Motivations for responses to ostracism

Ostracism (being ignored and excluded) and other forms of interpersonal rejection threaten individuals’ physical and psychological well-being (Williams and Nida, 2011). Researchers often use the terms ostracism, social exclusion, and rejection interchangeably, but there are theoretical and empirical debates about the differential effects of these phenomena (Smart Richman and Leary, 2009; Williams, 2009; Bernstein and Claypool, 2012). We acknowledge these debates but choose to use the term ostracism ubiquitously for simplicity because most of the outcomes we discuss are similar across the phenomena. Most individuals experience these threats at least once during their lives, and some individuals experience them daily (Williams, 2009). Regardless of the mode or source by which the event occurs, ostracism threatens basic psychological needs (belonging, control, meaningful existence, and selfesteem; Nezlek et al., 2012; Wesselmann et al., in press). Williams (2009) posits a temporal structure to ostracism’s effects. In Stage 1, ostracism’s basic need threat is ubiquitous with few situational or dispositional moderators (Wesselmann et al., in press). Williams’s model is motivationfocused; after the initial threat occurs, individuals should be motivated to recover by fortifying their threatened needs. Stage 2 focuses on cognitive and behavioral processes ostracized individuals use to recover. Stage 3 argues that chronically ostracized individuals withdraw socially and experience extreme psychological and physical damage. We will now focus on relevant Stage 2 research and then discuss suggestions for future research on Stages 2 and 3. STAGE 2: REFLECTION AND RECOVERY Experimental data suggest that recovery can begin within minutes after ostracism occurs and participants use multiple cognitive and behavioral strategies to recover their thwarted basic needs. Individuals’ cognitive strategies often focus on attributions for why ostracism occurred and ways to remedy the situation (Williams, 2009). Wirth and Williams (2009) found that attributions influence recovery speed: Individuals attributing ostracism to an experimentally contrived group membership recovered from ostracism quicker than individuals who attributed ostracism to a permanent group membership (i.e., gender; also race in Goodwin et al., 2010; c.f., Masten et al., 2011). Another effective strategy involves encouraging participants to recall ostracism from an outsider’s (compared to first-person) perspective (Lau et al., 2009). Also, research demonstrates that priming feelings of physical invulnerability reduces the need for ostracized participants to seek various cognitive and interpersonal recovery options (Huang et al., 2013). Self-construal also facilitates recovery from ostracism: Individuals who have higher interdependent/collectivistic selfconstruals (i.e., define themselves in terms of social relationships) can recover quicker from ostracism compared to individuals who are lower in these construals (Ren et al., 2013; Pfundmair et al., 2015). Finally, reminding someone of positive social relationships, symbolic/parasocial relationships, or religious/spiritual affiliations facilitates recovery from ostracism (Gardner et al., 2005; Twenge et al., 2007; Epley et al., 2008; Derrick et al., 2009; Aydin et al., 2010, 2012; McConnell et al., 2011; Laurin et al., 2014). Research on behavioral strategies focus mostly on proor anti-social behaviors and how they facilitate basic need recovery (Williams, 2009). Experimental research demonstrates that ostracized individuals respond more pro-socially than included individuals; they attend more to social information relevant to inclusion (Pickett et al., 2004; Bernstein et al., 2008; Böckler et al., 2014), work harder on group tasks (at least among women participants; Williams and Sommer, 1997), focus more on re-inclusion (Maner et al., 2007; Molden et al., 2009), and show increased sensitivity to social influence (Williams et al., 2000; Carter-Sowell et al., 2008; Riva et al., 2014b). Ostracized individuals also respond more anti-socially than included individuals. Ostracized individuals respond aggressively toward another person regardless of whether this person ostracized them. Researchers have measured aggression using diverse methods, such as temptations for physical and social aggression, negative evaluations, unpleasant noise, and ostensibly forcing someone to eat hot sauce (Twenge et al., 2001; Buckley et al., 2004; Warburton et al., 2006). These two behavioral patterns seem contradictory, but Williams (2009) theorizes that each type of behavior should be linked to the specific psychological needs threatened by ostracism. Pro-social behaviors should be more likely to fortify inclusionary needs (belonging and self-esteem) because these behaviors are more likely to achieve re-inclusion; antisocial behaviors should be more likely to fortify power/provocation needs (control