Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Psychology of Exclusion

From rejection to personal and social harmony

Agnieszka Wilczyńska

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000318470
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psicología
• Categoría: Psicología del desarrollo

This new volume considers one of the most pressing topics of the generation: the sense of social exclusion, rejection and loneliness experienced by many adolescents and young adults. It offers insights from psychological and biochemical research, explaining the role of the brain, mind and body in the development of a sense of belonging over the lifespan.

Illustrated with examples of the consequences of exclusion drawn from the author's clinical work, this important work surveys the latest research in the field and introduces an innovative framework for understanding the development of a sense of belonging. Wilczy?ska considers the effects of social exclusion, exploring its consequences for mental health, particularly amongst young people, and reveals how transgenerational trauma imprinted at the early stages of human development impacts lifelong development.

Including a foreword by Philip Zimbardo, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Psychology of Exclusion is essential reading for students and researchers of developmental psychology, social psychology and sociology. It will also be of interest to practitioners and policymakers working with children and young people to understand and mitigate the effects of social exclusion and loneliness.

Part I

Understanding social exclusion

Chapter 1

Introduction

Most of us have certainly experienced the embarrassing sensation of not fitting in with our own social environment. Experiencing such moments is simply part and parcel of almost every developmental path from childhood to adulthood, and is usually at its most intense in adolescence. Before developing their own autonomous beliefs and independent lifestyles, all people need to first feel that they fit in with their communities, although the strength of this need varies from individual to individual. In this book, I will refer to this feeling of social relatedness as the ‘sense of belonging’.

People differ in how closely interrelated with others they want to be and, in fact, are. An individual’s expectations toward their group and/or the people for whom they care tend to take shape mostly in the first developmental stage. More precisely, they are formed when human beings begin to realise that, besides their closest caregiver (i.e. the mother, as a rule), there are also other people around and come to find it important to interact with and then engage in various relations with them. The sense of belonging is shaped throughout the period of maturation and, in most people, in adulthood as well. It is predominantly built by ongoing personal experiences and ‘tribal’ experiences obtained through contact with other people which are confirmed in how well the individual fits in with the group, in how much the individual needs the group and also in how much the group needs that individual. At each developmental level, the person relies on this dynamic exchange to ascertain his/her importance to and use in society—a group which s/he finds important or where s/he forms relations with his/her significant others. These relations include, for example, relations with other family members or with the members of the first significant external group—such as classmates or a peer group. These relationships make up the basis for our future bonds, which paradoxically do not always continue or mirror the initial experiences, but rather represent an entire constellation of a few factors which will be discussed in this book.

Adults differ in the degree to which they want to be interdependent with others. Several people will remain at the stage of close interdependence with others throughout their lifetimes. They will establish very strong bonds with their life partners and with people in various social circles, or they will suffer in various ways if they fail to establish such ties. This is linked to their need to fit in with the community, in which successful role performance, observance of social norms and satisfaction are derived from such conduct. All together, they add up to an approved, even recommended, and safe way of life. In this group, society members benefit from the existing cultural and economic achievements and loyally endorse current social trends and fashions. They form the average, and rather hardworking, middle class who enjoy a middle-to-high financial status. As a rule, they simultaneously perform a few traditional social roles and function in a number of different groups with rules they abide by. They are willing to rely on their roots and family connections and respect the social hierarchy—particularly if it overlaps with their own intuitive perceptions of authority—power and social forces (Marcus and Conner, 2014; Markus and Kityama, 2010).

The remaining smaller part of the population aspires for autonomy and independence (ibid.). They are not afraid to be different, are self-reliant and are sometimes lonely, but actually, even actively seek to be so. This results from their urge to create their own world, to draw new boundaries, to look for new values, to discover and to experiment in various spheres of scholarship and life. They find themselves constantly searching, attempting to assert their relevance and facing up to their environment’s responses to the ventures they launch and the solutions, ideas and changes they propose. They are discoverers, pioneers, scholars and researchers, writers, medical and psychological practitioners, passionate teachers and other daring people who work for the sake of change in society and better health of their contemporaries as well as future generations. They function within or outside groups accepting norms and roles while also looking for new approaches. They draw on new concepts and fresh theories that may explain how consciousness works, how individuals function and how people establish relationships; thereby, they welcome collaboration which is underpinned by mutual acceptance and respect. They realise that they are different and perceive their otherness as either facilitating or impeding progress in various situational contexts. Prepared to confront themselves and others, they embrace challenges in order to achieve creative goals.

