Extant findings are mixed on whether social exclusion impacts prosociality. We propose one factor that may underlie the mixed results: Cynicism. Specifically, cynicism may moderate the exclusion-prosociality link by influencing interpersonal empathy. Compared to less cynical individuals, we expected highly cynical individuals who were excluded to experience less empathy and, consequently, less prosocial behavior. Using an online ball-tossing game, participants were randomly assigned to an exclusion or inclusion condition. Consistent with our predictions, the effect of social exclusion on prosociality through empathy was contingent on cynicism, such that only less-cynical individuals responded to exclusion with greater empathy, which, in turn, was associated with higher levels of prosocial behavior. We further showed this effect to hold for cynicism, but not other similar traits typically characterized by high disagreeableness. Findings contribute to the social exclusion literature by suggesting a key variable that may moderate social exclusion's impact on resultant empathy and prosocial behavior and are consistent with the perspective that people who are excluded try to not only become included again but to establish alliances characterized by reciprocity.

关于社会排斥是否会影响社会利益，现存的研究结果参差不齐。我们提出了可能导致混合结果的一个因素：犬儒主义。具体而言，玩世不恭可能通过影响人际共情来缓和排斥与亲社会的联系。与愤世嫉俗的人相比，我们期望被排斥的高度愤世嫉俗的人经历的共情更少，因此亲社会行为也更少。使用在线抛球游戏，将参与者随机分配到排除或包含条件。与我们的预测一致，通过排斥，社会排斥对亲社会的影响取决于玩世不恭，因此只有愤世嫉俗的个体对排斥的反应才具有更大的共鸣，这反过来又与更高程度的亲社会行为有关。我们进一步证明了这种影响对于犬儒主义是成立的，但其他通常以高度不愉快为特征的类似特征却没有。研究结果为社会排斥文学做出了贡献，提出了一个关键变量，该变量可能会缓和社会排斥对由此产生的同理心和亲社会行为的影响，并且与以下观点相一致：被排斥的人们不仅试图再次融入社会，而且要建立以互惠为特征的联盟。