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Fear of rejection is a feeling experienced by every human, which influences everyday life. It impacts an individual’s physical and mental health. But still there is no valid and reliable measure to assess prevalence of fear of rejection because of interpersonal relationships and social factors. This paper aims to serve the purpose of the establishment of psychometric properties of a scale that measures the fear of rejection.

Data was gathered from focus groups to establish item pool and construct the instrument. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the data collected by administering fear of rejection scale (FRS) and it uncovered the structure of the developed scale. Principal component analysis method was conducted by using direct oblimin rotation.

A two-factor structure, which includes interpersonal relationships and social factors, was obtained as a result of EFA. The internal consistency of the scale is highly acceptable with a = 0.93, which indicated that the scale is highly reliable. High reliability of subscales was attained as a = 0.90 and 0.86, respectively.

This research paper is original, which aims to assess the fear of rejection in terms of social and interpersonal rejection. The data collected is valid and authentic. The FRS is constructed with highly reliable results and is a psychometrically sound instrument.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether sexual minority candidates are viewed as less likely to fit-in in their work environments than heterosexual candidates and, hence, to their being evaluated as less promotable.

Consistent with previous research, the authors used a hiring scenario where evaluators saw one of four different resumes, which varied based on candidate sexual orientation and gender, yet were equal on all factors, including candidate qualifications. The research included a pre-test and manipulation check to ensure the validity of the authors’ research design.

As the authors expected based on stigma theory, gay and lesbian candidates were more likely to be perceived as unable to fit-in than heterosexual candidates. Perceptions of a lack of fitting-in were negatively related to promotability ratings, as were beliefs about the controllability of sexual orientation. However, counter to the authors’ expectations, gay and lesbian candidates were rated more promotable than heterosexual candidates. This presents a more nuanced picture of sexual orientation discrimination than has been offered heretofore.

Previous research has suggested that gay men and lesbians may be trapped in “gay ghettos,” yet there is little if any research on evaluations of sexual minority candidates in employment decisions beyond hiring. The present study extends research on sexual orientation discrimination by investigating whether decision makers are biased against gay and lesbian candidates in promotion decisions, and the factors that are related to promotability ratings.

The purpose of the study was to provide a comparative analysis on the psychological and socio-cultural impacts of COVID-19 on victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) in South Africa (SA) and the USA.

The authors collected media and scholarly articles that dealt with IPV victims during the early phase of the pandemic. This study focused solely on SA and the USA because of their unique contexts and the fact that the authors are residents of these countries. The authors observed how both presidents dealt with IPV amidst the COVID 19 pandemic, especially when stay-at-home orders were in place. Aspects relating to the psychological and socio-cultural impacts amidst the pandemic were considered.

The authors found that in both countries, many black women from low socio-economic backgrounds experience IPV. Being in isolated spaces with their perpetrators prohibits victims from reporting the abuse. As the world attempts to curb the spread of COVID-19 infections, effective strategies have been suggested for victims and perpetrators. The authors found the approaches of the two governments (until the Biden Administration in 2021) to be starkly different in terms of effective strategies and the neglect and downplaying of the extent of one or both pandemics (i.e. COVID-19 and IPV). Pro-safety, equality, gender and race-conscious embracing approaches to overcome IPV are urgently needed.

The paper focused on IPV during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides relevant information about IPV in both countries, especially when stay-at-home orders are in place.

Purpose: Social rejection is a negative interpersonal experience that leads to emotional, cognitive, and physiological outcomes. We develop a theoretical model arguing that social rejection in workplace settings can alter employees' personal values in either the short- or the long term. Methodology: This is a theoretical essay based on three theories: (1) human values; (2) affective events; and (3) shattered assumptions. Findings: In the proposed model, an employee's emotional reactions to social rejection in the workplace (emotional distress or emotional numbness) partially mediate the relationship between the experience of social rejection and short- or long-term development of self-protective (rather than self-expansive) personal values. Originality: The processes whereby social rejection at work leads to personal value change remain largely unexplored to date. The proposed model represents an initial attempt to understand this process, including the effects of emotional distress (long term) and emotional numbness (short term). Research Implications: The model introduces the mechanisms whereby social rejection in the workplace leads to short-term and long-term changes in individual values and has potential to serve as a launchpad for future research interest in this phenomenon. Practical Implications: The framework proposed in this chapter should help scholars to understand better the dynamics of social rejection in the workplace and how this phenomenon affects employees' values in work settings, both in the short- and long term.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical model describing how newcomers’ team-member exchange (TMX), team identification and workplace loneliness may be affected by existing team members’ rejections to the newcomers’ interpersonal helping behavior (IHB).

A theoretical analysis was performed.