Another statistically smaller part of society is comprised of anti-dependent individuals and groups whose anti-conformist behaviours stand out against the commonly acknowledged social norms. They form a group that does not want to contribute to the existing community. They neither intend to devote themselves to making the world a better place nor feel an urge to implement creative changes. Basically, they are chiefly inclined to destroy, wreck, oppose or ignore the norms. They either keep to themselves or function within very circumscribed milieus or among people and/or ideas that sustain their anti-conformity and anti-dependence. They function more freely outside groups that cherish norms and roles. They flout traditional ties, challenge authorities and ignore or undermine other people’s values, with the opposition being their programmatic mode of being. They are usually people whose adversarial attitudes are driven by egocentric and defensive motives, rather than by prosocial concerns. They are known to take risks in defence of causes they find personally important (Wilczyńska, 2013).

The three groups briefly depicted above are to be found in all societies. Depending on cultural factors, societies in America, Asia and Europe will differ in the size, proportion and diversification of these respective groups. This classification intersects with other measures, explanations and descriptions that will be presented further in this book. It seems to be clear that those two last groups are the most vulnerable to be excluded by others.

My major focus in this study is on people’s attempts to meet central human needs. My explorations will revolve around issues such as in what ways, if at all, these needs can be met, how much or how little people need to refer to their lives as fulfilled and of good-enough quality, and what factors motivate people to engage in personal action. The needs I have in mind are connected with the need of belonging. They are the need for security and ease, the need for social recognition and importance and the need of being wanted and loved.

What do people crave most?

People want to be noticed and appreciated—or at least accepted—in their ‘tribal groups’ (e.g. families, peer groups, schools, etc). Individuals crave to feel part of a group—to fit in in one way or another—even if they are dissimilar from others. I refer to the sense of fit and being part of an idea, a milieu or a group as the ‘sense of belonging’ (Wilczyńska, Januszek, Bargiel-Matusiewicz, 2015). The endeavours to achieve this by first becoming aware of this urge and then mobilising energy to satisfy it through—for example, communicating this to others—add up to the need of belonging. In a properly developing and healthy society, the needs of individuals are recognised and satisfied. Yet the script of correlation between the need of belonging and the sense of belonging, or the lack thereof, may be entirely different. This is evidenced by the growing incidence of depression across the world. Depression and anxiety are conditions in which one’s needs remain either unrecognised or unmet, and individuals do not feel that they belong and do not engage in enjoyable social action (ibid.). When people recognise their needs and they are looking for the reason why they cannot satisfy them, they make the first step toward personal deep development and changes. When people do not see possibilities to discover real causes and try to treat symptoms instead or give up, they enter the path of social exclusion (e.g. they develop psychiatric diseases, isolate themselves, commit suicide, fall into addiction, etc).

In searching for deep motives, my special focus is on childhood, adolescence and prolonged adolescence, because, within those periods, the need of belonging crystallises and is then systematically recognised and satisfied. Departing from Abraham Maslow’s hierarchical concept (Maslow, 1954), I believe that this need appears and is met or unmet across all of the three groups identified above. Nevertheless, I believe that there is no moment of saturation in contemporary traumatised societies—meaning that the sense of belonging is like the flame in the fireplace or a bonfire outdoors, affording the sense of existence as long as the (internal) fire is sustained. The sense of belonging is a crucial factor in any individual’s personal development and survival.

In later chapters, we will examine various social and individual settings in which the need of belonging surfaces or does not, along with the various desires this need involves, and importantly, the ways in which it can be fulfilled. The individual’s future life is fundamentally affected by the situations and systems in which his/her sense of belonging was produced and in which s/he has experienced exclusion. The past experience of exclusion—rejection, ridicule, mockery, neglect, deregulation, hurting, slandering and the like—is conspicuous among the factors that powerfully affect the feeling of belonging.

Social rejection and social exclusion

Hurting and rejection are probably the most painful of all sensations. What I mean here is rejection or exclusion by people whom the individual regards as important and significant (DeWall and Baumeister, 2006). Such conclusions are corroborated by the life histories of children and adults who condoned mobbing, bullying and exploitation, because their fear of losing their family or forfeiting relations with a significant group or person was stronger. However, rejection, once experienced, remains etched in our memory for a long time. Mental/emotional pain is experienced just as physical pain is experienced (Zhong and Leonardelli, 2008). When you scald your hand, you are likely to be cautious for a long time to avoid going through that source of pain again. Exclusion can be experienced both in unforeseen and in expected circumstances. The first instance of exclusion from their closest group may be very surprising to the individual. If s/he could anticipate rejection, s/he would certainly try to prevent it (Gardner, Pickett and Brewer, 2000). I remember a boy who told his classmates about his interests—specifically about the fact that he was collecting My Little Pony toys. The day he divulged this bit of his personal likes to them opened a new and dramatic chapter in his life, as his classmates started to mock him, which continued long into the semester until their teacher had a serious talk with all of the students involved and managed to put an end to it. Another more dramatic example is from a family story when a two-year-old boy was the witness of sexual abuse of his seven-year-old brother. He could not help his brother because of fear, and his young brain could not provide understanding and solutions. Without any support, he lived in internal loneliness, fear, a sense of guilt, self-isolation and the feeling of social exclusion for many years of his adult life, until he undertook very controversial self-therapy.

