A Window to What We Missed: Effects of Self- versus Other-Exclusion on Social Media Users' Fundamental Needs, Emotional Responses, and Online Coping Behaviors

The present paper investigates the psychological and behavioral responses postulated within the Temporal Need-Threat Model of a specific form of social exclusion: Not being included in other users' social media posts. Across two experiments (N (Total) = 563), we distinguished two reasons for this aversive experience: (a) Voluntarily choosing not to engage in the activity being displayed in the post (i.e. self-exclusion); (b) not being invited to this activity (i.e. other-exclusion). Compared to the inclusion condition, being excluded was - for both reasons - associated with threatened needs and impaired emotional responses. As hypothesized, these detrimental effects were more pronounced for other- than for self-exclusion. Concerning coping behavior, we found that self-excluded users more frequently behaved in a prosocial way, whereas those who were excluded by others performed more withdrawal behavior. Depending on self- versus other-exclusion, different coping behaviors were more versus less effective in restoring needs and regulating emotions.