Quantitative Writing Sample - Long

Abstract

Rejection sensitivity conceptualizes the readiness of an individual to expect and interpret ambiguous social interactions as rejection. While there is a wealth of research investigating how rejection sensitivity affects intimate social relationships, there is little research into its effects on an individual's cognition. This study aims to investigate whether highly rejection sensitive individuals differ in the emotional valence of recall of positive and negative experiences when compared to individuals who are less sensitive to rejection. The levels of rejection sensitivity in twenty participants was determined through calculating the scores of the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire, and the emotional valence of participants’ recall was evaluated with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count text analysis and personally developed Emotional Valence Code.

Introduction

As social beings, humans aim to maximize acceptance and minimize rejection within social situations. The extent to which an individual perceives and reacts to rejection, a term known as rejection sensitivity, is crucial in predicting how individuals will tend to act in specific social interactions (Downey & Feldman, 1996). Individuals who are high in rejection sensitivity consistently are highly concerned about how others will react in ambiguous social situations and tend to expect rejection from others in varying social situations. This raises the question of whether individuals who are higher in rejection sensitivity are more likely than those lower in rejection sensitivity to recall more extreme examples and times of victimizations.

Rejection sensitive individuals are those who are anxious in their expectations, perceptions, and overreactions to rejection (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1996). Individuals with a tendency towards rejection sensitivity often anxiously expect those close to them to be unwilling to meet their care and support needs in a relationship (Berenson et al., 2009). More often than not, rejection sensitive individuals are insecurely attached people who are generally distrustful of others and worry about the commitment of significant people in their lives (Downey & Feldman, 1996). These individuals often exhibit behaviors of sociotropy, therefore being less likely to seek intimate relationships with others and aim to avoid rejection by distancing themselves from others and being autonomous (Brookings, Zembar & Hochstetler, 2003). Rejection sensitive individuals, especially adolescents, tend to react to perceived rejection in social situations with oversensitivity and maladaptive behaviors, like hurt, anger, hostility, and social withdrawal (Zimmer-Gembeck & Nesdale). This can lead to a self-perpetuating cycle of highly rejection sensitive people wrongly attributing rejection to neutral social interactions and creating increasing interpersonal issues with significant others.

The insecure attachment of rejection sensitivity is thought potentially to be a result of rejection by individuals’ parents at young ages that then carries into subsequent relationships in adolescence and adulthood (Brookings, Zembar, & Hochstetler, 2003). Trauma, including that of rejection by parental figures at a young age, can lead to the formation of “fear networks” in the brain which serve to incite hypervigilance in those who have experienced trauma and facilitate the reactivation of traumatic memories (Lightfoot, Cole, & Cole, 2018). This therefore may mean that rejection sensitive individuals, who are likely accustomed to traumatic events such as those stemming from childhood, may be more likely to better recall the extremes of experiences with victimization.

Although there is a wealth of research investigating how rejection sensitivity affects social relationships and behavioural outcomes, little research has been conducted investigating how it may affect cognition. Research has shown that this tendency to expect rejection affects many aspects of people's lives including intimate relationships, personal and interpersonal goals and mental well-being, it also has been shown to impact the specificity of memories retrieved by an individual (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Berenson et al., 2009; Ayduk, Downey & Kim, 2001; Rosenbach & Renneberg, 2015).

This study aimed to investigate whether highly rejection sensitive individuals differ in their emotional recall of victimization and positive experiences compared to individuals who are less sensitive to rejection. To address this question, participants were to respond to a series of questionnaires that potentially increased their stress levels. They then were given the task of writing about a time where they felt they had been treated unfairly and later were tasked to write about a time where they felt accepted and loved. Autobiographical memories of high-level importance have been shown to be more emotionally vivid and more frequently remembered than those of lower-level of importance (Yamamoto, 2015). Highly rejection sensitive individuals may consider experiences of unfair treatment as of higher-level importance, and therefore recall such negative events in an emotionally salient manner. This would indicate that participants in our study who are high in rejection sensitivity may self-report victimization as potentially more extreme and more hurtful than individuals lower in rejection sensitivity. Alternatively, high rejection sensitivity individuals may differ in their recall of positive events. Highly rejection sensitive individuals may actually frame memories of positive past experiences in a more negative manner than individuals who are less sensitive to rejection. This may be due to the fact that individuals with higher rejection sensitivity scores may be less likely to remember being helped because of their expectation for the inadequacy of the abilities to do so of significant others in their lives (Downey & Feldman, 1996).

