Engaging in social rejection may be riskier for women

ABSTRACT

People often worry how others will perceive them if they socially reject others, but do women have more to fear than men? Although previous research has shown that women are perceived negatively for behaving in counter-stereotypical ways, research on backlash has focused on business settings. The present research applies backlash theory to examine how women are perceived for engaging in social rejection. The findings suggest that backlash may operate differently in social rejection because only men punish women for rejecting. Across four studies, the present research found that (1) women felt they were more likely to be penalized for engaging in social rejection than men, (2) women were less willing to endorse social rejection than men, and (3) men, but not women, viewed female rejectors in a more negative manner than male rejectors.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• backlash
• gender
• social rejection
• warmth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Results from the larger study regarding language and rejection are presented in Freedman, Burgoon, Ferrell, Pennebaker, and Beer (2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Graduate Education [1110007].

Notes on contributors

Gili Freedman

Gili Freedman has a PhD in social and personality psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research currently focuses on the two-sided nature of social rejection and creating interventions for interpersonal biases.

Janell C. Fetterolf

Janell C. Fetterolf has a PhD in social psychology from Rutgers University – New Brunswick. Her research examines the predictors and consequences of female agency in professional and personal contexts.

Jennifer S. Beer

Jennifer S. Beer got her PhD in psychology in 2002 from the University of California, Berkeley where she focused on the intersection of social-personality psychology and cognitive neuroscience. She currently uses an interdisciplinary approach to understand how self and emotion influence self-regulation in social contexts.