Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Following ostracism, individuals are highly sensitive to social cues. Here we investigate whether and when minimal acknowledgment can improve need satisfaction following an ostracism experience. In four studies, participants were either ostracized during Cyberball (Studies 1 and 2) or through a novel apartment-application paradigm (Studies 3 and 4). To signal acknowledgment following ostracism, participants were either thrown a ball a few times at the end of the Cyberball game, or received a message that was either friendly, neutral, or hostile in the apartment-application paradigm. Both forms of acknowledgment increased need satisfaction, even when the acknowledgment was hostile (Study 4), emphasizing the beneficial effect of any kind of acknowledgment following ostracism. Reinclusion buffered threat immediately, whereas acknowledgment without reinclusion primarily aided recovery. Our results suggest that minimal acknowledgment such as a few ball throws or even an unfriendly message can reduce the sting of ostracism.

Keywords

ostracism rejection social exclusion acknowledgment

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bernstein

M. J.

Young

S. G.

Brown

C. M.

Sacco

D. F.

Claypool

H. M.

(2008). Adaptive responses to social exclusion social rejection improves detection of real and fake smiles. Psychological Science, 19, 981-983.

Carter-Sowell

A. R.

Chen

Williams

K. D.

(2008). Ostracism increases social susceptibility. Social Influence, 3, 143-153.

DeWall

C. N.

Maner

J. K.

Rouby

D. A.

(2009). Social exclusion and early-stage interpersonal perception: Selective attention to signs of acceptance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 729-740.

DeWall

C. N.

Twenge

J. M.

Bushman

Williams

K. D.

(2010). A little acceptance goes a long way: Applying social impact theory to the rejection–aggression link. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 1, 168-174.

Eisenberger

N. I.

Lieberman

M. D.

(2004). Why rejection hurts: A common neural alarm system for physical and social pain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 294-300.

Eisenberger

N. I.

Lieberman

M. D.

Williams

K. D.

(2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302, 290-292.

Faul

Erdfelder

Lang

A.-G.

Buchner

(2007). G* Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175-191.

Gardner

W. L.

Pickett

C. L.

Brewer

M. B.

(2000). Social exclusion and selective memory: How the need to belong influences memory for social events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 486-496.

Gerber

Wheeler

(2009). On being rejected: A meta-analysis of experimental research on rejection. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 468-488.

10.

Hartgerink

C. H.

van Beest

Wicherts

J. M.

Williams

K. D.

(2015). The ordinal effects of ostracism: A meta-analysis of 120 Cyberball studies. PLoS ONE, 10, e0127002.

11.

Heine

S. J.

Proulx

Vohs

K. D.

(2006). The meaning maintenance model: On the coherence of social motivations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 88-110.

12.

Iannone

N. E.

Kelly

J. R.

Williams

K. D.

(2016). “Who’s that?” The negative consequences of being out of the loop on pop culture. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication.

13.

James

(1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Dover Publications.

14.

Jones

E. E.

Kelly

J. R.

(2010). “Why am I out of the loop?” Attributions influence responses to information exclusion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1186-1201.

15.

Kahneman

Fredrickson

B. L.

Schreiber

C. A.

Redelmeier

D. A.

(1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4, 401-405.

16.

Kassner

M. P.

Wesselmann

E. D.

Law

A. T.

Williams

K. D.

(2012). Virtually ostracized: Studying ostracism in immersive virtual environments. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15, 399-403.

17.

Kerr

N. L.

Levine

J. M.

(2008). The detection of social exclusion: Evolution and beyond. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12, 39-52.

18.

Leary

M. R.

(2005). Varieties of interpersonal rejection. In Williams

K. D.

Forgas

J. P.

von Hippel

(Eds.), The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying (pp. 35-51). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

19.

Leary

M. R.

Downs

D. L.

(1995). Interpersonal functions of the self-esteem motive. In Kernis

M. H.

(Ed.), Efficacy, agency, and self-esteem (pp. 123-144). New York, NY: Plenum.

20.

