Social Rejection Among Adolescents

Chapter I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

Social rejection happens when one individual is purposely excluded from social situations. This rejection can be performed by either an individual or group of people, and it can be active or passive in nature. Since 1990’s, when a whole slew of school shooting began to occur across the United States, there have been numerous studies, centred around social rejection. These studies have shown that this type of rejection can lead to variety of negative psychological effects on the sufferer, including aggression and withdrawal.

Humans are social creatures, by nature, and rejection is always emotionally painful. Some rejection is normal in life, and just about everyone has experienced, or will experience, some sort of social exclusion during his lifetime. Repeating rejection can be malicious or otherwise; can have negative impact on a person. These rejections can be much more devastating for highly sensitive individual, or if fitting in with in a certain person or group is extremely important to the shunned person.

Active social rejection can manifest itself in such form as bullying or teasing. Passive rejection, on the other hand, can be a bit harder to recognize, and it can include ignoring a certain individual and excluding him from certain activities. Although passive rejection may seem to be less cruel, it can have effects that are just as detrimental. Psychologists have over the years, tried to figure out who exactly is most likely to suffer from social rejection. Although it is not an exact science and all situations differ, they have discovered that those who are considered different from so-called normal people are more likely to be the social outcast. Shy or aggressive people are thought to be targeted more for rejection, as these personality traits tend to be slightly unusual.

Today, many students suffer from bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive, or giving the “silent...