On vicarious ostracism. Examining the mediators of observers’ reactions towards the target and the sources of ostracism

Abstract

Ostracism is a painful experience, to the point that even observing ostracism hurts. We extend research on vicarious ostracism by investigating how observers subsequently behave and whether this is driven by intrapersonal feelings (need satisfaction) and/or interpersonal impressions. Sixty-six participants observed either ostracism or inclusion in Cyberball. They reported their global impression of sources and of targets, their own need satisfaction, and how they wanted to allocate money towards sources and targets. Observing ostracism increased money donations to targets (and decreased donation to sources), which was mediated by both lowered need satisfaction and negative impressions towards the sources, with stronger effect emerging for the latter mediator. These findings advance knowledge about the mechanisms underlying interpersonal behavior after vicarious ostracism.

Keywords:

• Vicarious ostracism
• rewarding and punishment
• impression formation
• need satisfaction
• allocation game

Humans have a fundamental desire to belong to social groups (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Being included, accepted, and recognized leads to enhanced self-esteem (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995), allows people to achieve a sense of control (Taylor & Brown, 1988), and maintain a sense of meaning and worth (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, when the belongingness to groups is threatened, for instance when they are exposed to ostracism, people feel hurt (for a recent meta-analysis, see Hartgerink, Van Beest, Wicherts, & Williams, 2015). Scholars have shown that ostracized individuals report lower levels of needs satisfaction (i.e., belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence, as well as negative mood; Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004). Moreover, those who experience ostracism show an activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (i.e., dACC) and in the anterior insula (i.e., AI), the brain regions associated with the experience of physical pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003; Riva, Lauro, DeWall, & Bushman, 2012). Ostracized individuals also react to ostracism by behaving negatively towards those who are responsible (i.e., allocating them less money; Lelieveld, Moor, Crone, Karremans, & van Beest, 2013; Moor et al., 2012; Waal-Andrews & van Beest, 2012).

Vicarious ostracism

The current study considers ostracism from a vicarious ostracism perspective, that is, the mere observation of an episode of ostracism. Prior research on vicarious ostracism has yielded several insights (for a review see: Wesselmann, Williams, & Hales, 2013). Wesselmann, Bagg, and Williams (2009), for example, showed that observing a person being ostracized during a ball-toss game decreased need satisfaction and increased negative mood in the observers. This negative effect increased when observers were explicitly instructed to take the perspective of the ostracized target compared to observers who were not encouraged to take the perspective of the ostracized target. Moreover, in two studies, Wesselmann, Wirth, Pryor, Reeder, & Williams (2013, 2015) assessed whether observers of ostracism are inclined to increase their efforts to re-include those being ostracized. Participants were involved in a four-player Cyberball game, where two pre-programmed sources ostracized or included a pre-programmed target. Results revealed that participants tend to compensate – by throwing more ball tosses – to players who were ostracized rather than to players who were included, a tendency that increased if participant believed ostracism to be undeserved.

Masten, Morelli, and Eisenberger (2011) assessed how vicarious ostracism affects specific brain regions and whether this is associated with helping behavior. Results showed that participants who observe ostracism (vs. inclusion) showed an increased activity in brain regions related to trait empathy (Mobbs et al., 2009) which, in turn, were associated with the tendency to write prosocial emails (e.g., helpful, comfort) to the ostracized target. Meyer and colleagues (2012) assessed how different types of vicarious ostracism are related to the activation of specific brain regions. This study revealed that observing a friend being ostracized activated brain regions that are also associated with actual ostracism (i.e., the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula), whereas observing a stranger being ostracized activated brain regions involved in mentalizing – i.e., thinking about others’ mental states. Paolini, Alparone, Cardone, van Beest, and Merla (2016) tested how actual ostracism and vicarious ostracism affect the sympathetic nervous system by assessing thermal facial responses. Results showed that both participants who experienced ostracism (experiment 1) and participants who observed ostracism (experiment 2) revealed a more intense autonomic response – as marked by an increase in facial temperature compared to participants who experienced or observed inclusion.

Taken together, these findings suggest that responses to vicarious ostracism are quite similar to responses to actual ostracism. This fits nicely with the Perception-Action Model of empathy (PAM; Preston & De Waal, 2002), suggesting that seeing or imagining another person’s experience activates one’s own representation of the experience itself. This helps to generate the actual sharing of feelings, and allows having successful social interactions (Davis, 1994; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). More specifically, people observing others’ social pain feel hurt and make greater effort to support the target.

