Abstract
Experiences of stigma-induced social identity threat can frustrate one’s need for belonging. No research to date has examined whether stigmatized people experience loneliness as a result. Therefore, we conducted two studies with unemployed people in Germany to test the hypothesis that social identity threat increases feelings of loneliness. In Study 1 (N = 445), we employed a two-wave longitudinal study and found that Time 1 social identity threat positively predicted Time 2 loneliness. Study 2 (N = 329) provided experimental evidence of this link by manipulating exposure to social identity threat cues through mental imagery. Mediation analysis indicated that this is due to amplified feelings of anger and shame as well as a reduced sense of social belonging. These research findings suggest the importance of interventions to foster a sense of social belonging in marginalized groups.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
