How Social Exclusion Distorts Social Network Perceptions

• In Event: 584 - Regular Session. Social Networks, Cognition, and Meaning

Abstract

Research on network cognition – how people see and understand social networks – focuses mainly on how traits and dispositions shape perceptual accuracy. Because these differences are stable and fixed, an unstated assumption in this work is that network cognition is fixed. We challenge this assumption by investigating how people’s social experiences influence their network perceptual accuracy. In two studies, we show how a common social experience—social exclusion—undermines people’s ability to accurately discern the network structures embedded in novel social situations. Specifically, people who have been socially excluded from a group perceive new groups as relatively more densely interconnected.

Authors

• Kathleen Mary O'Connor, Cornell University

• Eric Gladstone, Cornell University