The present research

In order to summarize research on vicarious ostracism, we can say that there is now increasing evidence that vicarious ostracism is a negative experience, which increases when people feel close to the target. There is emerging research showing that vicarious ostracism may induce people to behave more positively towards those being ostracized. What is missing, however, is a more detailed understanding of what is driving this interpersonal behavior; that is to say, it remains unclear what mediates this interpersonal behavior. To answer this question, it is crucial not only to consider what observers themselves experience when observing ostracism, but also how they perceive those who make the decision to ostracize (sources) and those affected (targets).

Inspired by prior research on ostracism, we predicted that observing ostracism (vs. inclusion) might lead participants to reward ostracized people (target), while punishing those who were responsible (i.e., sources; Hp1). Moreover, to test for possible reasons why vicarious ostracism has the above-mentioned behavioral consequences, we first focus on observers’ level of need satisfaction. Specifically, following prior research, we expected to replicate the finding that vicarious ostracism would lower overall need satisfaction among observers (Hp2).

Moreover, considering another mechanism potentially involved in the reaction to ostracism, we also focused on the impression formation process. Do observers have a positive or a negative impression of sources of ostracism? Do observers have positive or negative impression of targets of ostracism? Research on impression formation in ostracism is still scarce. Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, and Stucke (2001), for instance, showed that ostracized individuals evaluate the Curriculum Vitae of the sources of ostracism more negatively than included individuals. Sloan, Wallace, Dingwall, and Hubbard (2011) found that the sources of ostracism are perceived as less trustworthy, more prejudiced and arrogant than the sources of inclusion. Moreover, Zadro, Boland, and Richardson (2006) reveal that ostracized people – vs. included – evaluate the sources as less physically attractive and possessing more negative personality traits. Importantly, prior research has neither directly linked impression formation to vicarious ostracism settings, nor it has considered impression formation as a potential mediator of subsequent behavior. We therefore turned to research on impression formation towards an unknown person and the following behavior towards them (see for instance; Brambilla, Sacchi, Pagliaro, & Ellemers, 2013; Pagliaro, Brambilla, Sacchi, D’Angelo, & Ellemers, 2013). This research has shown that forming a negative impression towards an unknown person appears to be related to less positive behavioral intentions towards him/her (Brambilla et al., 2013; Pagliaro et al., 2013; see also Iachini, Pagliaro, & Ruggiero, 2015). In accordance with this reasoning, we argued that observing an ostracism event (vs. inclusion) might lead participants (a) to form a more negative interpersonal impression towards the sources of ostracism (Hp3a) and/or (b) to form a more positive impression toward the targets of ostracism (Hp3b).

Finally, to better understand the interpersonal process activated by vicarious ostracism, we explored whether the observers’ tendency to reward the target of ostracism, allocating to him/her money, would be mediated by a decrease in need satisfaction, a negative impression towards the sources, and a positive impression towards the targets (Hp4).

Method

Participants and design

Sample size was based on the recent meta-analysis of Cyberball (Hartgerink et al., 2015) and prior research on vicarious ostracism (Wesselmann, Williams, & Hale, 2013). This research reveals that the effects of ostracism are typically quite large (d > 1.4). We therefore decided to use a sample of 66 participants, as observers of inclusion or ostracism in a three-player version of Cyberball. An a priori G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) showed that this sample is sufficient to obtain a medium to high effect with a power of .80. The participants were recruited at a medium-sized university in the center of Italy (54 female, 12 male; mean age = 21.68; SD = 2.62).¹ They participated on a voluntary basis.

Procedure

Participants were individually escorted to the social psychology laboratory. After providing their demographic information, participants were introduced to Cyberball (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000). They were told that they were participating in research about their mental visualization ability and led to believe they would observe three players connected via the campus intranet. Actually, the other three players were pre-programmed avatars. Following the same procedure adopted by Wesselmann and colleagues (2009), unlike the traditional Cyberball paradigm, this game replaced the hand at the bottom of the screen with a full-bodied figure. Participants were asked to exercise mental visualization skills while observing the game; they were asked to imagine the context of the game and what the other players were like. The three fictitious players were labelled as Player A, Player B, and Player C. The Player A was the target and placed in the center of the screen, while the Players B and C were the sources and placed in the top of the screen on the right and on the left, respectively. In the inclusion condition, participants observed a Cyberball game where each of the three players received one third of the tosses from the other players. Crucially, in the ostracism condition, they observed one of the players (Player A, the experimental target) receiving few tosses at the beginning and then not receiving any other tosses. The game proceeded for 3 min, for a total amount of 30 throws (Williams & Jarvis, 2006).