Regrettably, effective interventions in those kinds of stories are not always possible.

The personal sense of exclusion is not always linked to the actual fact of being excluded by others. The sense of exclusion may be experienced at many various levels and for many various reasons. Sometimes, self-fulfilling prophecies are at work, and sometimes the feeling of rejection is a product of one’s imagination, of self-punishment or of one’s fear of anticipated punishments from others. In such cases, the subjectively perceived exclusion escalates in the person’s mind, negatively affecting his/her thoughts, emotions and behaviours.

Sometimes a group reacts to this by excluding an individual as a result of total coincidence. Factors in such interplays include the composition of the group—the group leader modelling group behaviour, patterns and stereotypes, or there being no master-teacher capable of perceiving and solving the problem in time, for example by directly intervening or by holding a group meeting.

Some people are more susceptible to exclusion than others and are, thus, from the very beginning, more vulnerable to any symptoms of exclusion which appear in a new group. Similar to the described cases above, their experiences in life or the fact that they find themselves at a difficult developmental stage may make them feel that they do not fit in, especially if they have already experienced being deregulated, overlooked or unnoticed (Wilczyńska, 2016).

People with unstable self-esteem who perceive that they differ from others feel that they are not accepted or liked, even though they do not receive any indication of potential exclusion from the group or at least not initially (Leary and Baumeister, 2000).

Readers may wonder why social exclusion and rejection are some of the major thematic concerns of this book. After all, why should we meticulously analyse the feeling that we tend to try and shake off, preferring not to admit to it?

There are several reasons for this choice of the topic. Firstly, social exclusion is an outcome of various and mainly forgotten experiences in people’s lives; hence, exploring which of these experiences affects our life most, in what way it happens and how it can be changed may help us live the rest of this life in a rewarding way. Secondly, multiple research findings have shown that the sense of exclusion is the most dramatic and acute experience for people as social beings. Evolutionally speaking, social exclusion literally entails death. Thirdly, exclusion concerns not only in the past but also future events, as it makes it impossible to plan the future and to live a satisfying life. There are also other reasons that I will discuss further in this book. Briefly, social exclusion involves difficult past experiences, unfolds in the present and affects the future.

Where does exclusion come from?

There are at least three areas where exclusion comes from: these are individual, group/interactional and systemic spheres. The individual dimension is an ensemble of several components and is linked to the person’s traits and personal experiences, as well as to the transgenerational transmission in which the person is a vehicle. This constellation of factors affects the person’s attitude to his/her social environment and vice versa, generating thoughts, stirring emotions and influencing behaviours.

Transgenerational transmission and personal traits are reflected in, for example, communication within one’s family and in the community, as well as in the ways the individual functions. They cover individual, interactional and systemic spheres. Recent discoveries at the intersection of neurochemistry and biophysics have contributed to understanding the human mind by showing how informions (De Meester, 2018) are environmentally and interpersonally received and transmitted, and how they affect the human being and human behaviour. This new promising concept will be discussed in detail in this book’s last chapters. It explains, to a considerable degree, why self-care and self-belonging may be a challenge to people, even when their development follows systemic social norms and/or their families are convinced about their proper caring. In such cases, irrespective of other people’s actual intentions and attitudes, individuals tend to interpret their position in the community as inferior. They feel they are less important than others and are underappreciated and unhappy.

The power of group dynamic processes

The other area where exclusion is generated is comprised of dynamic group processes that result in the group regarding the individual as odd, even though s/he does not perceive him/herself as different from others in any way (Menzies and Davidson, 2002). Still, the members of the individual’s significant group draw lines beyond which people are ‘exiled’, as otherness and the breaching of traditions or customs are not accepted. While the individual either does not discern differences or does not deem these as reasons for exclusion, group members provide the individual with verbal or nonverbal signals implying that s/he is not wanted or is less desirable than others in the group. The information that the individual is not accepted may also be kept secret (Nitsun, 1996). I know of a team at a workplace where six people shared the same office, but only four of them communicated within a closed group via an internal Internet forum. Exclusion from the forum was particularly cruel, as the two people who did not take part in these chats were ridiculed and censured ‘live’ and for their physical presence about how they talked, what they looked like and what vocabulary they used. One of the four people who mocked admitted to these practices since he regarded these as fully normal and justified. Of course, it did not take much to make...