How intergroup social connections shape immigrants’ responses to social exclusion

K. D. Williams (2009) theorized that chronic social exclusion would inescapably lead to a detrimental stage of resignation, characterized by depression, alienation, unworthiness, and helplessness. However, few studies empirically addressed this assumption. Considering immigrants as a population at risk of persistent exclusion, we investigated how social connections with the native-born majority and other immigrant minorities moderate the exclusion–resignation link. In Study 1 (N = 112 asylum seekers), participants mainly connected with other immigrants showed a significant association between chronic exclusion and resignation. Crucially, this link vanished for people with social connections mainly composed of native people. In Study 2, we replicated and extended these results running secondary analyses on a data set of 2,206 immigrants (CILS4EU). This work, suggesting that the exclusion–resignation link can be moderated by social factors, highlighted the relevance of immigrants’ connections with the native majority for counteracting the risk of segregation when tackling the social issue of immigrants’ everyday exclusion