Do I Really Feel Your Pain? Comparing the Effects of Observed and Personal Ostracism

Abstract

It has been argued that "we feel the pain of others' ostracism as our own". However, it is unknown whether observed ostracism is as distressing as self-experienced ostracism. We conducted two studies to address this lacuna. In Study 1, participants played or observed an online ball-tossing game, in which they or a stranger were ostracized or included by others. In Study 2, participants imagined themselves or someone else being ostracized or included. Across both studies, self-experienced and observed ostracism had the same negative effect on mood. Also, both self-experienced and observed ostracism evoked need threat, but this effect was slightly lower after observed ostracism. In sum, the findings suggest that we do feel the pain of others' ostracism as our own, consistent with the notion that humans are equipped with a system that detects violations of social inclusion norms in the environment.

A third-person perspective on phubbing: Observing smartphone-induced social exclusion generates negative affect, stress, and derogatory attitudes

“…Such findings support other research revealing physiological stress reactions such as heightened heart rate and increased electrodermal activity following the observation of social exclusion of others (Coyne et al, 2011). Negative affective reactions to observed events of social exclusion furthermore appear to reach a similar magnitude as those reported by immediate targets of ostracism (Giesen & Echterhoff, 2018). Giesen and Echterhoff (2018) also demonstrated that, in addition to negative affect, viewed social exclusion produced needthreat to belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence in observers.…”

“…Theoretically, this is in line with the reflexive stage of the temporal need-threat model of ostracism, which assumes that adverse affective consequences occur immediately and universally (Williams, 2007(Williams, , 2009. The results are also consistent with research demonstrating that smartphone use-unrelated social exclusion impacts the affective well-being of observers in similar ways as those of direct targets (Giesen & Echterhoff, 2018;Wesselmann et al, 2009) It is important to stress that affective detriments occur because social exclusion threatens the fundamental human need for meaningful interpersonal closeness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Wesselmann et al, 2009). As interpersonal closeness is inherently connected to humans' well-being, people possess a very sensitive system to detect potential inclusion threats in their social environment leading to empathetic responses even in observers of such threats (Wesselmann et al, 2009).…”

“…Negative affective reactions to observed events of social exclusion furthermore appear to reach a similar magnitude as those reported by immediate targets of ostracism (Giesen & Echterhoff, 2018). Giesen and Echterhoff (2018) also demonstrated that, in addition to negative affect, viewed social exclusion produced needthreat to belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence in observers. The emergence of these reflexive effects in third persons demonstrates that humans are highly sensitive to social inclusion norm violations in their environment (Wesselmann et al, 2009).…”

“…In line with this, it has been suggested that the harmful nature of phubbing is a manifestation of threats posed upon humans' fundamental need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Sbarra et al, 2019) because phubbing is a smartphone-induced form of social exclusion (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018;Gonzales & Wu, 2016;Hales et al, 2018). The examination of the third-person perspective should provide a deeper understanding of whether this theory holds true, because it has been shown that-as humans are extremely sensitive to inclusion norm violations-individuals are negatively influenced even by indirectly experienced social exclusion (Giesen & Echterhoff, 2018;Wesselmann et al, 2009). Consequently, we aimed at expanding current research on the adverse effects of phone-snubbing to a third-person perspective and further validating a theoretical foundation facilitating the consistent study of this modern communication phenomenon.…”

Do dominant group members have different emotional responses to observing dominant-on-dominant versus dominant-on-disadvantaged ostracism? Some evidence for heightened reactivity to potentially discriminatory ingroup behavior

“…This sensitivity goes further yet: Individuals who observe another person being ostracizedeven when there is no potential for personally being a target of mistreatment themselves-experience reduced satisfaction of fundamental needs (e.g., belonging and self-esteem) and more negative mood [8]. Such "vicarious ostracism" has been found across observers of various ages, ranging from children to adults [9] and at times appears to be just as potent as being directly targeted [10].…”