“The social phenomenon of ostracism”;
The fundamental social phenomenon of ostracism – the act of being ignored or excluded (Williams, 2001) is ingrained in society. Individuals who experience ostracism, also recognized as social rejection, or social exclusion, can respond in pro-social and retaliatory ways towards the source of rejection (Will, Crone, van Lier, & Güroğlu, 2016), and recent research even shows that it elicits activation of brain areas associated with processing physical pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). Humans have a “fundamental need to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships” (Baumeister and Leary, 1995), and ostracism dissatisfies this need. Ostracised individuals often show increased levels of pro-social behaviour toward potential new sources of affiliation (Maner et al., 2007) showing that they may be motivated to seek renewed acceptance, leading to an increased sense of belonging.
The affective consequences of ostracism can be short-term and long-term. Not only can ostracism reduce sense of belonging, but it can also lead to detrimental effects on four human needs: “belonging, control, self-esteem and meaningful existence” (Williams, 2001). Chronic exposure to ostracism, however, can lead to “feelings of helplessness, alienation, and despair will infuse their thoughts, feelings, and actions”. (Williams, 2007) The aim of the following essay is to understand the underlying motivations for the occurrence of social rejection, as well as the immediate and lasting consequences that may affect ostracised individuals.
The recent emerging attraction to social exclusion within social psychology has led researchers to explore the underlying processes and consequences of the phenomenon. Research has linked social exclusion in childhood and adolescence to many interconnecting factors (Pedersen, Vitaro, Barker, & Borge, 2007; Bates et al., 2001). In childhood, there is a common theme of aggressive behaviours towards targets; an excluder may cause physical aggression, such as “hitting, pushing, and tripping as well as overt verbal attacks such as name calling, taunting, and threatening”, as well as causing “hurtful manipulation of relationships… and damaging the target’s social position” (Card, Stucky, Sawalani, & Little, 2008). According to Juvonen, J. there appears to be three predictors that determine why children choose to reject their peers: aggressiveness, withdrawn behaviours and deviance from group norms (2005). The intolerance of these behaviours leads to peer rejection across childhood and adolescence. During childhood, aggression tends to be more prevalent (Trembley, 2010), which explains the motivation for social exclusion among peers. In a study conducted by Lev-Wiesel, et al., the forms and features of social peer rejection in childhood were evaluated. The study aimed to develop and validate a measure that assessed social rejection by peers on a severity level scale. During the screening process of the study, potential participants were asked, “Have you experienced social peer rejection at childhood or adolescence?” to which 96% of respondents stated that they were socially rejected at least once in their childhood. Within the study, the Social Peer Rejection Measure (Lev-Wiesel, et al., 2006) was used, and social rejection was divided into six different categories: preventing relations, preventing access to friends, aggression, bossiness, blaming, and involving a third party. Participants were asked to fill a self-report questionnaire. The six categories were translated into 21 items that described a different social rejection statement. Participants responded to statements such as ‘I was rejected by my class/group’, and ‘Friends encouraged those who rejected me’, using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (never happened) to 5 (happened all the time). The results showed that “the longer the rejection lasted, the more frequent events of social rejection were reported overall (r = .39, p < .001), especially in regards to insult and ignore events”, showing that there was a correlation between the two categories, the results also showed that rejection is rejection severity is more likely to be based on recurring rejection experiences, rather than incidents of isolation (Lev-Wiesel, et al. 2013). According to Hoglund, Lalonde, & Leadbeater, the longer rejection lasts, the more it “shapes children’s negative cognitions and expectations about future peer interactions” (2008). Although the Social Peer Rejection Measure was used in this study, it does not exactly offer a precise depiction of the severity of social rejection the participants have individually experienced. In regards to this, sociometric measures could be used to assess students’ relationships with peer acceptance, peer rejection and reputation.
Although, as previously stated, virtually everyone experiences social rejection at some point in childhood or adolescence, there are both immediate effects and long-term effects that people endure. Social rejection affects individuals even when it comes from a despised out-group (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007), or even a computer. Research shows that ostracism leads to neurological activity that is associated with physical pain; it has also been reported that memories of ostracism are easily relived and re-experienced in such a painful manner that it is comparative to chronic back pain and childbirth (Williams, 2003; Williams and Fitness, 2004). In a laboratory-based ball-tossing paradigm, participants took part in a ball-toss game – Cyberball, which aimed to manipulate ostracism, with two confederate participants. The targets were told that they were to play the game with either two computer-generated players, or two human players. Participants in the exclusion condition received the ball twice at the beginning of the game and then onwards, not at all. On the other hand, participants in the inclusion condition received an equal number of throws compared to the other players. Results revealed that people subjected to ostracism for short periods of time reported “lower levels of positive mood, anger, and lower levels of belonging, control, and self-esteem after playing the game” (Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004). According to Williams, the effect of ostracism appears to be so powerful, because ostracism undermines fundamental acceptance and belonging needs, which in turn, leads to negative behavioural and psychological reactions (2007); Ostracism is so effectual “it can be felt even in the artificial and minimal social environment created over the internet” (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000). Sociologists have also referred to the consequences of ostracism as “social death” which is the condition where individuals aren’t accepted as humans by society (Bauman, 1992). Since humans are dependent upon one another to survive, ostracism can lead people to lose their sense of belonging and increase aggressiveness, which in turn, causes social death. While the ball-toss paradigm is valuable, the ecological validity of the experiment is questionable and attempts should be made to replicate these findings by conducting the experiments in more real-life social interaction settings, rather than constrained laboratory settings.
