Reaching out by changing what's within: Social exclusion increases self-concept malleability

• Socially excluded people alter the self to gain social connection. • Excluded people expanded their self-concept to incorporate new attributes. • The attributes were characteristic of a novel social target, but not themselves. • This effect was limited to targets that were construed as potential friends. • It occurred regardless of whether the potential friend was aware of the change. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o People have a fundamental need to belong that, when thwarted, can affect cognition and behavior in ways designed to regain social connection. Because one of the best predictors of social connection is similarity, the current investigation tests the self-malleability hypothesis, which predicts social exclusion encourages people to modify their self-concepts to increase similarity to others, presumably in pursuit of renewed affiliation. Five studies supported the self-malleability hypothesis. Excluded people expanded their self-concept to incorporate new attributes characteristic of a novel social target but which they did not originally perceive as characteristic of themselves (Study 1). This effect was limited to targets that were construed as potential friends (Study 2) and occurred regardless of whether the potential friend was aware of the change (Study 3). Additionally, after recalling an exclusion experience, people modified even existing self-views to increase similarity to a potential friend (Studies 4a and 4b). Thus, socially excluded people alter the self to gain social connection. " The gift of making friends …it involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self and appreciating whatever is noble in another. " [Thomas Hughes] Given the fundamental importance of social connections to well-being, few gifts trump that of making friends. People possess a basic need for social belonging and connection, are motivated to engage in behaviors that promote others' inclusion, and are driven to regain social acceptance whenever they feel excluded (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Fortunately, an arsenal of affiliation-driven cognitions and behaviors seem available to assist excluded people to regain social connection. Romero-Canyas et al., 2010). Thus, in a variety of ways people attempt to reach out to others and regain acceptance when belonging has been threatened. The current research examines a previously unexplored strategy in pursuit of acceptance, one that focuses upon changes within 1 In the current article, we use the terms social rejection, social exclusion, and ostracism interchangeably.