Social exclusion anxiety is a term that builds on a social-psychological concept of human beings as existentially dependent on social embeddedness. It is not be confused with social phobia, which is a concept within clinical psychology that focuses on the individual and refers to a phobic psychological condition. Social exclusion anxiety instead points to a distributed affect that circulates and smolders in all social groups. This is the result of an ever-present risk of someone being judged unworthy to belong to, or deemed not a legitimate participant in, a social group. Such anxiety may emerge and grow when social embeddedness becomes jeopardized and the hope and yearning of a single or small group of individuals to be part of a community is threatened. This entry ...