The Role of Group Size in Reactions to Ostracism in a Social Media Context
1
Tobin ,
2
McDermott ,
2
French
Stephanie J.
Sarah
and Luke
1 Australian Catholic University; 2 The University of Queensland
Introduction
Study 1
Study 2
Conclusions
• Being ostracised can threaten one’s sense of
belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful
existence (Williams, 2009). This holds true in a
social media context when an online post is
ignored by others (Tobin et al., 2015; Wolf et al.,
2015).
Sample
Sample
• 330 American mturk participants (46% male).
• 206 American mturk participants (49% male).
Design
Design
• 2 (ostracism) x 2 (group size) x 2 (order of DVs) x 2
(reporting instructions) between-subjects design.
• 2 (ostracism) x 2 (group size) x 2 (order of DVs)
between-subjects design.
• Being ostracised by everyone in a group is worse
than being ostracised by only some of the people
in a group (Abayhan & Aydin, 2014; DeWall et al.,
2010). DeWall et al. (2010) found that when people
were ostracised by everyone in a group, they
reported the lowest feelings of belonging and
exhibited the highest levels of aggression.
Belonging increased and aggression decreased
dramatically with acceptance by one group
member, and to a lesser extent with acceptance by
additional group members. This is consistent with
social impact theory which predicts that social
force increases by a power function with the
number of sources (Latané, 1981).
Procedure
Procedure
• Participants took part in an online introduction task
(Wolf et al., 2015). They chose an avatar, entered
their name, and wrote a short introduction.
• Same as Study 1, but with two assessments of
needs/affect (Williams, 2009): one right after the
online introduction task (reflexive) and one after a
reflection period and a 2.5 minute distractor task
(reflective).
• They completed need satisfaction (Williams, 2009)
and affect (Watson et al., 1988) scales in
counterbalanced order and based on how they felt
right now or during the online introduction task.
Results
• There were significant main effects of ostracism on
all DVs except for reflective control.
• There was significant moderation by group size:
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Reflective Belonging
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likes from
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Ostracism
1
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is
stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5, 323-370.
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Embarrassed
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Gonsalkorale, K., & Williams, K. D. (2007). The KKK won't let me play: Ostracism even
by a despised outgroup hurts. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 11761186.
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DeWall, C. N., Twenge, J. M., Bushman, B., Im, C., & Williams, K. (2010). A little
acceptance goes a long way: Applying social impact theory to the rejection–
aggression link. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 168-174.
likes from
likes from no
everyone
one
Ostracism
likes from
likes from no
everyone
one
Ostracism
Latané, B. (1981). The psychology of social impact. American Psychologist, 36, 343356.
Tobin, S. J., Vanman, E. J., Verreynne, M., & Saeri, A. K. (2015). Threats to belonging
on Facebook: Lurking and ostracism. Social Influence, 10, 31-42.
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2
1
likes from
likes from no
everyone
one
Ostracism
likes from
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Ostracism
1
likes from
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Ostracism
• Study 2 findings suggest that the effects of group
size on reactions to ostracism could be due to
embarrassment. The public nature of the ostracism
in this study and on social media in general likely
plays an important role in producing
embarrassment and need threat.
Abayhan, Y., & Aydin, O. (2014). Ostracism in the context of the social impact theory:
The effect of numbers of source and target on four fundamental needs. Turkish
Journal of Psychology, 29 (73), 108-124.
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Expected
2
• Moderation by group size was evident on reflexive
responses (belonging and meaningful existence)
and on reflective responses (belonging). It is
possible that the number of ostracizing sources is
more immediate and readily processed than other
characteristics of ostracizing sources that do not
moderate reflexive responses, such as group
membership (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007) and
agreement with the target on a discussion topic
(Williams et al., 2002).
References
1
likes from
likes from no
everyone
one
Ostracism
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Meaningful Existence
small
large
Reflexive Meaningful
Existence
• There were significant (p < .05) main effects of
ostracism on belonging, self-esteem, control,
meaningful existence, and positive affect.
Reflexive Belonging
Results
• Hypotheses: We predicted that levels of
belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful
existence would be lower when people were
ostracised by a large compared to small group,
and somewhat higher when people were accepted
by a large compared to small group.
• Because our research question involved a
moderator of ostracism, we examined both
reflexive and reflective responses in our studies.
The temporal need-threat model of ostracism
posits that immediate, reflexive reactions tend to
be quite uniform and insensitive to moderators,
whereas later reflective responses are more likely
to show moderation (Williams, 2009).
• We also assessed the extent to which the number
of likes received was expected and embarrassing.
• There was significant moderation by group size:
Belonging
• A stronger test of social impact theory would hold
constant the level of ostracism (e.g., participants
are ostracised by all or none of the group
members) and examine whether the number of
group members affects responses. This type of
design would also allow us to examine whether the
effect of group size is stronger in the case of
ostracism than acceptance. Negative events are
generally more impactful than positive events
(Baumeister et al., 2001), so people might be more
sensitive to being ostracised by a larger group than
they are to being accepted by a larger group.
• Their introduction appeared on the screen with 2 or
6 other introductions for 1.5 minutes. They could like
other people’s introductions. They received likes
from all or none of the group members.
• As predicted, group size influenced reactions to
ostracism in both studies. Participants reported
lower belonging and meaningful existence when
they were ostracised by a large relative to small
group. However, group size did not influence
reactions to acceptance. These findings support
social impact theory and extend it by showing that
the number of sources has a greater impact when
source behaviour is negative relative to positive.
• The effects of group size and ostracism on
belonging and meaningful existence were partially
mediated by embarrassment.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief
measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
Williams, K. D. (2009). Ostracism: A temporal need-threat model. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.)
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press, pp.
275-314.
Williams, K. D., Govan, C. L., Croker, V., Tynan, D., Cruickshank, M., & Lam, A. (2002).
Investigations into differences between social- and cyberostracism. Group
Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 6, 65–77.
Wolf, W., Levordashka, A., Ruff, J. R., Kraaijeveld, S., Lueckmann, J. M., & Williams,
K. D. (2015). Ostracism Online: A social media ostracism paradigm. Behavior
Research Methods, 47, 361-373.
SPSP 2016; [email protected]