ABSTRACT
This edited volume peers into a distressing dimension of human experience and examines the cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and explicitly social dynamics of exclusion. Humans as gregarious beings have a fundamental need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Involuntary termination of relationships, severing of social networks, and banishment from social circles is detrimental to multiple domains of self-functioning, such as self-esteem, mood, perceived control, and a meaningful existence (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, & Chokel, 1998; Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000; Williams et al., 2002; Williams & Zadro, this volume). Registering in the same neural regions as does physical injury, social rejection quite literally is painful (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003; Eisenberger & Lieberman, this volume; MacDonald & Shaw, this volume). Our contribution to this volume examines rejection as a component of a synergistic process that instigates aggression against multiple persons (i.e., mass violence).