Ostracism is often perceived as detrimental because it threatens the fundamental need to belong (Williams, 2007), and due to this, individuals often react reluctant when perceiving signals of social rejection. In severe cases, experiences of ostracism can lead to adoption of aggression, in order to re-establish a sense of control. Some aggressive outcomes of ostracism have been severe, such as school shootings and terrorist activities; these actions can be perceived as a way to regain a sense of meaning, significance, or control within an ostracised person’s life. School violence has led to much discussion since the first mass school shooting in 1996. There were 64 school shootings in the US in 2015 alone (“The long, shameful list of school shootings in America”, 2016). Researchers have suggested that at least some of the school shootings must have been triggered by ostracism by schoolmates and/or teachers. It has been found that a typical school shooter feels “lonely and isolated” and that they are “highly sensitive to teasing and bullying, and are deeply resentful, ruminating over perceived injustices” (Cornell, 1999).
Research suggests that social rejection may be associated with aggression. Several studies of children indicate that there is a strong relationship between aggressive behaviour and peer rejection, for example, in one study, 400 2-year old pre-schoolers were found to be significantly more likely to engage in conflict over resources than three and four year olds were; the older the children, the more likely they were to engage in disputes about forms of play and ideas (Chen, Fein, & Tam, 2001). Although many children may use forceful aggression frequently in early life, it is perceived as normal, however, long-term externalising problems emerge in later years (Hay, in press). There is also evidence showing that ostracised children, who are more socially inhibited, tend to continue to be shy until around the age of four (Rubin, Burgess, & Hastings, 2002). Furthermore, there are theories that suggest that childhood peer rejection leads to externalizing and risky behaviour in adolescence through truancy, school drop out, and involvement with deviant peers (Studer, Asher, & Coie, 1991; Dishion, Capaldi, Spracklen, & Li, 1995). Childhood aggression also seems to have enduring detrimental effects later in adolescence, including cognitive biases, antisocial behaviours, and the development of social dysfunction or mental disorders. One study tested whether aggression could be moderated in response to ostracism, through either restoring or diminishing control (Warburton, Williams, & Cairns, 2006). Within the study, forty participants were tested for aggressive responses after they had experienced either ostracism or inclusion within a game of toss. In the ostracised condition, participants received three tosses and then were excluded, and in the inclusion condition, participants received about a third of the tosses. Participants were then asked to listen to an amalgam of unpleasant sounds through headphones, such as chalk squeaking on a blackboard. Participants in the diminished control condition heard 10 noises, and participants in the restored control condition listened to 5 seconds of each of the 10 noises. Participants in the diminished control condition were told they had no control over any aspects of the sounds, whereas participants in the restored control condition were told that they could play the tracks whenever they were ready, as long as the gaps between each track were no longer than 15 seconds. Participants were then asked to indicate, from a 7-point scale, the extent to which they felt control and not in control, and the extent to which they felt excluded and noticed. Aggression was then measured as the amount of hot sauce participants would allocate to a stranger knowing that (a) the target strongly disliked hot and spicy foods, (b) the target would have to consume all of the sample that they packed, and (c) the sauce was very hot (Warburton, Williams, & Cairns, 2006). The results showed that the ostracised participants felt less included and noticed than the included participants, and they were also more aggressive. Ostracised individuals seemed to also experience a loss of control, which explains why they were quite aggressive, which shows that ostracism not only leads to aggression, but the effect can be controlled by restoring an individuals control over something. One limitation with this experiment is that it lacks ecological validity, the situation the participants had to partake would not necessarily occur in everyday life.
Several studies and theories have shown that rejection leads to many consequences, both long-term and short-term. Throughout this essay, the reasons for peer rejection in childhood have been outlined, as well as how different levels of rejection can lead to different consequences, depending on how severe the rejection may be. It has also been shown that ostracism leads to neurological activity that is associated with physical pain, such as chronic back pain. One study – Cyberball, even showed that ostracism can occur from a computer, and the effects are quite significant; lower levels of positive mood, anger, and lower levels of belonging, control, and self-esteem (Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004) were reported after the game, showing that ostracism, even for a brief period, can have negative effects on people. Ostracism has also been shown to be associated with aggression, and it may be one of the factors that encourage school shootings, bullying and other aggressive behaviours. Individuals with internalising or externalising problems usually suffer academically and socially, and these problems usually carry on throughout a person’s life, causing problems with others. Existing literature has expanded on the consequences and motivations for the occurrence of ostracism, although it can be argued that many experiments do not demonstrate ecological validity, which points to directions for future research.