With the advent of recent political events involving particular groups people being identified as unwelcome or potentially dangerous, I have been thinking about the issue of social exclusion. There is a fair amount of literature on social exclusion and rejection. While I don’t have the time or space to summarize much of it right now, I am aware of some of the research by DeWall, Baumeister, Bushman, and other social psychology researchers, suggesting that social exclusion has negative effects on well-being. In particular, experiments have shown that, when people are excluded, they are often likely to feel emotionally distressed, to think that other people are being hostile, and to be more willing to act aggressively toward other people (DeWall et al., 2009). Based on this research alone, it would seem that any initiatives that actively exclude members of our society are likely to be incredibly counterproductive. Further, some interesting research has suggested that social connection might be one of the key ingredients for longevity and well-being. Research has looked at a lot of different populations, but one group in particular includes people who have retired. Following retirement, if you had an active career, you can probably guess that your social life will change. In particular, you’re likely to be less involved and connected to particular social groups. This could be a problem for you! Indeed, in one study, findings suggested that, following retirement, people who gain two or more social groups are over 20 times like less likely to die in the first six years of retirement, compared with people who lose two social groups (Steffens et al., 2016). Human beings are social animals. Emerging research says that is simply not healthy to be disconnected from the “tribe,” so to speak. In fact, by excluding certain groups, people may be exacerbating the very problems they have been trying to solve. I would not, however, consider myself to be incredibly well-informed politically. So, I might prefer to focus here on the importance of staying connected with other people and welcoming others into our lives. I believe that we could have a great impact on our well-being and that of others if we were to treat other people, even those we don’t really know (and maybe even those we don’t like), as if they are important, welcome, and part of our tribe. ~ Alexnder L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.