Summary: Original conceptions of social exclusion focused upon the negative impact of exclusion on intelligent thought (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002). We propose that although exclusion may impair cognitive forms of intelligence, exclusion should enhance more socially-relevant forms of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence. Eight studies explore both when and why social exclusion may enhance emotional intelligence. First, we examine whether social exclusion enhances performance on the fourth branch of emotional intelligence (the ability to manage others' emotions), and whether emotional tailoring serves as one potential mechanism that may underlie this exclusion-enhanced performance. Second, we examine whether excluded individuals may be strategic in their deployment of skill at managing others' emotions, limiting their allocation of this skill to social (but not non-social) contexts, and contexts where effort is deemed both necessary and sufficient for reconnection (i.e., with distant others, with whom acceptance is uncertain versus with close others, with whom acceptance is more certain). Finally, we examine the potential social benefits of this exclusion-enhanced emotional intelligence, both in the short term through enhancing likability immediately after the exclusion, and in the long term for social functioning more generally. Taken together, the current studies offer a more complex understanding of the behaviors evoked by exclusion, painting a portrait of the excluded individual that is more discerning, intelligent, and adaptive than previously believed.