Social exclusion enhances affiliative signaling

Reciprocating smiles is important for maintaining social bonds as it both signals affiliative intent and elicits affiliative responses. Feelings of social exclusion may increase mimicry as a means to regulate affiliative bonds with others. In this study, we examined whether feelings of exclusion lead people to selectively reciprocate the facial expressions of more affiliative-looking people. Participants first wrote about either a time they were...