Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships

“When such adolescents encounter cues that relationships will not proceed, however minimal or ambiguous, they may readily perceive intentional rejection from their mentors (Bernstein et al. 2009; Downey and Feldman 1996; London et al. 2007).”

“…to attributional biases, to rejection sensitivity—suggest that internal assessments of one’s relations with others and expectations about how one will be treated by others are critical in shaping emotional and behavioral outcomes (e.g., Dodge & Price, 1994; Downey & Feldman, 1996; Sroufe, 2005).”

“, Drevets et al. 1997; Tang et al. 2007; although see Mayberg et al. 1999) and dysregulated functional responses to affective cues. Reports of PTSD patients showed decreased vACC activity to trauma script imagery (Shin et al. 2001; Frewen et al. 2008), while Gotlib et al. (2005) have reported altered vACC responses to…”

“…(aggression: Dodge, 1993; Dodge & Frame, 1982; Zelli, Cervone, & Huesmann, 1996; Zelli, Huesmann, & Cervone, 1995; rejection by romantic partners: Downey & Feldman, 1996; Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998), experimental interactions (Todd & Funder, 2012), Thematic Apperception Test…”

“Ratings were multiplied because I was interested in the interaction between anxious concerns and expectations in the same way that Downey and Feldman (1996) calculated personal-RS scores in previous studies.”

“A person with schizophrenia who is highly concerned about being rejected by neighbors or work colleagues is more vulnerable to perceive stigma as a stressor (Jussim et al., 2000; Downey and Feldman, 1996; Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002).”

“, 1988), the Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS; Crowne and Marlowe, 1964(1)), the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS; Taylor, 1953), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1979), and the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (Downey and Feldman, 1996).”

“Prior research suggests that people vary in their need to belong (Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, & Schreindorfer, 2013), their willingness to communicate (McCroskey, 1992), their rejection sensitivity (Downey & Feldman, 1996), and social anxiety (La Greca & Lopez, 1998).”

“Similar to the original RSQ, participants indicated their level of anxiety about the possibility of rejection (1, very unconcerned; 6, very concerned) and expectations of acceptance (1, very unlikely; 6, very likely).”

“Anxious expectation of rejection, or rejection sensitivity was assessed using a questionnaire developed by Downey and Feldman (1996). It consists of 18 hypothetical situations involving parents, peers, and romantic partner, in which acceptance or rejection are possible outcomes.”

“Other individuals may be particularly sensitive to significance loss; they may be rejection-sensitive (Downey & Feldman, 1996), or come from an honor culture (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996) in which no slight, however minimal, is tolerated.”

“We assessed general belonging (Malone, Pillow, & Osman, 2012), rejection sensitivity (Downey & Feldman, 1996), and others’ approval contingency of self worth (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003) as potential moderators.”

“Validation data for this measure are available in Downey and Feldman (1996).”

“, a parent lost a job, there was a death of a family member, you or someone close to you became seriously ill, your grades went down a lot, you broke up with a boyfriend or girlfriend (17)).”

“Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ; Downey and Feldman, 1996) The RSQ includes 18 situations that are designed to assess rejection anxiety, (e.g., “How concerned or anxious would you be over whether or not your boyfriend would want to see you?”) and rejection expectations, (e.g., “I would expect that he would wa…”

“As noted previously, Downey and Feldman (1996) suggested that supportive relationships may alter expectations about rejection.”

“…to perceive interactions with others as threatening, and are neurotics tend to be upright and often express hostile emotions and behaviors toward others, which in turn may provoke others to response to them in adverse way, such as ostracism (LePine and Van Dyne, 2001; Downey and Feldman, 1996).”

“The mean of participants’ scores on the selfreport measure of rejection sensitivity (M� 7.53) was slightly lower than the measure’s reported mean (M� 9.69; Downey & Feldman, 1996 ).”

“…discussion of the meta-level messages that are communicated in relationship interactions as well as by previous work on rejection sensitivity, perceptions of disrespect, and interpretations of an inequitable balance of power (Downey & Feldman, 1996; McDonald & Asher, 2007; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996).”

“Similarly, children characterized as being sensitive to rejection (i.e., anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to rejection; Downey & Feldman, 1996) are particularly apt to endorse hostile responses to rejection and be associated prospectively with increased aggression against peers…”

“…Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002), the need to belong (Gardner, Pickett, & Brewer, 2000; Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004), and rejection sensitivity (Pietrzak, Downey, & Ayduk, 2005), all of which are associated with low self-esteem (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Murray, 2005; Pickett et al., 2004).”

“…1970 ) 1.62 (0.47) Trait Anxiety ( Spielberger et al., 1970 ) 1.93 (0.47) Social Anxiety ( Liebowitz, 1987 ) 1.05 (0.88) Rejection Sensitivity ( Downey and Feldman, 1996 ) 9.24 (2.96) Fear of Negative Evaluation ( Carleton et al., 2011 ; Leary, 1983 ) 2.71 (0.94) Depression ( Beck et al., 1996…”

“We expected anticipated stigma to be less correlated with interpersonal rejection sensitivity, which is a general tendency to readily perceive and overreact to rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996).”

“Both internalized stigma and rejection sensitivity involve cognitive and affective elements of self-evaluation [58, 77].”

“Third, we assessed a person’s rejection sensitivity—the disposition to anxiously anticipate rejection (Downey, Bonica, & Rincon, 1999; Downey & Feldman, 1996).”

