Citation

Bernstein MJ, Chen Z, Poon KT, Benfield JA, Ng HKS. PLoS One 2018; 13(8): e0201183.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0201183

PMID

30075005

Abstract

The present research examined people's responses towards others' exclusion experience. The authors predicted that both causal attributions and empathy would mediate whether people affiliate with a victim of an ambiguous exclusion experience. Perceivers observing another's exclusion (relative to inclusion) without clearly announced reasons chose to affiliate with the target and this was mediated by increased external attributions for the exclusion (Studies 1a, 1b, 2). When the attributions people made for the exclusion of a target was experimentally manipulated, internal attributions decreased desire for affiliation relative to external or ambiguous attributions, and this was mediated by differences in empathy for the target (Study 3). Further, external attributions arisen from perceiving a causally unclear exclusion leads to an empathetic response which results in an increased desire to affiliate with the target (Study 4). Future directions on perceptions of those who have been excluded are discussed.

Language: en