Facing exclusion and smiling through the pain: positive emotion expression during interpersonal ostracism

Figures & data

Figure 1 The experimenter (right) introducing the participant (left) to two female students (prerecorded confederates) at the beginning of the experimental interaction.

Table 1 Age and gender distribution of included vs ostracized participants

Experiment	Variables	Included	Ostracized	Significant difference
Experiment 1	Age (M)	20.26	19.89	t53<1; P>0.6
	Gender	Male =12 Female =15	Male =13 Female =15	χ^2=0.02, P>0.8
Experiment 2	Age (M)	22.03	21.03	t68<1; P>0.5
	Gender	Male =13 Female =29	Male =16 Female =30	χ^2=0.15, P>0.8

Table 2 Experiment 1 included vs ostracized participants on negative attitudes and emotion expressions during the interaction

Variables	Included (n=27)	Ostracized (n=28)	P-value	95% CI Δ
	M(SD)	M(SD)		LL	UL
Manipulation check (“I felt included”)	2.26 (1.01)	3.39 (1.27)	0.003	0.33	1.58
Negative attitudes toward ostracism sources
Active distancing	2.13 (0.63)	2.80 (0.91)	0.002	0.25	1.10
Reputation defamation	2.32 (0.23)	2.85 (0.66)	<0.001	0.26	0.80
Physical aggressiveness	2.20 (0.52)	2.46 (0.78)	0.16	−0.10	0.62
Overall	2.28 (0.27)	2.75 (0.60)	0.001	0.21	0.72
	Included (n=23)	Ostracized (n=23)	P-value	95% CI Δ
	M (SD)	M (SD)		LL	UL
Emotion expression
Anger	0.26 (0.54)	0.70 (1.06)	0.09	−0.07	0.94
Sadness	0.00 (–)	0.17 (0.58)	0.16	−0.07	0.42
Happiness	4.91 (2.83)	6.87 (4.53)	0.09	−0.29	4.20
Duchenne smile	2.88 (2.77)	3.52 (2.97)	0.45	−1.07	2.35
Non-Duchenne smile	1.91 (2.59)	3.00 (2.28)	0.14	−0.36	2.54

Notes: N=55, except for emotion expression where N=46. The pattern of results for the manipulation check and retaliatory attitudes are the same regardless of whether the full sample is analyzed or the subset for which emotion expressions were coded.

Table 3 Experiment 2 included vs ostracized participants on self-reported emotion and emotion expressions during the interaction

Variables	Included (n=42)	Ostracized (n=46)	P-value	95% CI Δ
	M (SD)	M (SD)		LL	UL
Manipulation check (“I felt included”)	2.83 (0.96)	1.59 (0.75)	<0.001	−1.61	−0.88
Self-reported emotion
“Angry”	1.10 (0.37)	1.96 (1.11)	<0.001	0.50	1.22
“Sad”	1.29 (0.60)	2.09 (1.06)	<0.001	0.43	1.17
“Happy”	3.17 (0.79)	2.78 (0.88)	0.03	−0.75	−0.03
	Included (n=19)	Ostracized (n=26)	P-value	95% CI Δ
	M (SD)	M (SD)		LL	UL
Emotion expression
Anger	0.58 (0.90)	0.62 (1.02)	0.90	−0.56	0.63
Sadness	0.95 (1.51)	0.15 (0.46)	0.02	−1.43	−0.16
Overall smiling	6.95 (4.97)	6.81 (4.42)	0.92	−2.98	2.70
Duchenne	4.79 (4.57)	4.46 (4.00)	0.80	−2.91	2.26
Non-Duchenne	1.32 (1.11)	1.73 (1.64)	0.35	−0.46	1.29

Notes: N=88, except for emotion expression where N=45. The patterns of results for the manipulation check are the same regardless of whether the full sample is analyzed or the subset for which emotion expressions were coded.

Figure 2 A comparison of the proportion of Duchenne vs non-Duchenne smile expressions during the experimental interaction for included vs ostracized participants for both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2.

Table 4 Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 means across all codable emotion expression types

Emotion expression (as proportion of codable expressions)	Experiment 1 Mean (n=46)		Experiment 2 Mean (n=45)		Significant difference^a
	Included	Ostracized	Included	Ostracized
Anger	0.0213	0.0470	0.0391	0.0428
Contempt	0.0839	0.1009	0.1034	0.0487
Disgust	0.0570	0.0357	0.0885	0.0654
Fear	0.0683	0.0074	0.0897	0.0158	1, 2
Happiness	0.6874	0.7074	0.5935	0.7440
Duchenne (felt) happiness	0.4313	0.3409	0.4144	0.4704
Non-Duchenne (unfelt) happiness	0.2561	0.3313	0.1276	0.2300
Sadness	0.0000	0.0204	0.0593	0.0208	2
Positive emotion overall	0.6874	0.7074	0.5935	0.7440
Negative emotion overall	0.2326	0.2096	0.3800	0.1892	2

Notes: Means represent frequency of each emotion expression frequency as a proportion of the number of codable expressions. Codable expressions reflect combinations of key facial actions that are associated with an emotion state coded as an “event” within EMFACS.³³ aIndicates in which study (1 and/or 2) the means between included and ostracized participants were significantly different from each other at the α=0.05 level.

Ekman P, Irwin W, Rosenberg E. Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EMFACS-8) [ Unpublished manuscript]. San Diego (CA): University of California at San Diego; 1994.

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