“Some young people react more negatively than others to rather subtle or implied rejection, as well as reacting more negatively to overt rejection (Downey and Feldman 1996; Romero-Canyas et al. 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck and Nesdale 2013).”

“This research has shown, for example, that because high RS people expect rejection, they also more readily encode relevant cues in the environment as actual rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996).”

“The Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ); (Downey and Feldman, 1996) was translated from its original English version for adolescents into German.”

“…pain correlate similarly with individual difference variables such as extraversion (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Phillips & Gatchel, 2000), neuroticism (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Downey, Feldman, & Ayduk, 2000; Phillips & Gatchel, 2000; Wade & Price, 2000), hostility (Anderson, Anderson, Dill, & Deuser,…”

“As consistent with expectancy-value frameworks (see Feather, 1982) as well as research and theory on rejection sensitivity (e.g., Downey & Feldman, 1996), we conceptualized class-based rejection sensitivity as a “hot cognition,” (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999) whereby the effects of rejection…”

“, 1996), the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ; Downey and Feldman, 1996), and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980).”

“Thus, in rejection-relevant situations, expectations are automatically activated, preparing people high in rejection sensitivity to more readily perceive the occurrence of rejection in the behaviors of others and to react defensively (Downey & Feldman, 1996).”

“Other research suggests that personality variables such as rejection sensitivity ( Downey & Feldman, 1996 ), public self-consciousness (Fenigstein, 1979), and depression (Nezlek, Kowalski, Leary, Blevins, & Holgate, 1997) may moderate reactions to being rejected.”

“For example, individuals are less supportive toward partners when they receive negative feedback only if their self-esteem is tied to the feedback (Park & Crocker, 2005), and this defensive process tends to lead to expectations of and heightened sensitivity to rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996).”

“In rejection relevant situations, these expectations are automatically activated, leading rejection sensitive individuals to anxiously expect and more readily perceive the occurrence of rejection and to react defensively (Downey and Feldman 1996).”

“Rejection sensitivity has been described as a system of processing social information that develops from negative relational experiences and guides responses to current and future situations (Downey and Feldman 1996).”

“The RSQ (Downey & Feldman, 1996) is a 36-item self-report measure of anxious expectations of rejection on 18 social situations relevant to adult interactions (e.g., “You go to a party and notice someone on the other side of the room, and then you ask them to dance”).”

“…have been conceptualized to include certain forms of family violence (e.g., emotional maltreatment), can lead to rejection sensitivity, which encompasses anxious expectation of rejection, bias toward perceiving rejection, and heightened reactivity to perceived rejection (Downey and Feldman 1996).”

“This heightened interpersonal sensitivity, which is similar in many ways to rejection sensitivity (Downey & Feldman, 1996), appears to be an important component of vulnerable narcissism (Besser & Priel, in press a; Cooper, 1998; Dickinson & Pincus, 2003; Gabbard, 1989; Gabbard, 1998; Gersten, 1991;…”

“Furthermore, Downey and Feldman (1996) demonstrated that males and females who were sensitive to rejection from their romantic partners interacted in ways with their partners that actually led to their partners’ dissatisfaction with the couple relationship.”

“Because rejection sensitive individuals are especially motivated to avoid rejection, they tend to be concerned with how they present themselves to others (e.g., Downey & Feldman, 1996; Romero- Canyas, Reddy, Rodriguez, & Downey, 2013; Romero-Canyas et al., 2010).”

“The Fear of Rejection scale was developed for late adolescents in dating relationships (Downey and Feldman, 1996), and the intimacy items are from Social Dating Goals scale.”

“Rejection sensitivity, too, may mean individuals are always on the lookout for potential betrayal cues and interpret all kinds of partner behaviors as reliable signs of the rejection they dread (Downey & Feldman, 1996; see also Downey, this volume).”

“Hendin and Cheek (1997) concluded that along with individual differences in sensitivity to rejection (Downey & Feldman, 1996) to which it is likely related, covert narcissism was part of a more general personality construct of psychological insecurity.”

“Some personality variables, for example, Neuroticism (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975) correlated with all subscales, whereas other personality variables correlated differentially, for example, Revised Self-Monitoring (Lennox & Wolf, 1984), Interaction Anxiousness (Leary, 1983), and Rejection Sensitivity (Downey & Feldman, 19…”

“In contrast, people with LSE are highly sensitive to signs of disapproval and are more likely than people with HSE to feel rejected by others, even when this is not the case (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Nezlek et al., 1997).”

“After the experiment, participants were asked to TAS-20 Difficulty identifying feelings 18.4 6 4.6 17.5 6 4.0 0.63 0.532 Difficulty describing feelings 14.6 6 2.9 14.5 6 2.0 0.18 0.861 Externally oriented thinking 26.4 6 5.3 25.8 6 4.2 0.43 0.670 RSQ 10.4 6 1.8 11.1 6 1.8 1.19 0.241 RSES 21.7 6 3.8 23.5 6 2.9 1.72 0.0…”

“The construct of Appearance-RS was modeled after Downey and Feldman’s (1996) general construct of personal rejection sensitivity (Personal-RS), which reflects anxious expectations of rejection in general, rather than based on a specific attribute.”

“has been measured predominantly by RS questionnaire (RSQ; Downey & Feldman, 1996) and versions thereof, and the inter-personal sensitivity measure (IPSM; Boyce & Parker, 1989).”