This study used the ostracism detection theory to investigate how ostracism impacts individuals in two ways: (1) immediate poststressor needs, mood, ruminative thoughts, and desire to affiliate, and (2) short-term affective and cortisol reactivity. A total of 58 college students were randomly assigned to the inclusion or ostracism conditions of Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game. Immediately following the experimental manipulation, ostracized participants reported more thwarted psychological need states, more negative mood, and fewer positive ruminative thoughts, relative to their included counterparts. Ostracized participants reported a greater interest in affiliating with others in online or in-person settings. In the short-term, ostracized males reported more hostility than included males, although the scores were within expected norms for most males. There was no relation between Cyberball condition and gender across time for depression, anxiety, or positive affect. Approximately 20 min after the onset of the stressor, women in the luteal phase and women taking oral contraceptives in the ostracized group displayed higher cortisol than their counterparts in the included group. Relative to baseline, however, cortisol did not reliably increase after the onset of the stressor. Ostracized females taking oral contraceptives showed the greatest decline in cortisol, compared to included oral contraceptive users. Overall, results suggest that most of the negative effects of ostracism are immediate and limited to psychological, not neuroendocrine, responses.
This study used the ostracism detection theory to investigate the persistence of affective distress following ostracism and whether subsequent group inclusion would influence the recovery from ostracism more so than the passage of time. A total of 430 college students played 1 or 2 games of Cyberball. In Game 1, participants were randomly assigned to the Ostracism or the Inclusion condition. In Game 2, participants were randomly assigned a Wait condition or to the Inclusion condition. Game 1 (Ostracism vs. Inclusion)-Game 2 (Inclusion vs. Wait) group differences were used to examine level of positive and negative affect from baseline, after each game of Cyberball and at 10-min delay. Results suggest that ostracism uniquely contributed to immediate dis tressed affect. Among Game 2 Inclusion participants who were ostracized in Game 1, the episode of Game 2 Inclusion increased positive affect and decreased negative affect, more than waiting. In terms of change in affect from Game 2 to Delay, positive affect declined faster for the Game 2 Inclusion group (especially if they were ostracized in Game 1) than the Game 2 Wait group. Relative to Baseline, positive affect declined whereas negative affect recovered within 10 min of the initial experience of ostracism for all groups. These results shed light on the persistence of affective distress following ostracism. They also suggest the possibility of a short-term improvement of some immediate negative affective consequences of ostracism by providing ostracized par ticipants with the opportunity for group inclusion.
This article included 2 experiments to investigate the short-term pain recovery following imagined and directly experienced social threats in healthy adult college samples. Experiment 1 showed that, when participants imagined ostracism, as opposed to inclusion, they expected more immediate physical pain outcomes, although they expected this physical discomfort to dissipate within a few minutes (ps < .05). Experiment 2 found that, when individuals directly experienced ostracism, they reported more pain than when they experienced inclusion; however, this pain reverted to baseline levels within 20 minutes of the social threat (ps < .05). Overall, data from these 2 experiments provide support of the physical pain-social pain overlap literature that social pain does indeed “hurt” but that the pain resolves within 20 minutes.
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