Hard to Face: High Rejection Sensitivity Is Associated With Preconscious Attentional Biases to Contemptuous Facial Expressions

The impact of social rejection varies significantly across individuals and can have dire consequences for interpersonal relationships. Research suggests that those higher in rejection sensitivity (RS) show a hypervigilance for socially rejecting cues, although results have been mixed. Participants with Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (A-RSQ) scores in the top and bottom thirds of the qualified recruited sample completed tasks probing attentional responses to neutral, disgusted, and contemptuous facial expressions. A novel adaptive staircasing task revealed a greater attentional bias toward contemptuous faces among higher-RS viewers relative to disgusted and neutral expressions, a pattern not seen among lower-RS viewers. Event-related potential measures revealed distinct responses to contemptuous faces among higher-RS viewers at early stages, followed by later enhancements to affectively valenced faces. Our results show that higher-RS viewers process facial expressions differently than those lower in RS and suggest that contemptuous faces constitute a valid stimulus for isolating social rejection sensitivity effects.