Hard to face: High rejection sensitivity is associated with preconscious attentional biases to contemptuous facial expressions

The impact of social rejection varies significantly across individuals, and can have dire consequences for interpersonal relationships. Previous research suggests that those higher in rejection sensitivity (RS) show a hypervigilance to socially-rejecting cues, though results have been mixed. Participants (n = 36) with Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (A-RSQ) scores in the top (n = 17) and bottom (n = 19) third of the qualified recruited sample (n = 66) completed two tasks probing attentional responses to neutral, disgusted, and contemptuous facial expressions. A novel adaptive staircasing task revealed a greater attentional bias toward contemptuous faces among high-RS viewers relative to disgusted and neutral expressions, a pattern not seen among low-RS viewers. Event-related potential measures revealed distinct responses to contemptuous faces among high-RS viewers at early stages, followed by later enhancements to affectively-valenced faces more generally. Our results show that high-RS viewers process facial expressions distinctly from those lower in RS and suggest that contemptuous faces constitute a valid stimulus for isolating social rejection sensitivity effects.