On the borderline of rejection

Nobody likes to feel left out; it hurts and you might wonder if you did something wrong or if you will always be rejected. On the other hand, imagine being included and feeling a sense of impending abandonment. In this week's meme Overly Attached Girlfriend is exhibiting that problem as she spends time with her partner:

Gutz, Renneberg, Roepke, and Niedeggen (2015) investigated how three populations respond to being included and then rejected. Along with healthy controls, or average people for comparison, their experiment included people in treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and a separate group in treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Individuals with Social Anxiety Disorder are terrified that they are going to come across as awkward losers when they interact with others. This fear comes from a distorted perception that other people are more negative and judgmental than they really are, which leads to avoiding social situations and having very few social connections. When these situations cannot be avoided, people with SAD are hardest on themselves after the fact: they go over what happened in their minds and imagine how their behaviors left bad impressions.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder have an intense fear of being rejected and also view others as more negative and judgmental than they really are. This is complicated for people with BPD because they lack a solid sense of self and tend to derive some identity through the attention given to them in relationships. At the start of relationships they treat people as if they can do no wrong, but as they grow closer this bond becomes a risk - they might lose their source of self! Based on a distorted perception of reality and motivated by fear they turn against the people closest to them: accusing and blaming; projecting their own faults; exploding with over-the-top emotional reactions; or making threats of self-harm. These behaviors are scary and hurtful to receive from somebody who used to treat you so well, so eventually many of these relationships end. This further reinforces a fear of rejection.

Gutz et al. were interested in how the three groups would react to being included and being excluded. To provoke these situations they used a rigged video game called Cyberball: in this game you can "toss" a ball to two other players and they can choose to "toss" the ball to you. The participants are tested individually and they believe that they are playing online against two other people. However, they are actually just playing with a computer program and what occurs in the game is not by accident. In the first trial the program sends the ball to the participant and the two pretend players equally (33%) of the time; this should give participants a feeling of being included. In the second trial the program sends the ball to the participant less (16%) of the time compared to the pretend players; this should give participants a feeling of being excluded or rejected.

In addition to participants' ratings of their fear, expectation, and experience of rejection, the authors collected biological data in the form of brain activity during both trials. This was measured by electrical changes on the scalp known as an "event related brain potential" or ERP. The ERP of interest was P3b: this change occurs when a person has to reevaluate a situation - when something unexpected happens (and should not be confused with the dehydrated peanut butter PB2). In prior studies using Cyberball, average people exhibited this electrical change when they received the ball in the exclusion trial because this is an unexpected event.

The results of the present experiment confirmed differences between the healthy controls and the two clinical populations: overall the healthy controls rated themselves as lower in anxiety about being rejected and on expectations of rejection. In the exclusion trial, all three groups felt left out but the two clinical groups felt more threatened by this than did the healthy controls. This is evidence that rejection is felt more strongly by people diagnosed with SAD and BPD.

Differences between the clinical groups also occurred: Borderline participants rated themselves as higher in rejection expectancy than did the participants with Social Anxiety Disorder. Likewise, while there was little difference between healthy controls and participants with SAD, the participants in treatment for BPD always reported a higher experience of being left out, even in the inclusion trial. In fact, whereas the other two groups were accurate, at all times participants with BPD underestimated how many times the ball was tossed to them: they overestimated how much they were left out.

P3b activity confirmed these self-reports: only the participants with Borderline Personality Disorder demonstrated a P3b event, in fact a large P3b change, during the inclusion trial. Because this is associated with unexpected events, this means that these participants were expecting to be left out even when they were being included. Further evidence can be found in a statistical analysis: self-reports of rejection expectancy explain the largest difference in the P3b changes between the three groups.

Gutz et al. explain the significance of these findings:
...this negative perception bias might cause situation-inappropriate overreactions in daily life, and consequently prompt expectation-confirming rejection behavior by others. A recent study indicated that it is the negative perception of others that triggers elevated negative affect and quarrelsome behavior in patients with BPD (p. 428).

