“This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, people who feel socially rejected are more likely to see others’ actions as hostile and are more likely to behave in hurtful ways toward people they have never even met.

They’re seeing life through blood red colored glasses – tailored to them by their environment of rejection and exclusion.

“Prior case studies show the majority of school shooters have experienced chronic peer rejection,” said the study’s lead author, C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D., from the University of Kentucky. “And while not everyone who feels rejected reacts violently, we found they tend to act out aggressively in other ways. We wanted to help explain psychologically why this happens.”

“Across all experiments, the participants who experienced some form of social rejection acted in similar ways,” said DeWall. “This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

Prior research has examined whether emotions play a role in this type of aggression, but this study’s researchers say their findings do not support this idea. “Excluded people see the world through blood-colored glasses and it is our hope that this research can lead to a better understanding of why rejection causes aggression and what we can do to prevent such unwanted and harmful behavior,” said DeWall.

I’m left wondering if this is another case of which came first – the isolation or the perception of isolation and rejection that then appeared as isolation?

Perhaps you’ve been around someone who put out the “stay away from me” pheromone. It could simply be a situation of DNA combining in just that “right” way to create a smell that repulses other people. Or perhaps the person was born with just the right physiology in their brain that tended to obscure or taint the child’s (and later youth’s) view of the world – causing them to see “red” when the reality is “white” or “blue”.

Whatever the cause of such isolation and feelings of rejections, it seems to me the answer is to challenge it. Rather than let feelings of isolation and rejection rule over you, blink it into submission before you. There is absolutely no reason why any youth should feel rejected by his/her peers.

Humans are social creatures and require social interaction for good health – physically and emotionally. When faced with feelings of rejection, very simple processes can be used to desensitize or, in some cases, completely eliminate the feeling. Further, re-perceiving (called reframing) can change a feeling of rejection into a message of importance (called useful feedback).

If I’m seeing life through blood-red glasses, I can choose to take them off. Or choose to wear a different color lens. Or maybe even try on liteframe glasses! Ooh, la la!!

Article: “It’s the Thought That Counts: The Role of Hostile Cognition in Shaping Aggressive Responses to Social Exclusion,” C. Nathan DeWall, PhD, University of Kentucky; Jean M. Twenge, PhD, San Diego State University; Seth A. Gitter, PhD, and Roy F. Baumeister, PhD, Florida State University; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 1.

(Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp96145.pdf)