Everybody hurts. In ways big and small, we are all snubbed every day of our lives. Of course, we can't possibly like everyone who likes us or join every group that would have us as a member, so we constantly let others down, too. It's the way the social universe operates. And yet, when it happens to us, we tend to take it personally. Very personally. And, often enough, hard.
If you were to track the daily happenings that flatten people's moods, you would likely find rejection at the core. "A very high percentage of negative events are related to the feeling that someone else doesn't value a relationship as much as you do," says Duke University psychologist Mark Leary. Those are the sore feelings that accompany such thoughts as, "Why did my coworker brush me off in that meeting?" or "My husband is watching TV when he should be paying attention to me!"
The drive to bond lies deep in our DNA. Disappointment when we fail to connect is virtually guaranteed. That's why the ultimate rejection—the departure of a loved one—is among the most stressful of all experiences.
Even the tiniest of slights can rile our emotions and send our self-esteem into a tailspin. In part, self-esteem reflects who we are intrinsically, but is also a barometer of our standing with others. Leary found that social self-esteem neatly rises with any inkling of acceptance ("Would you like to join us for lunch?") and plummets with any cut-down ("I like you—as a friend!").
"It's an internal gauge that is independently programmed," he explains. "So when you feel bad, you tend to feel bad about yourself." Social self-esteem acts like radar, scanning the environment for any hint of disapproval or exclusion. A blip on the meter, felt as a drop in self-esteem, is unpleasant, designed to spur us to address the source of the discomfort. If the gauge weren't sensitive to all signs of rejection, it might miss the big ones, endangering happiness or even safety. "Nature designed us to be vigilant about potential rejection," says Leary, "because for most of our history we depended on small groups of people. Getting shut out would have compromised survival."
As anyone who has ever watched American Idol knows, sensitivity to rejection exists along a continuum. The clueless party host who spews a string of tasteless jokes, as guests squirm, sits at the low end. At the high end is the vigilant scavenger who finds rejection in every empty inbox and between every ambiguous line. How she perceives and reacts to rejection is instructive for all of us—because we're all moving closer to her end of the continuum. Observers see a wave of psychological fragility pushing individuals in our culture toward oversensitivity to rejection.
A jittery rejection-detection radar zeroes in on empty threats—creating needless anxiety and groundless jealousy. Unfortunately, those at the high end of the rejection-sensitivity scale pay a particularly steep price just for wanting to belong. Their overwrought responses to slights may even have the unintended effect of bringing about what they fear most. And although such pain may be borne privately, it has public repercussions. There is a collective cost of individual hypersensitivity to rejection. People become unwilling to take even the smallest social risks. Preoccupied with their own performance evaluations, people shy away from approaching strangers or questioning authority. Public life shrinks and civil society withers.
Hypersensitivity Rising
There are a number of reasons why rejection-sensitivity is growing more pervasive. Major depression, a condition tightly linked to rejection sensitivity, has been on the rise among all age groups except the elderly for well over a decade. What's more, parents and educators overprotect and over-praise children, actions that backfire because they breed a preoccupation with evaluation by others. "If praise isn't based on anything specific, it gives you a sense of insecurity," Leary points out. "It makes you wonder whether your rejection radar is working at all." If you suspect you're not getting honest feedback, you'll be more sensitive to all possible slights or acceptances. You'll think, "Do people really like me?"
Then, too, adds New York psychologist Robert Leahy, we're on our way to becoming a performance-based culture. Young people in particular feel an urgency to grab the spotlight, instead of working toward becoming a stable member of a group. That makes them especially concerned with how others are evaluating them—and more sensitive to rejection.
But the primary reason we're becoming more rejection-sensitive, Leary contends, is that our fragmented, mobile society has decreased the number and weakened the strength of our social bonds. "Even 200 years ago, people were part of a small clan. They likely lived their entire lives in the same town. We now constantly have to reintegrate ourselves into new social networks. The sheer number of strangers with whom we interact creates many more opportunities for rejection."
Leahy, clinical professor at Weill-Cornell Medical College and author of The Worry Cure, agrees. "Because families are less intact and society is more segmented, we're all less secure. Further, an increased general sense of uncertainty makes us more vulnerable to rejection."
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