`I'm Out of the Loop': Ostracism Through Information Exclusion

Abstract

Out-of-the-loop' experiences, or situations where people perceive being uninformed of information mutually known by others, pervade people's lives. Two experiments examined the psychological impact of this form of partial ostracism. In Experiment 1, compared to in-the-loop participants, out-of-the-loop participants experienced a variety of deleterious effects (e.g. depleted fundamental needs), even without signifi cant costs for being uninformed. In Experiment 2, out-of-the-loop participants were led to believe that their lack of information resulted from their group members' decisions or chance. Unlike those who experience complete ostracism, participants typically reported negative psychological consequences only when group members were responsible for the exclusion decision. Information exclusion also affected factors related to group dynamics (e.g. liking and trust of group members), which may ultimately harm group functioning. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the social and psychological importance of being in the information loop in group settings.

Being excluded by one means being excluded by all: Perceiving exclusion from inclusive others during one-person social exclusion

“…The present work thus supports the idea that individuals are highly sensitive to any signs of rejection (Jones et al, 2009;Over & Carpenter, 2009;Sommer & Baumeister, 2002), and extend past work by showing that this sensitivity occurs even in the presence of an inclusive person. Importantly, in such ambiguous one-person exclusion situations, inclusive bystanders may be perceived as engaging in exclusion.…”

“…More recent work has investigated situations involving partial, and therefore ambiguous exclusion. For example, Jones, Carter-Sowell, Kelly, and Williams (2009) show that in ''out-ofloop" situations, in which individuals are included in some information exchange, but excluded in others, individuals still report lowered feelings of belonging.…”

“…Research on social exclusion, however, suggests that individuals are highly attuned to limited signs of rejection (Jones et al, 2009; Sommer & Baumeister, 2002). Indeed, individuals feel excluded despite being told they are playing against a computer or players whose responses are scripted (Zadro et al, 2004).…”

Exploring the Effects of Ostracism on Performance and Intrinsic Motivation

“…In some cases, people can be (un)intentionally excluded from meetings where important in-OSTRACISM AND PERFORMANCE formation is disseminated (i.e., left "out of the loop"; see Jones et al, 2009) and therefore be unable to complete their work. In other cases, because of how strongly people tend to react to ostracism (Williams, 2007), we might expect the experience, to some extent, to interfere with people's ability to attend to others things (e.g., their work) as they are consumed by and then cope with the experience.…”

“Why Am I Out of the Loop?” Attributions Influence Responses to Information Exclusion

“…Out-of-the-loop experiences also occur in social interactions, as evidenced by recollections of research participants (Jones et al, 2007). Lacking information known by others has been shown to affect levels of four fundamental needs (belonging, self-esteem, control, meaningful existence), perceptions of competence, trust and liking of group members, participation in a group, and one's emotional state (Jones, Carter-Sowell, Kelly, & Williams, 2009;Sargis & Larson, 2002;Wittenbaum, Hubbell, & Zuckerman, 1999).…”