If Overly Attached Girlfriend struggles with BPD she may assume that any relationship puts her at risk for abandonment. An evening hanging out with her partner would not be interpreted as being accepted, but instead as a situation of likely rejection. The meme is funny because we can see the distortion in her thinking. In real life it would not be any fun: instead it might start a fight or even lead to a break-up.

Further Reading:

The Gutz et al. (2015) article can be accessed through your local college library.

If you or somebody you care about are dealing with anxiety or personality disorders, you can find helpful resources on the National Alliance on Mental Illness website.

Dr. Marsha Linehan, who created a therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder, made news by announcing that she, too, struggles with this psychological problem. Read the New York Times article about her "coming out."

Dr. Kipling Williams, one of the originators of the Cyberball game, has an updated version available on his website. This site also includes a gif that shows an image that is similar to what is seen when participating in Cyberball experiments.

BONUS: None of us would need to fear rejection if Ryan Gosling were our partner (or lab partner). Enjoy the statistics humor!

Saying "I love you"...

For this post I have to revert to preschool scatological humor for just a moment...

so if a brief, funny reference to poop is offensive...

read no further.

I have often thought that diarrhea is really the perfect excuse if you want to leave a boring situation.  If anyone tries to stop your departure, whispering, "I have diarrhea," will be the instant get-out-of-jail-free card because everybody has been there and -- for goodness sake -- nobody wants you to stick around in that state.  

With this shared human experience we introduce this week's meme:

When I searched this meme on the Internet I found a curious thing:  like this version starring Optimistic O'Connell, the other versions display a male making this statement.  Ignore the diarrhea part for now - what interested me was that this is a meme of about a confession of love.  And some versions -- like this one -- convey that this confession is being expressed to a female.

Past research suggests that, in heterosexual dating relationships, men tend to tell their partners, "I love you," earlier women do.  A pair of studies by Ackerman, Griskevicis, and Li (2011) confirm that trend, and demonstrate that this reality is the opposite of our stereotype.  Sixty-four percent of college students (who were stopped on a street corner and offered, "candy and juice drinks" (p. 1082) for their insights - I guess that is all it takes...) actually believed that the reverse was true:  that women say "I love you" first.

Ackerman et al. (2011)  includes other laboratory studies about how people feel when their partners just can't hold it in and blurt out "I love you."  Not surprisingly:  they like it.  But does the timing matter and what do we interpret that "I love you" to mean?  Because the authors come from an Evolutionary Psychology point of view, they were particularly interested in the variable of sex.

The authors' final studies determined that men are happiest when their female partners say "I love you," before the relationship has become sexual; women are happiest when that confession of love occurs after sex has been initiated.  This gender difference meshed well with the participants' reported interpretations of "I love you" at different points in the relationship:  men interpreted women's pre-sex "I love you" to mean, "I will probably have sex with you in the future;" while women interpreted a pre-sex "I love you" to mean, "I am trying to convince you to have sex with me."  If instead men's first "I love you" occurs after sex is introduced into the relationship, women interpret that same phrase to mean, "I will stick around for you."

Ackerman et al. invoke Evolutionary theory to interpret these findings.  The basic idea, put forth by researchers such as Buss, is that men have evolved to look for baby-makers - so they would like it if they get the signal that sexual reproduction might be possible.  Women have evolved to look for a mate who will stick around when they are pregnant and nursing babies - so they would like it if they get the signal that a guy is in it for the long-haul and not just looking for one night of reproduction of the fittest.

Evolutionary theory is one way to look at gender differences.  An alternative point of view, Social Role Theory, comes from Eagly and Wood (1999).  They suggest that today's gender stereotypes may have their roots in the long history of men having more power than women.  This inequality came from some biological differences (men are stronger and faster; solely women contend with pregnancy and breast feeding) that gave way to common roles that men and women took on in society.  Seeing thousands of years with more men in leadership positions we still leap to conclusions that all men are better leaders than all women; seeing thousands of years with more women than men caring for children we still leap to conclusions that all women are more nurturing than all men.