Immediately after observing the game, participants were asked to report their global impression about each of the three players they had been observing during the Cyberball game. They reported their response to the question ‘What is your general impression of Player [A; B; C]?’ on a scale ranging from 1 (= extremely negative) to 7 (= extremely positive). Responses to the items relative to Player B and Player C (α = .91; r = .84; p < .001) were averaged to form a single index of impression about the sources (of inclusion vs. ostracism). The impression towards Player B and Player C were unrelated to that of Player A (r = −.12; p = .35; and r = −.17; p = .17, respectively).

Next, participants completed the Need-Satisfaction Scale (Zadro et al., 2004; see also Williams et al., 2000) assessing the participants’ feelings of belongingness (e.g., ‘I felt excluded’; ‘I felt disconnected’), self-esteem (e.g., ‘I felt liked’; ‘I felt satisfied’), control (e.g., ‘I felt I had control’; ‘I felt to able to significantly modify the events’), and meaningful existence (e.g., ‘I felt invisible’; ‘I felt useful’) on a Likert-type scale from 1 (Not at all) to 9 (Extremely). Following previous literature (van Beest & Williams, 2006; Williams et al., 2000; Zadro et al., 2006), we averaged responses to all these measures – after reverse-coding negative items – to create an overall need satisfaction index (α = .87). Lower rating signaled more need threat, while higher ratings signaled more need satisfaction.

Then, participants rated two close-ended questions (i.e., Cyberball manipulation check) on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely): ‘Player A was ignored’ and ‘Player A was excluded’. They also responded to the follow open question ‘Assuming the ball should be thrown to each person equally (33%), what percentage of the throws did player A receive?’.

Finally, we asked participants to fill in an allocation game in which they had to divide a total amount of 10 Euros between Player A (that is, the target of inclusion vs. ostracism, according to conditions) and Player B and C together (that is, the sources of inclusion vs. ostracism, according to conditions). Participants could choose between 7 combinations: 1 (= 8 Euros to Player A; 2 Euros to Player B and C), 2 (= 7 Euros to Player A; 3 Euros to Player B and C), 3 (= 6 Euros to Player A; 4 Euros to Player B and C), 4 (= 5 Euros to Player A; 5 Euros to Player B and C), 5 (= 4 Euros to Player A; 6 Euros to Player B and C), 6 (= 3 Euros to Player A; 7 Euros to Player B and C) and 7 (= 2 Euros to Player A; 8 Euros to Player B and C). In this way, the lower the score, the higher the target’s rewarding (and, conversely, the higher the sources’ punishment). At the end, participants were thanked and fully debriefed.²

Results

Unless otherwise specified, we performed a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for each dependent variable, with the Cyberball observation (ostracism vs. inclusion) as a between-subjects factor. Mediation analysis was performed through the regression approach and the bootstrap estimation through the adoption of PROCESS, the SPSS macro developed by Hayes and Preacher (2014).

Manipulation checks

Firstly, we evaluated the effectiveness of the Cyberball observation manipulation. Participants assigned to the ostracism condition reported that the target was more ignored (M = 6.88, SD = 2.36) and excluded (M = 7.73, SD = 1.96) than participants assigned to the inclusion condition (M = 2.48, SD = 1.96; M = 2.41, SD = 1.81, respectively), F (1, 64) = 68.93, p < .001, partial η² = .52; F (1, 64) = 129.22, p < .001, partial η² = .67, respectively. Moreover, participants assigned to ostracism condition reported that the target received fewer throws out of the total (M = 9.06, SD = 7.71) compared to participants assigned to inclusion condition (M = 32.76, SD = 17.94, F (1, 64) = 47.29, p < .001, partial η² = .43). Taken together, these findings confirmed the effectiveness of our manipulation.