Leary

M. R.

Tambor

E. S.

Terdal

S. K.

Downs

D. L.

(1995). Self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor: The sociometer hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 518-530.

21.

MacDonald

Leary

M. R.

(2005). Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 202-223.

22.

McCullough

M. E.

Worthington

E. L.

Jr. Rachal

K. C.

(1997). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 321-336.

23.

O’Reilly

Robinson

S. L.

Berdahl

J. L.

Banki

(2015). Is negative attention better than no attention? The comparative effects of ostracism and harassment at work. Organization Science, 26, 774-793.

24.

Pickett

C. L.

Gardner

W. L.

(2005). The social monitoring system: Enhanced sensitivity to social cues as an adaptive response to social exclusion. In Williams

K. D.

Forgas

J. P.

von Hippel

(Eds.), The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying (pp. 213-226). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

25.

Pickett

C. L.

Gardner

W. L.

Knowles

(2004). Getting a cue: The need to belong and enhanced sensitivity to social cues. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1095-1107.

26.

Pyszczynski

Greenberg

Solomon

Arndt

Schimel

(2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435-468.

27.

Riva

Wirth

J. H.

Williams

K. D.

(2011). The consequences of pain: The social and physical pain overlap on psychological responses. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 681-687.

28.

Roese

N. J.

(1997). Counterfactual thinking. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 133-148.

29.

Rudert

S. C.

Greifeneder

(2016). When it’s okay that I don’t play: Social norms guide the situated construal of social exclusion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 955-969.

30.

Rudert

S. C.

Reutner

Greifeneder

Walker

(2017). Faced with exclusion: Perceived facial warmth and competence influence moral judgments of social exclusion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 68, 101-112.

31.

Sacco

D. F.

Wirth

J. H.

Hugenberg

Chen

Williams

K. D.

(2011). The world in black and white: Ostracism enhances the categorical perception of social information. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 836-842.

32.

Saylor

C. F.

Nida

S. A.

Williams

K. D.

Taylor

L. A.

Smyth

Twyman

K. A.

. . . Spratt

E. G.

(2012). Bullying and Ostracism Screening Scales (BOSS): Development and applications. Children’s Health Care, 41, 322-343.

33.

Shilling

Brown

(2016). Goal-driven resource redistribution: An adaptive response to social exclusion. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 10, 149-167.

34.

Tang

H. H.

Richardson

(2013). Reversing the negative psychological sequelae of exclusion: Inclusion is ameliorative but not protective against the aversive consequences of exclusion. Emotion, 13, 139-150.

35.

van Beest

Williams

K. D.

(2006). When inclusion costs and ostracism pays, ostracism still hurts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 918-928.

36.

VanVoorhis

C. R. W.

Morgan

B. L.

(2007). Understanding power and rules of thumb for determining sample sizes. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 3, 43-50.

37.

Wesselmann

E. D.

Cardoso

F. D.

Slater

Williams

K. D.

(2012). To be looked at as though air: Civil attention matters. Psychological Science, 23, 166-168.

38.

Williams

K. D.

(2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425-452.

39.

Williams

K. D.

(2009). Ostracism: A temporal need-threat model. In Mark

P. Z.

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 41, pp. 275-314). San Diego, CA: Elsevier.

40.

Williams

K. D.

Cheung

C. K.

Choi

(2000). Cyberostracism: Effects of being ignored over the Internet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 748-762.

41.

Williams

K. D.

Nida

S. A.

(2009). Is ostracism worse than bullying? In Harris

M. J.

(Ed.), Bullying, rejection, and peer victimization: A social cognitive neuroscience perspective (pp. 279-296). New York, NY: Springer.

42.

Zadro

Williams

K. D.

Richardson

(2004). How low can you go? Ostracism by a computer is sufficient to lower self-reported levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 560-567.

43.

Zadro

Williams

K. D.

Richardson

(2005). Riding the “O” train: Comparing the effects of ostracism and verbal dispute on targets and sources. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 8, 125-143.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.84 MB