Throughout my life I have experienced social rejection, mainly from family and relatives who think differently than I and are living a script that is foreign to me. I gravitate to those who think like I do. I consider the rejection as validation that, yes, I am not like them. And I don’t want to be.

I say this with love and affection for those family members. They just don’t see things the way that I do. They are happy in their bubble and I don’t want to burst it for them. I live in a totally different bubble and am happy just floating around in my universe.

A study by a professor at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland found that “social rejection can inspire imaginative thinking, particularly in individuals with a strong sense of their own independence”. For independent people, social rejection can be a form of validation to their own beliefs and spur them on to greater productivity. ¹

 For me, rejection by family members only confirms what I already feel about myself, that I am not like most others. I am an independent thinker.

I feel that rejection from social groups that don’t accept me, is indeed, validation and a positive experience that leads me to greater creativity.

Unfortunately, social rejection has the opposite effect on people who value belonging to a group. It inhibits their cognitive ability. They simply cannot wrap their brains around this concept. Acceptance into social groups, to them is validation that they are worthy. They suffer from insecurities that unless they are accepted into these groups, they are of no value. It is not a way that I choose to live.

Lynne Vincent and Jack Goncalo of Cornell University, decided to consider the impact of rejection on people who take pride in being different from the norm. Such individuals, in a term from the study, are described as possessing an ‘independent self-concept” ¹

What they are saying is that exclusion from a group can sometimes lead to a positive outcome when independently minded people are the ones being excluded.’

In the long term, the creative person with an independent self-concept might even be said to thrive on rejection. Yep, that’s me.

They go on to say that while repeated rebuffs would discourage someone who longs for inclusion, such slights could continually recharge the creativity of an independent person. ¹

Hey, it worked for Mark Zuckerberg: The Facebook founder has been portrayed as socially awkward – but had a very successful career trajectory.

¹ Revenge of the nerds: Social rejection can ‘lead to imaginative thinking and strong independence’

By EDDIE WRENN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 12:09 EST, 22 August 2012 | UPDATED: 12:09 EST, 22 August 2012