Forming a basis for acceptance: Excluded people form attitudes to agree with potential affiliates

Emerging evidence suggests that social exclusion motivates people to forge bonds with sources of affiliation, but little work has investigated the impact of this motivation on attitude formation. Exclusion was manipulated by telling participants that they had a personality type in which they could anticipate a lonely future or by having participants recall a vivid experience of social exclusion. Compared to accepted and control participants, excluded participants were more likely to form attitudes consistent with peer consensus opinion (Experiment 1a and 1b) and an anticipated discussion partner (Experiment 2). These findings demonstrate that socially excluded people are highly susceptible to social influence when forming their attitudes.