Feelings of control during social exclusion are partly accounted for by empathizing personality

It has been demonstrated that social exclusion, or ostracism, results in a decrease in four fundamental human needs: belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence. We replicated these results, and examined how empathizing and systemizing cognitive styles accounts for variation in the experience of social exclusion (self-reported distress and the four fundamental needs) during an internet ball toss game. Participants’ standardized combined score (D Score) from the Empathizing Quotient (EQ-S) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ-S) (Wakabayashi et al., 2006) was a significant predictor of the decrease in the fundamental need, control. In other words, empathizers reported feeling less in control compared to systemizers during the ball toss game regardless of exclusion or inclusion. These findings suggest that individuals who score high on empathizing struggle more with the lack of control when involved in an situation where they do not have influence over the social interaction in which they are taking part. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.