So it may be that evolutionary reproductive urges are guiding the timing and interpretation of "I love you."  It could also be that Social Role Theory is guiding these behaviors.  In that case, men's history of greater power and our stereotype of them as being leaders allow them to take more risks in relationships by saying "I love you" first and not being scared off if women say it before sex has occurred.  Likewise, women's history of less power and our stereotype of them as caregivers might encourage them to hold back that "I love you" until they have evidence (like sex) that their partners will be glad to hear this.

At this point we cannot say which perspective is right.  But what you can know for certain is this:  if somebody tells you "I love you," and you don't feel the same way...just tell them you have diarrhea and they will get out of your way.

Further Reading:

A post on a related topic from the Science of Relationships blog:  "Who Falls in Love First"?  This study is also explained using Evolutionary theory; can you imagine how Social Role Theory might interpret the same findings? 

Click here for home remedies for diarrhea and for a broken heart.

You can find a version of this article on Joshua Ackerman's website and obtain the published article through your local university library:  Ackerman, J.M, Griskevicius, V., Li, N.P. (2011) Let's get serious: Communicating commitment in romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(6),1079-1094. 

A Post for Valentine's Day

Maybe you love Valentine's Day or maybe you loathe it, either way it is hard to miss that it's happening this week with all the red and white, heart-shaped gift items in the stores.  In honor of this day of Public Displays of Affection, I bring you this week's meme:

Do you agree with this meme? 

When I saw this I thought of two recent studies that my friend Dr. Benjamin Le is publishing with his colleagues.  The first study asked 200 participants, who were currently in romantic relationships, about the level of satisfaction and commitment in their relationships.  Those same people gave the researchers access to their personal Facebook profiles; assistants then looked at each profile to see if the participants had a) set their relationship statuses to "in a relationship" and b) if their profile pictures were selfies or "relfies" (relationship selfies) with their romantic partners.  The assistants used what they found to guess the level of satisfaction and commitment of each participant's romantic relationship. 

It turned out that they were particularly likely to guess that a relationship was great when a person's status was set to "in a relationship" AND that person's profile pic was a relfie.  The guesses by the assistants were also very similar to the actual self-reports from the participants themselves.

In the second study, the researchers got creative and made up fake Facebook profiles for imaginary people.  Some of the profiles had the relationship status set to "in a relationship" and others didn't; some of the profiles had selfies as profile pictures while others had relfies.  The researchers also varied the character of the status updates:  some gave a lot of personal details about the relationship and gushed about the romantic partner; others were positive about the partner but did not give a lot of relationship details; and other statuses were not about the romantic partner at all.

One hundred new participants (who did not realize that what they were seeing was not real) got to look at these fake profiles and were asked to rate the imaginary people from these profiles on the quality of their relationship satisfaction and commitment.  The participants also were asked how much they liked each of the imaginary people who owned these profiles.

Similar to what was found in the first study, the participants were most likely to think the imaginary person was in a great relationship if his or her Facebook profile included"in a relationship" AND that person's profile pic was a relfie.  In addition, when status updates included personal details about the relationship and ooey-gooey gushing about the romantic partner - the relationship was especially likely to be judged as a good one.

However, those mushy status updates came at a price:  the imaginary people who posted those types of statuses were the LEAST LIKED by the participants.  TMI much?

So, is the meme correct?  Yes and no according to these findings.  If you display your romantic relationship on Facebook because you have an awesome relationship you can bet that your message will be read loud and clear by your Facebook friends:  they are likely to interpret your status, relfies, and posts to mean that your relationship is solid.  However, the more lovey-dovey your status updates are...your friends may start to like you a bit less. 

You win some, you lose some.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Further Reading:

You can read Dr. Le's description of his studies and other research related to relfies on the Science of Relationships website.  This is great site run by psychologists (two of my friends!) that provides good research on relationships in a fun to read format.