The authors propose the following propositions. First, higher levels of IHB rejections result in lower levels of TMX and team identification and higher levels of workplace loneliness experienced by a newcomer. Second, a newcomer’s TMX mediates the relationship between IHB rejections and the newcomer’s workplace loneliness and team identification. Finally, a newcomer’s team identification mediates the relationship between IHB rejections and the newcomer’s workplace loneliness.

This theoretical study provides the following managerial implications. First, managers need to proactively implement tactics that help satisfy newcomers’ affiliation needs through the development of strong formal work relationships with existing members. Second, managers are advised to consider the use of tactics that facilitate the development of effective informal relationships between newcomers and existing team members upon the entry of the team. Third, managers need to implement informal social events where newcomers have the opportunity to exhibit their helpful behaviors. Fourth, managers should periodically inform existing team members of some common anxieties and fears of newcomers that are triggered by entering new interpersonal environments. Finally, managers may utilize mentoring programs that help facilitate newcomers’ accurate interpretations of phenomena occurring around them.

This theoretical study is the first study that examines consequences of IHB rejections in organizations.

The starting‐point of the article is the inconsistency between the established practice of acceptance in many cases, of economic policy (i.e. progressive taxation, national insurance policies) and the theoretical rejection of interpersonal comparisons of utility who see it as an unscientific value judgement. The inconsistency is explained by identifying three groups of theorists: (1) those who thought of comparability as a value judgement and unacceptable for economic policy considerations (positivists), (2) those who agreed with the positivists, on the normative nature of comparability but accepted it as a basis for economic policy, and (3) those who thought of it as part of a scientific economics. The implication was that, despite the dominance of positivist methodology in other sub‐fields, the historical experience points to the difficulty of applying positivist methodology to the issue of comparability. If the inconsistency is thus due to the inappropriateness of the positivist approach, the only possible solution is the explicit abandonment of this approach at least in matters related to the collective aspects of economics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the emotion expressed by a fictitious proposer influences the responder’s decision to accept or reject a severely unfair deal, represented by the splitting of a predetermined sum of money between the two players during an ultimatum game (UG). Rejection leads both parts to dissipate that sum. Critically the authors consider the situation in which both players have the best alternative to negotiation agreement (BATNA), which simulates a backup plan to rely on in case of no agreement.

The participants played a UG and, to foster the ecological validity of the paradigm, the parts could both rely on a more or less generous BATNA. The critical manipulation was the emotion expressed by the proposer while their BATNA was either hidden (Exp. 1) or communicated (Exp. 2).

The proposer’s emotions influenced participants’ own emotions, affected their social evaluations about the proposer, the desire for future interactions with the proposer and were used to infer the proposer’s BATNA when it was unknown. In this latter case, proposers’ emotions and in particular his/her happiness, decreased dramatically the participants’ tendency to reject even severely unfair offers.

Past research on UG has been predominantly aimed to investigate the effect of responders’ emotions or the effects of responders’ emotions on the proposer, devoting little attention to how the critical responder’s acceptance/rejection decision might be affected by the proposer’s emotion. Especially in the ecological situation where the parts have a BATNA in case of non-agreement.

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize and integrate a body of psychological literature regarding an individual difference related to the experience of anxiety that largely, and somewhat surprisingly, has been overlooked by organizational scientists. This variable, most often called social anxiety or social phobia, reflects a strong fear that one is in danger of behaving inappropriately, inadequately, or ineptly, with impending disastrous consequences such as rejection, humiliation, or ouster from a group (Trower & Gilbert, 1990). In providing a summary of the construct and ongoing investigations, the chapter offers ideas for future research into how this important variable may influence behaviors at work.

This research is conducted in the context of beauty salons in India, to investigate how enhanced perceived acceptance in interpersonal relationships through consuming beauty salon services can generate narcissistic brand love among consumers via the mediation of brand happiness. It also investigates the moderating impact of consumer's anxious interpersonal attachment style and cynicism on the relationship between perceived salon brand-interpersonal acceptance goal congruence and salon brand happiness.

To test the hypothesized relationships, a survey was conducted among 225 regular consumers of beauty salon brands. The data were analyzed using Hayes' (2017) process macro in SPSS.

The results suggest that perceived goal congruence between beauty salon brand-interpersonal acceptance positively influences brand happiness, which in turn predicts consumer's narcissistic brand love. Consumer's anxious interpersonal attachment style positively moderates the effect of brand-interpersonal acceptance goal congruence on brand happiness, while cynicism negatively moderates the path.

Value of the study lies in extending interpersonal acceptance and rejection (IPAR) theory to the domain of consumer–salon brand relationship, to posit that if salon brands satisfy consumers' interpersonal acceptance goals, there is a potential for such happy consumers to love the salon brand, albeit narcissistically.