Reconnection revisited: The effects of actual and potential social exclusion on trust, reciprocity and risk taking

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Organisational Behaviour

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 2010 Vol 112:2 p 140-150

2010

We hypothesize that people at risk of exclusion from groups will engage in actions that can socially reconnect them with others and test the hypothesis in four studies. We show that participants at risk of exclusion reciprocated the behavior of an unknown person (Study 1a) and a potential excluder (Study 1b) more compared to two control groups (people who received a non-social negative feedback and people who were actually excluded). Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1a with trust as the dependent variable. Study 3 showed that people who were at risk of exclusion took less general risk compared with both control groups. These results demonstrate socially adaptive responses of people who are at risk of social exclusion.

Social exclusion; Potential exclusion; Social risk; Trust; Reciprocity; Risk-taking

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