Ease-of-Retrieval Provides Meta-Cognitive Information about Social Affiliation

Abstract

Research has shown that people are highly sensitive to cues of social rejection. In the current work, we examine whether meta-cognitive processes also provide information about the strength and quality of a person's social relationships. Drawing on the well-established ease-of-retrieval effect, we asked participants to recall either many or few occasions of social invitations from friends or many or few non-social experiences. In two experiments, retrieving many instances of recent socialization reduced self-esteem and satisfaction of Basic Needs, which are responses associated with external cues of social rejection. These results show that experienced difficulty recalling many recent experiences of social acceptance provide meta-cognitive input that social needs are not being satisfied, even if the individual recalls more instances of acceptance than someone who easily recalls fewer.