| The present investigation explored the effect of rejection on cognitive information processing related to the self. Three studies were designed to test the prediction that rejection would impair the processing of self-relevant information and the working self-concept. Research on cognition demonstrates that information actively encoded in relation to the self is remembered better than information processed in more superficial ways, a phenomenon known as the self-reference effect. Studies 1 and 2 used two distinct manipulations of belongingness to test the hypothesis that the experience of rejection would impair the self-reference effect. In Study 1, participants wrote personal narratives of rejection, acceptance, and neutral experiences. In Study 2, participants were given a prediction based on their personality indicating that they would be alone in the future or in very good relationships in the future. Participants then rated a series of adjectives according to two varying levels of encoding: structural and self-relevant. Results replicated the self-reference effect: Adjectives encoded self-relevantly were processed more slowly, recalled in greater numbers, and recognized more quickly compared to adjectives encoded at a more superficial level. Across both studies, the manipulations of belongingness had no significant impact on the self-reference effect. Study 3 was designed to examine the specific effects of rejection on participants' working self-concept. Belongingness was manipulated using the same personality feedback used in Study 2. Working self-concept was measured with participants' responses to a modified version of the Twenty Statements Test in which participants answer the question, "Who are you?" Results indicated that the belongingness manipulation did not have a significant effect on the overall number, valence, temporality, or specific categories of the responses generated for the Twenty Statements Test. Rejected participants did generate more neutrally valenced self-descriptions compared to the accepted condition, and they also generated more social self-descriptions compared to the control condition, but not the accept condition. Overall, it appears that manipulations of belongingness do not reliably or significantly affect the self-referenced processing of information. |