Allocation game, need satisfaction and impression formation

The ANOVA on the allocation game showed that participants exposed to the ostracism condition allocated less money to the sources (and thus more money to the targets; M = 3.67, SD = 1.61) than participants exposed to the inclusion condition did (M = 4.45, SD = 1.09), F (1, 64) = 5.39, p = .023, η² = .08. The ANOVA on need satisfaction showed that participants reported a lower level of need satisfaction after observing ostracism (M = 4.03, SD = 1.21) than after observing inclusion (M = 4.89, SD = 1.17), F (1, 64) = 8.60, p = .005, η² = .12. The ANOVA on impression towards the sources of ostracism showed that participants reported more negative impression in the condition in which the sources ostracized the target (i.e., player A; M = 3.05, SD = 1.15) rather than in the condition in which the sources included the target (M = 4.33, SD = .96), F (1, 64) = 24.49, p < .001, η² = .28. Finally, the ANOVA on impression towards the target of ostracism showed that participants reported a similar impression in the condition in which the target was ostracized (M = 4.85, SD = 1.28) and in the condition in which the target was included (M = 4.48, SD = 1.20), F (1, 64) = 1.42, p = .24, η² = .02.

These analyses confirmed our hypotheses that vicarious ostracism alters money allocations to sources and targets such that targets obtain more than sources (Hp1), lowers need satisfaction of observers (Hp2), lowers positive impressions of sources (Hp3a). Contrary to our hypothesis, the analyses showed that vicarious ostracism did not alter impression towards the target (Hp3b).

Mediation analysis

To test Hp4, that is the investigation about the underlying processes between vicarious ostracism and money allocations to sources and targets, we relied on PROCESS, the SPSS macro developed by Hayes and Preacher (2014). In particular, considering the null effect of vicarious ostracism on impression towards the target emerged in the above mentioned ANOVA, we tested a model in which two hypothesized mediators were considered in parallel (see Figure 1; PROCESS model number 4): need satisfaction and impression towards the sources. The two supposed mediators are moderately correlated (r = .36, p = .003). As reported above, the Cyberball condition significantly influenced the need satisfaction, the impression formation, and the allocation game. More importantly for the present purpose, the model in which the direct effect of the Cyberball condition was mediated by the need satisfaction and the impression formed toward the sources was significant (R² = .32; F (3, 62) = 9.59, p < .001. In line with our prediction, the bootstrap analysis with 1000 resampling confirmed that both the indirect effect via the need satisfaction (b = .14; 95% CI: LLCI = .0259; ULCI = .3570) and via the impression formation (b = .31; 95% CI: LLCI = .1260; ULCI = .5819) were significant, while the direct effect disappeared when considering the mediators (b = −.05; 95% CI: LLCI = −.4094; ULCI = .3016). Thus, the analysis confirmed the mediating role of both the need satisfaction and the impression formation on the relation between observing ostracism and rewarding the target of ostracism – or vice versa the punishment towards the sources of ostracism – although the mediating role of the latter factor appears stronger.

Figure 1. Need satisfaction and impression toward the sources jointly mediate the effect of observed ostracism on the money allocation toward the target (and in turn, the sources) of ostracism.

Note: PROCESS Model number 4; unstardized regression coefficients are presented in the figure. The money allocation to the target is coded in a way so that the lower the score, the higher the target’s rewarding (and, conversely, the sources’ punishment). ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05.

Discussion

Ostracism is a painful and stressful experience, to the point that even just observing ostracism is damaging at the physical and psychological level (Wesselmann et al., 2013). In the present paper, we focused on vicarious ostracism and we directly investigated this topic by facing participants with an ostracism (vs. an inclusion) situation, and by allowing them to reward the target rather than the sources of ostracism by means of an allocation game.

Consistent with our hypotheses, we reveal that observers of ostracism (vs. inclusion) are more inclined to financially reward those who are ostracized rather than those who were responsible of such ostracism (who are, instead, punished). Second, in line with prior research (Wesselmann et al., 2009) we confirm that witnessing ostracism induces similar reactions – that is, lower need satisfaction – that are also involved in the first-hand experience of ostracism. Third, in addition to this literature, our findings also show that observing ostracism impacts how sources are perceived: sources of ostracism were perceived more negatively than sources of inclusion. On the contrary, observing ostracism seems not to influence how targets are perceived. Finally, our results contribute to research on ostracism and especially on vicarious ostracism by providing a more enriched understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying the interpersonal behavior. Specifically, we provide evidence that the observers’ tendency to financially reward the target of ostracism is mediated by (a) what observers feel themselves, that is, a low(er) level of observers’ intrapersonal need satisfaction and by (b) how they perceive those responsible of ostracism (sources), that is, a negative observers’ impression toward the sources of ostracism. We also show a stronger effect emerging for this latter mediator. This provides evidence that rewarding the target of ostracism is particularly rooted in the negative impression towards the sources of ostracism. Thus, in line with Decety and Meyer’s (2008) suggestion that empathy depends upon different information processes (i.e., bottom-up and top-down), what our findings reveal is that there are at least two different mechanisms involved in the link between observing ostracism and one’s readiness to help the target.

