Biopsychosocial responses to social rejection in targets of relational aggression

Abstract

A total of 28 college students participated in a live interpersonal challenge to assess psychosocial and neuroendocrine stress responses to social exclusion in females. Using the tend-and-befriend theory as a model for interpersonal stress response, this study examined how social exclusion is related to social information processing, willingness to affiliate, psychological state affect, and cortisol reactivity in women with a history of relational victimization. Results revealed that cortisol reactivity was associated with better social information processing among women who reported the least relational victimization. Most women, regardless of relational victimization history, were willing to pursue relationships with rejecting female peers. Following the social exclusion stressor, women who reported the most state anxiety were women with the lowest reported levels of relational victimization. Cortisol reactivity was the highest during the luteal phase among females with the most relational victimization. These results offer some support for the tend-and-befriend theory in terms of neuroendocrine and psychosocial responses to interpersonal distress.