Method

Recruitment and Procedure

Participants were recruited from Oberlin College, primarily from the introductory psychology class on campus, PSYC 100. A description of the study was featured on the PSYC 100 recruitment website, OCSSuS. All students in the PSYC 100 class are required to earn a total of nine supplemental activity, or SA, credits, which can be earned by completing tasks such as participating in studies. PSYC 100 students who participated fully in this Price of Difference study were compensated with two SA credits. Additionally, flyers were posted in buildings around campus as a further outreach tool to promote the study to individuals not taking the PSYC 100 class. Those not participating for SA credits were compensated with $10.

Upon signing up through OCSSuS, students were sent an immediate email reminder of the date, time, and informations about food restrictions. Students were advised not to eat anything two hours before the study began and to drink water but no other liquids beforehand as well. One day before students were to come in for their allotted time slot in the study, the students were sent a second email reiterating the contents of the first. The morning of the study, students were sent a third reminder and reiteration email.

The study consisted of a collection of questionnaires and two writing tasks. Participants were initially presented with a consent form, Consent Form A, asking whether students were willing to provide initial salivary sample to establish a baseline cortisol levels. Participants, after consenting, rinsed their mouths and provided salivary samples through salivettes. Participants placed a white swab underneath their tongue and were timed holding it in their mouths for two minutes. After consenting and providing the first salivary sample, students then completed a demographics questionnaire followed by a second consent form, Consent Form B. Consent Form B asked whether participants were willing to answer a series of questionnaires and provide a second spit sample. It was here that participants were given the option to leave and yet still receive at least one SA credit if they were PSYC 100 students or $2 if they were not. When participants consented, they then were to complete 10 questionnaires, at the most. Questionnaires provided to participants differed depending on the responses provided by the participants during the demographics questionnaire. Participants who self-identify as a sexuality other than straight were given two additional questionnaires, and participants whose sex at birth does not align with their gender identify were given one additional questionnaire. One questionnaire following the Consent Form B was given to all participants regardless of their responses provided in the demographics questionnaire. Participants, therefore, were presented with up to four possible questionnaires. Each questionnaire was designed to incite stress in the participant. Following this section, participants were asked a single open-ended question about a time in which they were treated unfairly, bullied, or harassed because of their group identity. Participants completed this first essay question and then were to continue on to answer six more questionnaires.

Consistency was required here. Participants were timed during the questionnaire collection. 45 minutes after providing their first salivary sample, participants repeated the same under-the-tongue procedure as conducted during the first salivary sample collection. Participants who were still working on their responses after 45 minutes were paused for two minutes and then allowed to continue after providing the second sample. Participants who completed the questionnaires within 45 minutes were given the options of either relaxing or playing puzzle games like Tetris or crossword puzzles until the 45 minutes had passed. Following the sixth and final questionnaire of the section as well as the second salivary sample, participants were given a second open-ended question. The second open-ended question asked participants to describe a time in which they truly felt accepted.

As a final question, participants were provided with a brief explanation for the study and questions they had just been asked, and were asked once more whether they would allow for their data to be used in the study. Participants who agreed were given either two SA credits if they were PSYC 100 students or $10 if they were not. Additionally, participants were given Kind Bars to eat and a sheet listing contact information of emotional support resources on Oberlin College campus should they so require it after answering questionnaires regarding sensitive topics.

Participants

The sample of participants collected consisted entirely of Oberlin College students between the ages of 18 and 22. The sample did not happen to include anyone who identified as gender-fluid or non-binary. Only one participant was not cisgender and therefore identified with a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth. This participant instead defined as themselves as “never fixed,” and self-identified their gender identity as female. This participant was therefore coded as female. The sample was, however, evenly divided between those who identified as male and female, with 50% of participants self-identifying as male and 50% of participants self-identifying as either female or a woman (N = 20). The majority of our sample, 60% of participants, identified as straight. Apart from straight, bisexuality was the only other sexuality to have more than one participant identify as such. 5% of participants identified as both straight and bisexual. 10% of participants identified as bisexual, while the rest of the sample, 25%, consisted of single participants identifying either as pansexual, asexual, lesbian, gay, or queer.

Exactly 50% of the sample was Caucasian, and the rest of the sample consisted of 40% Asian students and 10% biracial students, one of which was both Asian and Caucasian. While 55% of the participants were from the United States coming from mostly the East Coast, 15% of the participants were from the United States but from the West Coast or the Midwest. Additionally, 30% of the participants from the sample were international students, with 50% of the international participants coming from China, 33% from Vietnam, and 17% from Hong Kong.

The sample of participants all reported at least one parent or guardian exposed to a college education in some regard. For 55% of participants, at least one parent or guardian went to graduate school, while for 30% of participants, at least one parent or guardian graduated college. 15% of participants had least one parent or guardian finish some college.