The present findings also contribute to prior research of Will, Crone, van den Bos, and Güroğlu (2013). These researchers focused on children from different age groups. The children were all included in a Cyberball game after which they observed another individual being ostracized in Cyberball. The researchers assessed traits of perspective taking, mood and allocation behavior in a dictator game and altruistic punishment/compensation game. Results showed that participants were willing to sacrifice a share of their own money to punish the sources and to compensate the target and this effect increased when participants were invited to take the perspective of the target. We extend this finding in several ways. First, we used a setting in which participants observed an inclusion or an ostracism event without being involved themselves in the experiment. Second, we relied on allocation games that did not affect the monetary payoff of the participant. This allows us to measure clearly how observers behave towards the sources and targets irrespective of what this behavior means for themselves. Most importantly, however, we focused more on the underlying mechanism why people are inclined to reward targets or indeed reluctant to reward sources. That is, whereas Will et al. (2013) focused on the role of perspective taking and observed that this moderated their findings, we instead focused on need satisfaction and impression formation and observed that these mediated our findings.

Our results do present limitations worth noting and raise questions for future investigation. First, we used an allocation game in which rewarding targets equates hurting sources, and vice versa. This measure does not allow us to clearly disentangle whether participants are acting to help the target or punish the sources, providing us with a more general reaction that may reflect both the processes as well. Future studies could be designed to address this point by assessing, for instance, the two tendencies separately, or considering a setting in which rewarding one is not clearly at the cost of the other. This would also allow us to investigate the reaction to vicarious ostracism with a more complex design than the one adopted in the present paper. A related issue is the selection of a financial setting. Further research could focus on a social setting, such as the willingness to invite the players of Cyberball to a party (see Graupmann, Pfundmair, Matsoukas, & Erber, 2016). From a methodological point of view, we did not randomize the order in which the various dependent variables were assessed. Participants first completed the impression formation and the need satisfaction that were followed by the allocation game. We chose this order because we were interested in the mediating role of impression formation and need satisfaction on the allocation game, thus the choice was theory-driven and the mediational path confirmed our hypothesis. Another potential limitation could be related to the fact that the use of the participants’ level of needs satisfaction does not allow to disentangle observers’ own distress from their desire to help the target by recognizing that target’s distress. As revealed by Graziano and Habashi (2010) in their study on the motivational processes underlying the prejudice and the subsequent helping behaviors, these two processes are likely co-occurring. Considering that the distinction between the observers’ own distress and the ability to recognize the targets’ distress was not the aim of this study, future ad hoc research could pursue this road from such a dual prospective, also for the vicarious ostracism phenomenon.

To conclude, the present research provided further evidence on individual’s reaction to observed ostracism. People are not passive observers of ostracism, but actively experience, interpret and react when they observe ostracism. Moreover, we provide first evidence that the behavioral intention to reward targets/hurt sources is driven by a combination of experienced intrapersonal need satisfaction and formed interpersonal impression. This highlights that people who are ostracized and people who observe ostracism react in similar ways, and opens new and intriguing lines for further research.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. All the stimulus materials and data are available upon request from Daniele Paolini or Stefano Pagliaro.

Notes

1. It may be noticed that most of our participants were female (80%) raising the possible question that our results may be specific for females and perhaps not for males. This is ultimately an empirical question, but given that abundant literature shows that participant’s gender does not moderate ostracism responses (see for instance, Williams & Sommer, 1997), we are inclined to consider it not a relevant factor.

2. Even though it was not the scope of the present paper, we also measured the level of participants’ mood as it has been generally used in the research adopting the Need Satisfaction Scale. Thus, we asked participants to complete 8-items about the emotions they felt during the game on positive and negative mood. We then checked whether our manipulation impacted upon participants’ mood, and whether this, in turn, influenced the mediation path. A one-way ANOVA on participants’ mood showed that participants reported a worse level of mood in the condition in which the sources ostracized the target (M = 5.67, SD = 1.41) compared to the condition in which the sources included the target (M = 6.51, SD = 1.09), F (1, 64) = 7.26, p = .01. This effect is in line with previous research (Wesselmann et al., 2009). Nevertheless, the mood did not alter the pattern of mediation we hypothesized, nor it had a significant effect on it.