The Social Outcast

"This book is for all of us. It's for everyone who has ever been jilted, shunned, stood up for dinner, blackballed, left at the altar, or not told about the secret handshake. These chapters offer everything from clever insights to novel experiments to thorough reviews, touching in turn on many facets of the experience of rejection that we all know far too well—but have never before seen analyzed with this kind of scientific clarity." —Daniel M. Wegner, Harvard University

"Why do people ignore, exclude, or reject others? How does such ostracism impact people's emotions, thoughts, and actions (in ways both toxic and adaptive)? In this state-of-the-art volume, internationally prominent social psychologists provide definitive answers. A timely and fascinating book for anyone seeking deeper insight into 'the social animal.'" —David G. Myers, Hope College

"Many facets of [...] renewed scholarly interest are illuminated in this very comprehensive and sophisticated collection of papers from highly regarded scholars in several subfields. For the foreseeable future, this book will be definitive. It is a sourcebook that codifies the leading edge of research on social exclusion across many levels of analysis.

The editors intended the [...] book to be a collaborative effort representing cross-fertilisation of many perspectives on exclusion rather than a more simplistic anthology of works from diverse thinkers. They have definitely succeeded, and as a result this book should be useful to researchers and advanced students in any behavioural science domain concerned with the dynamics of social belonging." —Brian H. Stagner, in PsyCritiques, June 14 2006