- Rejection can dramatically reduce a person's IQ and their
ability to reason analytically, while increasing their aggression,
according
to new research.
-
- "It's been known for a long time that rejected kids
tend to be more violent and aggressive," says Roy Baumeister of the
Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, who led the work. "But we've
found that randomly assigning students to rejection experiences can lower
their IQ scores and make them aggressive."
-
- Baumeister's team used two separate procedures to
investigate
the effects of rejection. In the first, a group of strangers met, got to
know each other, and then separated. Each individual was asked to list
which two other people they would like to work with on a task. They were
then told they had been chosen by none or all of the others.
-
- In the second, people taking a personality test were
given false feedback, telling them they would end up alone in life or
surrounded
by friends and family.
-
- Aggression scores increased in the rejected groups. But
the IQ scores also immediately dropped by about 25 per cent, and their
analytical reasoning scores dropped by 30 per cent.
-
- "These are very big effects - the biggest I've got
in 25 years of research," says Baumeister. "This tells us a lot
about human nature. People really seem designed to get along with others,
and when you're excluded, this has significant effects."
-
- Baumeister thinks rejection interferes with a person's
self-control. "To live in society, people have to have an inner
mechanism
that regulates their behaviour. Rejection defeats the purpose of this,
and people become impulsive and self-destructive. You have to use
self-control
to analyse a problem in an IQ test, for example - and instead, you behave
impulsively."
-
- Baumeister presented his results at the annual conference
of the British Psychological Society in Blackpool, Lancashire, UK.
-
- http://www.newscientist.com
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