Ostracism and Children: A Guide to Effectively Using the Cyberball Paradigm With a Child Sample

Abstract

Ostracism, the act of being excluded or ignored by another individual or group (Williams, 1997;Williams et al., 2002), is a powerful, pervasive, and complex phenomenon that transcends time and affects individuals throughout their lifespan, with some of the most damaging exclusionary experiences occurring during childhood (Williams, Forgas, & von Hippel, 2005). The current paper: a) discusses some of the problems associated with empirically investigating ostracism with a child sample using the widely used and well-validated ostracism paradigm, Cyberball (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000); b) outlines methodological guidelines designed to improve the effectiveness of using Cyberball to investigate the effects of ostracism in children; and c) discusses a post-Cyberball assessment of primary need-threat that is appropriate for use with a child sample (Primary Needs Questionnaire-Child-PNQ-C; Hawes et al., 2012).

Unanimous versus partial rejection: How the number of excluders influences the impact of ostracism in children

“…The Cyberball paradigm was used with minor adjustments (see Williams & Jarvis, ; Zadro et al, ). Children played against three pre‐programmed players, depicted by animated figures and labeled as Player 1, Player 2, and Player 3 on the screen.…”

Middle-School Girls' Behavioral Responses to Ostracism: How Much Does Inclusion Cost?

“…Further research with children has also indicated adequate internal consistency for this measure (Hawes et al, 2012; that is comparable to the adult version of the scale (Williams et al, 2002). The internal consistency for total need threat for this sample was slightly higher than that reported by Zadro et al (2013), with an alpha of .87, M = 33.61, SD = 7.44. Spearman-Brown coefficients were calculated for the individual needs, as this statistic has been found to be most appropriate for two-item scales (Eisinga, Grotenhuis, & Pelzer, 2013).…”

“…As shown in Table 4, internal consistency coefficients for this sample were slightly higher for meaningful existence and control, and slightly lower for self-esteem and belonging, as compared to Zadro et al (2013). Resource Allocation.…”

“…As found with adult research on ostracism, research has shown that ostracism affects children's and adolescents' primary needs for belonging, control, selfesteem, and meaningful existence (Abrams et al, 2011;Hawes et al, 2012;Hawes et al, 2013;Ruggieri et al, 2013b;Ruggieri et al, 2013a). In this study, threats to these four needs following the first Cyberball game and ostracism experience were assessed using the Primary Needs Questionnaire-Children (PNQ-C; Zadro et al, 2013). The PNQ-C includes two items each to assess needs for belonging (e.g., "I felt unwanted"), control (e.g., "I felt powerful"), self-esteem (e.g., "I felt liked"), and meaningful existence (e.g., "I felt invisible") for a total of eight items.…”

“…At least one week after completion of these surveys, girls participated in a game of Cyberball in which they were randomly assigned to be either fully or partially ostracized. Following the game, participants completed the Primary Needs Questionnaire-Children (PNQ-C; Zadro et al, 2013) to assess need threat, as well as a resource allocation task in which they had the opportunity to "buy" inclusion in a second game of Cyberball by giving cookies to the original game players or an uninvolved player. After these tasks, participants played a final game of Cyberball in which they were fully included.…”