Social exclusion is common in daily life and has adverse effects on healthy functioning. Because of these adverse effects, there is value in exploring behaviors and attributes that may assist in coping with exclusion. Current understanding of ways to reduce the impact of social exclusion is limited. Exploratory efforts are needed to address the transient effects of social exclusion as an attempt to improve daily functioning and reduce the progression of adverse effects on healthy functioning. These transient effects are largely characterized by reductions in pleasant affect and impairments to cognitive performance. Accordingly, this dissertation examined two complementary aspects of health to address responses to social exclusion – physical activity and aerobic fitness.The purpose of the first study was to assess walking as a strategy to reduce the effects of social exclusion on affect and working memory performance. Healthy female college students (N = 96, Mage = 19.2 ± 0.8 years) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (a) sedentary plus neutral feedback, (b) sedentary plus exclusion feedback, (c) walking plus neutral feedback, or (d) walking plus exclusion feedback. Results showed excluded participants had a significant negative shift in affect following feedback, p < .05. Those who were sedentary prior to exclusion had lower affect scores following exclusion than the walking plus exclusion and the neutral feedback groups, p < .05. There were no direct effects of walking or social exclusion on working memory. However, perceptions of being ignored predicted smaller improvements in working memory performance for participants who were sedentary prior to exclusion, p < .05. The findings suggest that walking prior to social exclusion may mitigate the affective response to social exclusion as well as social perceptions that can undermine working memory. More broadly, this work supports continued examination of physical activity as a potential strategy for helping individuals cope with negative social experiences.The purpose of the second study was to determine if aerobic fitness moderates affective and cognitive responses to social exclusion. Healthy adolescent girls (N = 35, Mage = 10.4 ± 1.2 years) completed measures of affect and working memory performance in response to a series computer games where they were socially included and excluded. Social exclusion significantly decreased affect, p < .001; however, working memory performance increased from inclusion to exclusion, p < .001. Moderation analyses revealed aerobic fitness was positively associated with changes in affect and working memory, p's < .05. Higher levels of aerobic fitness were associated with smaller decreases in affect and larger increases in working memory performance for the more challenging of two working memory tasks used in this study. These results suggest that more aerobically fit girls may be better able to cope with social exclusion than less aerobically fit girls. This research highlights a potentially important moderator for coping with social exclusion and further research is warranted.Collectively, both studies offer a novel and complementary approach towards addressing the effects of social exclusion. Health behaviors such as physical activity are practical because they are accessible to most people to incorporate into their daily lives with low burden and cost. Both physical activity behavior and aerobic fitness are associated with a range of positive physical and mental health outcomes, which makes them particularly attractive candidates for reducing the effects of social exclusion.
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