (explicit negative evaluation). Midway through aperiod preceding the ostensible experiment, one of the Cs moved away from half the Ss to sit closer to another C (implicit negative evaluation). For the other half, the C remained seated a short distance from the S throughout the waiting period (no implicit negative evaluation). An implicit negative evaluation severely reduced S's desire to affiliate with the C who moved, the effect actually being stronger when there was no explicit evaluation. Moreover, the implicit negative evaluation alone reduced the desire to affiliate significantly more than did the explicit negative evaluation alone. Imagine that you are sitting in a waiting room and a person rather like yourself comes over and sits near you. A few minutes later the person abruptly gets up and moves to another chair and, ignoring you, engages another person in a conversation, leaving you to ponder over this apparent rejection. A ream of possible defects passes through your mind: bad breath? perspiration odor? a broken zipper? Or you may think through your previous behavior, wondering what movement you made that might have offended this person. As far as you can see, there is nothing inherently more desirable about the seemingly preferred stranger and nothing inherently strange about the person who has rejected you. And you are left with the problem of making sense of this disturbing and inexplicable incident without causing yourself further embarrassment. The act of being shunned described above illustrates an implicit negative evaluation. What is painfully obvious about this kind of evaluation is the total absence of a valid means of anchoring it to any concrete event in the situation. Something seems to be wrong, but that "something" is unspecified. In contrast, being confronted with an explicit negative evaluation, e.g., "you have stupid ideas," enables one to tie the evaluation to something concrete. For example, one can attribute internally and decide that one's ideas are indeed *This research was conducted while the second author held a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. It was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant GS-2749 to the first author. Requests for reprints shouId be se nt to David R. Mettee. Department of Psychology. Yale University. 333 Cedar St~eet. New Haven. Conn. 06510. Psychon. Sei., 1971, Vol. 23 (6) stupid or one can attribute extemally and decide that the evaluator is a stupid judge of ideas. What seems to characterize the difference between implicit and explicit negative evaluations, then, is a difference in attribution clarity. One who has been explicitly negatively evaluated has several possible explanations available; one who has been implicitly negatively evaluated lacks sufficient information to make a clear attribution (cf. Kelley, 1967). In the present study, we attempted to determine if the attribution ambiguity associated with an implicit negative evaluation would reduce one's desire to affiliate with the evaluator more than an explicit negative evaluation. That is, it is perhaps understandable that we might not want to associate with a person who has explicitly derogated USo But what if the negative evaluation is unspoken and not concrete? If you are shunned and suspect something is wrong with you, but cannot determine what it is, will this reduce your desire to affiliate even more than direct, open derogation? There is some reason to think that this may be the case. The person may want to cease displaying the cause of his being shunned and may desire isolation in order to figure out and remedy his problem, thereby avoiding further public embarrassment. On the other hand, the opposite result is a distinct possibility. If the person was only interested in finding out what was wrong, then perhaps his affiliation tendencies would increase so that he could inquire directly, "Hey, what's wrong with me?" These questions were explored in a 2 by 2 design in wh ich a confederate (C) either moved away from (implicit negative evaluation-impl) or remained sea ted by (no implicit negative evaluation-no-impl) a S. C then engaged another C in conversation and either openly derogated the S (explicit negative evaluation-expl) or did not speak to S (no explicit negative evaluation-no-expl). Thus, in the no-impl/expl cell formed by this 2 by 2 design, the S received only an explicit negative evaluation, while in the impl/no-expl cell, the S received only an implicit negative evaluation. In the no-impl/no-expl cell, a control condition, the S was unobtrusively excluded from the conversation. The impl-expl cell enabled us to determine if open concrete derogation would, by bringing clarity to an ambiguous situation, mitigate the reduction in affiliative desire predicted for an implicit negative evaluation alone. METHOD Forty male Yale undergraduates took part in a study "dealing with group processes"; no Ss were discarded on the basis of suspicion. All manipulations occurred while the S was waiting to participate in the supposed "real experiment." When an S arrived, a confederate (Cl) was already seated in the hall adjacent to the experimental room. In response to a sign posted on the door, the S knocked and was greeted by the E. The E explained that two more Ss were scheduled for the session and asked S to wait with the other S outside the room. The S then seated himself in the only available chair, located about 8 ft from Cl and facing in the same direction. In the no-expl cells, Cl ignored S when he ente red the waiting room. If S spoke to him, Cl glanced at him and said nothing. In the expl cells, Cl responded briefly and neutrally if S attempted to initiate a conversation. Approximately 1 min later, C2 arrived and was shown into the waiting area by E, who then went to bring in some extra chairs. In the no-impl cells, he returned with one chair wh ich he placed half way between Cl and S. In the impl cells, he brought in two chairs, placing them at equal intervals between Cl and S. C2 sat down in the chair nearer Sand began looking through a magazine which contained an article about student unrest at Harvard. The conversation between Cl and C2 always started with the "Harvard situation" and came around to a discussion of whether the same thing could happen at Yale. EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS In the no-impl/no-expl situation, C2 asked Cl if he had read the article on the Harvard situation. When Cl replied that he had not, the two introduced themselves and discussed the issue, with Cl taking a moderate liberal position on student unrest and C2 (...truncated)