Exactly 50% of the sample identified as liberal, while 15% participants chose not to answer about their political views and 15% other participants called themselves moderate. The remaining 20% of participants each identified as either communist, progressive, conservative, or moderately conservative. Further, participants happened to come from either no religious background or a wide array. 40% of participants were raised with no religion, while 15% participants were raised Catholic and 10% participants each were raised Jewish or Baptist. The rest of the sample consisted of single participants reporting being raised as either Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, or Protestant. Regardless of background exposure, however, the majority of participants were 65% of participants who now report practicing no religion at college. 10% of participants were Atheist, 10% of participants were Catholic, 5% of participants were Christian, 5% of participants were Baptist, and 5% of participants were Unitarian Universalist.

Measures

Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire.

The rejection sensitivity questionnaire (Downey & Feldman, 1996) assess the expectation an individual has for rejection by significant others in their lives. This measure is comprised of 18 items posing hypothetical situations in which the individual could possibly be rejected by their significant other (e.g. “You ask your parents for extra money to cover living expenses”). For each hypothetical situation, individuals are asked first about how concerned or anxious they felt about the other individual’s response (e.g. “How concerned or anxious would you be over whether or not your parents would help you out?”) on a 6-point likert scale ranging from 1 (very unconcerned) to 6 (very concerned). They were then asked about their expectation of acceptance or rejection regarding the likelihood of how their significant other might act (e.g. “I would expect that my parents would not mind helping out”) of a 6-point likert scale ranging from 1 (very unlikely) to 6 (very likely). This measure has a test-retest reliability of .83 over a 2-3 week period and .78 over a 4 month period (Downey & Feldman, 1996).

Expectations of acceptance were reverse coded to give a score for expectations of rejection (e.g. rejection expectancy = 7 - acceptance expectancy). For each hypothetical situation the concern regarding rejection was weighted by the perceived likelihood of rejection (e.g. rejection sensitivity = rejection concern * rejection expectancy). For each participant, an average of rejection sensitivity scores for each hypothetical situation was calculated, giving an overall rejection sensitivity for each participant. Participants with RSQ scores over 15 were considered high in rejection sensitivity for further analyses.

Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Participants in this study wrote essays discussing a time where they felt that they had been treated unfairly, and a time where they felt love and acceptance. The computerized text analysis program used to analyze the essays was Linguistics Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015), a program that counts words in a piece of writing and assigns them to categories as defined by the program’s dictionary. For further analyses, the primary variables we investigated were clout, emotional tone, anger, negative emotion, and positive emotion.

Emotional Valence Code. Participants in this study wrote essays discussing a time where they felt that they had been treated unfairly, and a time where they felt love and acceptance. Both essays were coded using the emotional valence code as a secondary measure of the emotional content of the essays (see Appendix A). When coding the essay sections of our study for emotional valence, each of the researchers individually rated each essay by each participant. An average of the rates scores were taken if the pieces were rated the same or had a one point disparity. In the case that the two researchers disagreed and coded one piece of writing with a two or more point disparity between the two scores, a third researcher from the class who was already familiar with the data but was not working on this specific project was brought in to also follow the researchers’ emotional valence code. The score that the third researcher assigned to the piece of writing was the final score assigned to that piece of writing.

Appendix A

Emotional Valence Code

This code assesses the emotional valence of a piece of writing. It assesses the emotional tone of the piece of writing, looking at how the content of a piece is framed. Emotional valence defines the extent to which a situation is emotionally described as positive or negative. Neutral pieces of writing are those that lack charged sentences with emotional tones.

Neutral emotion is seen when content is framed objectively (ex: “I saw a dog”). Negative emotion is seen when content is framed with tones of frustration, irritation, anger, and emotional defensiveness (ex: “I saw a dog and expected it to bite me”), while positive emotion is seen when content is framed with tones of joy, excitement, gratitude, pride, and amusement (ex: “I saw a dog and I wanted to pet it”).

NOTE: Neutral sentences are not taken into account in this code. Each sentence should only have one emotional valence assignment. Sarcasm is coded as negative.

1. Positivity: All sentences that describe an event, interaction, or feeling in a positive or optimistic manner.

1. Mostly positive with mention of negative: More of the sentences describing an event, interaction, or feeling are written in a positive manner than in a negative manner.

1. Equal positivity & negativity: An approximately equal amount of positive and negative sentences are used within the writing. The writer’s tone of writing is generally balanced. Completely neutral pieces of writing will have no positive or negative sentences, and therefore should be coded as “Equal positivity and negativity.”

1. Mostly negative with mention of positive: More sentences describing an event, interaction, or feeling are written in a negative manner than a positive manner.

1. Negativity: All sentences that describe an event, interaction or feeling in a negative or pessimistic manner.

References

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Brookings, J. B., Zembar, M. J., & Hochstetler, G. M. (2003). An interpersonal circumplex/five-factor analysis of the rejection sensitivity questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(3), 449-461.

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