Motivation and emotion/Book/2025/Rejection sensitivity

Scenario Sam's partner Riley came home and went straight to the kitchen without their usual spritely kiss hello. Sam started to think, "they're pulling away from me." When Riley quietly made dinner, Sam interpreted the silence as anger. "They must be upset at me" Sam concluded. During dinner, Riley mentioned feeling tired, which Sam heard as code for "tired of us." When Riley went to bed early, Sam stayed awake catastrophising about their relationship. The next morning, Riley mentioned they'd received difficult news about a family member's health and had been processing it quietly. Sam realised they had constructed an entire narrative of rejection from Riley's normal response to personal stress, rather than checking in to see if Riley was ok.

This chapter examines rejection sensitivity (RS), a psychological construct that describes individual differences in the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection cues in interpersonal situations (Downey and Feldman, 1996). Drawing from social-cognitive theory (Pietrzak et al., 2005) and attachment theory research (Baumeister and Vohs, 2007), this chapter explores how rejection sensitivity develops, its relationship with neurodivergence, how it manifests behaviourally, and impacts various life domains including romantic relationships, friendships, academic performance, and mental health. The chapter integrates theoretical frameworks like the RS model (Downey and Feldman, 1996), and empirical research to provide a comprehensive understanding of this psychological phenomenon and its implications for social functioning.

• Create three to six major headings tailored to the topic in between the standard Overview and Conclusion sections
• Sub-headings for these sections can also be used, but:
  • avoid having sections with only one sub-heading
  • provide an introductory paragraph before breaking into sub-sections

For each heading/sub-heading:

Provide at least three bullet-points, including for the Overview and Conclusion

• Include key citations

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection (Downey et al., 2004)

• Talk about attachment theory and how it manifests into insecure attachments (Baumeister and Vohs, 2007)
• Horney's neurotic personality theory - (Sharma, 2015)

• Rejection sensitivity model (Downey and Feldman, 1996, Mishra and Allen, 2023)
• Social cognitive theory (Pietrzak et al., 2005)

• Cognitive-affective processing (Downey and Feldman, 1996)
• Defensive motivational system (Baldwin, 2004)
• Emotional regulation as a role of mediating RS responses. Talk about the differences between emotional (anger, anxiety, and cognitive (expectation) (Casini et al., 2022) Startle response and the defensive motivational system (Downey et al., 2004)

• Talk about childhood teasing, history of attachments, rejections early in life (Butler et al., 2007)
• Discuss the biopsychosocial factors (Zwolinski, 2008)

• Anxious vs angry sensitivity (London et al., 2007) Impact on attention – social threat cues (Berenson et al., 2009)
• Discuss a list of symptoms or create a table of symptoms and their presentations

• Therapeutic applications and statistical outcomes
• Medication - Monoamine oxidase for pharmacological treatment (Dodson et al., 2024) Talk about emotional regulation strategies for therapy as a mediating tool for RS responses between cognition and emotion (Casini et al., 2022)
  

• ADHD and RSD show rejection sensitivity - (Dodson et al., 2024)
• ADHD RSD in children and adolescents (Bondü and Esser, 2015)

introduce behavioural implications and discuss research, include a quiz to match behaviours to presentations

• Relationship between aggression and rejection sensitivity (Gao et al., 2021)
• Blame, retribution, anger, withdrawal (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2016)

• Anxious rejection expectation = higher social anxiety, angry rejection expectation = lower social anxiety + Stats on loneliness (London et al., 2007)
• Rejection sensitivity as an interpersonal vulnerability (Baldwin, 2004)
• implications in intimate relationships (Downey and Feldman, 1996, Mishra and Allen, 2023)
• Rejection – hostility link – implications for romantic relationships (Romero‐Canyas et al., 2010)
• Emotional regulation, maladaptive responses to rejection, results on relationships (Richter et al., 2024)

• Social withdrawal, loneliness (Zimmer-Gembeck and Nesdale, 2013)
• Social confidence and rejection intensity outcomes for social behaviours (Schaan et al., 2020) Supportive relationships for rejection sensitives (McDonald et al., 2010)

Impact on students

Impact on work relationships

• Use figures to illustrate concepts, add interest, and to serve as examples
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• Embed figures throughout the chapter, starting with the scenario in the Overview section
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• Cite each figure at least once in the main text (e.g., see Figure 2)

Interactive learning features help to bring online book chapters to life and can be embedded throughout the chapter.

Scenarios

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• Present using feature boxes

Feature boxes

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  • Quiz questions
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Embedded links

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Tables

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• Example 3 x 3 tables which could be adapted

Table 1. Descriptive Caption Which Explains The Table and its Relevant to the Text - Johari Window Model

Quizzes

• Using one or two revision questions per major section is better than a long quiz at the end
• Quiz conceptual understanding, rather than trivia

1. The best quiz questions are about important information take-home messages

• The best quiz questions are simple rather than hard
• Different types of quiz questions are possible; see Quiz

Example simple quiz questions. Choose your answers and click "Submit":

• The Conclusion is arguably the most important section
• Suggested word count: 150 to 330 words
• It should be possible for someone to only read the Overview and the Conclusion and still get a good idea of the problem and what is known based on psychological science

• ADHD (Wikipedia)
• Rejection sensitivity (Book chapter, 2024)
• Rejection sensitive dysphoria (Wikipedia)
• Social rejection (Wikipedia)

1. Episode 256: rejection sensitivity dysphoria with Dr. Bill Dodson (Neurodiversity Podcast)
2. New insights into rejection sensitive dysphoria (ADDitude magazine article by Dr William Dodson)
3. Rejection sensitive dysphoria, relationships, and how to overcome challenges (Dr Megan Anna Neff - Neurodivergent insight blog)
4. Uncovering the roots and evolution of rejection sensitivity dysphoria (Dr Megan Anna Neff - Neurodivergent insight blog)