Den här studien behandlar fenomenet ostracism/exkludering och dess konsekvenser. Studiens centrala syfte var att undersöka om det finns någon koppling mellan ostracism och aggressivt beteende, och hur kopplingen mellan exkluderade personer och deras aggressiva beteende i så fall kan förklaras. Studien är en litteraturstudie och utgår enbart ifrån artiklar som är hämtade inom det socialpsykologiska forskningsfältet. Den insamlingsmetod som har använts är inspirerad av ett systematiskt tillvägagångssätt. Artiklarnas påvisade samband mellan ostracism och aggressivt beteende har tolkats utifrån ett antal teoretiska begrepp och förklaringsmodeller som exempelvis: frustration, kontroll, hämnd, samt behov-hot modellen. Studiens resultat visar att det finns en stark koppling mellan ostracism/exkludering och aggressivitet, och att aggressivitet manifesteras olika beroende på sammanhanget. Resultatet visade att antisocialt beteende i form av aggressivitet var ett sätt att skaffa fördelar, exempelvis genom att ta kontroll över andra, få ur sig frustration etc. Det visade sig också att kontrollfaktorn var en faktor som var återkommande och viktig. Att inte ha någon makt eller kontroll att förändra negativa skeenden eller hur andra människor agerar verkar vara en starkt bidragande faktor till aggressivitet. Förhoppningen med denna studie är att den ska kunna visa på komplexiteten i fenomenet ostracism och att den ska kunna användas i det sociala arbetet för att bättre kunna förstå orsakerna till beteendet hos exkluderade individer i olika sammanhang. / This study adresses the phenomenon of ostracism/exclusion and its consequences. The main purpose of this study is to examine if there is a connection between ostracism and aggressive behaviour, and if so, how the connection between excluded individuals and their aggressive behaviour can be explained. This litterature review will be solely based on scientific articles derived from the researchfield of socialpsychology. The method for collecting data has been based on a systematic review. The articles proven connection between ostracism and aggressive behaviour has been interpretated on the basis of several theoretical concepts as for example: frustration, control, revenge and the need-threat model. Results of the study shows that there is a strong link between ostracism/exclusion and aggressive behaviour. And that aggression manifests itself differently depending on the context. The result showed that anti-social behaviour in the form of aggressiveness where one way for the individual to gain advantages, for example by taking control of others, relieving frustration e.d. It also showed that the control-factor was a factor that was recurrent and important. Not having any power or control to change the negative course of events or how other people behave was a strong contributing factor for aggressiveness. The hope of this study is that it can demonstrate the complexity of ostracism and that it could be used in the field of social work to better understand the reasons for aggressive behaviour in excluded individuals in different contexts.

Ostracism has been shown to have a variety of negative effects on the target, though the reported nature of these has varied due to differing manipulations of the phenomenon. The experiments reported attempt to characterise the consequences of computer-mediated (CM) ostracism using a range of approaches. Investigation of on-line social behaviour in Internet chat rooms revealed similar patterns of group behaviour, including ostracism, to those reported in face-to-face communication. Fourier analyses revealed periodic structure to the comments made in CM group communication qualitatively similar to that previously reported in dyadic face-to-face communication. Identity changes and ostracism occurrences were also found to be periodic. The power spectra produced by these analyses revealed that comments, identity changes and ostracism typically showed a gradient of 1/f - 11/, a characteristic common to many physical and biological systems but not previously reported in social communication. Further experiments revealed that level of anonymity did not modulate a reduction in comments made by CM ostracised participants. Thus the partial anonymity conferred by CM communication cannot account for the differential effect of ostracism in CM and face-to-face contexts. Experiments on the effect of ostracism upon cognition revealed that ostracised participants reacted significantly slower on a Strop task, but made fewer errors. Performance on a Remote Associates Task was bifurcated whereby those who accurately estimated the extent of their exclusion performed significantly worse than non-ostracised participants. Ostracised participants who under-estimated their exclusion performed similarly to non-ostracised participants. Many of these findings are consistent with a hypothesis that ostracism may be considered a form of (social) pain whose consequences may be mediated by neural substrates that partially overlap with those implicated in responses to physical pain. The findings suggest that a full characterisation of individual and situational differences in ostracism effects may require a combination of techniques, from neuron-imaging to traditional social psychological methodologies.

Ostracism, the process of socially ignoring and excluding certain people, has attracted attention in recent years. Most studies have looked at full ostracism, in other words, when everyone in a group ignores a person. However, in real life, people are usually only partially ostracized – excluded by some members of a group and not by others. The present study is one of the first to provide an in-depth examination of reactions when different forms of partial ostracism occur in a group. It looks at partial ostracism in a field study and an experimental study. In the field study I proposed that because targets of partial ostracism receive mixed signals from their group, it is easier for them to interpret ostracism as an external event rather than internal; whereas in full ostracism because all the signs received by the target are the same, the target cannot interpret the act of ostracism in different ways. The results of the field study indicate that partial ostracism is not only more common than full ostracism at work, but targets of partial ostracism also make fewer internal attributions than do targets of full ostracism. The experimental study examined two dimensions of partial ostracism: activity exclusion (AE) and people exclusion (PE). Results indicate that as AE increases, i.e. targets are excluded from more activities, targets make fewer internal attributions, feel more threats to their basic needs (mediated by internal attributions), and have more desire to help others. As PE increases, targets feel more threats to their needs and put less effort into group tasks. Comparing AE and PE simultaneously, AE makes a difference in targets’ well-being while PE affects targets’ efforts in group tasks

Ostracism, the process of socially ignoring and excluding certain people, has attracted attention in recent years. Most studies have looked at full ostracism, in other words, when everyone in a group ignores a person. However, in real life, people are usually only partially ostracized – excluded by some members of a group and not by others. The present study is one of the first to provide an in-depth examination of reactions when different forms of partial ostracism occur in a group. It looks at partial ostracism in a field study and an experimental study. In the field study I proposed that because targets of partial ostracism receive mixed signals from their group, it is easier for them to interpret ostracism as an external event rather than internal; whereas in full ostracism because all the signs received by the target are the same, the target cannot interpret the act of ostracism in different ways. The results of the field study indicate that partial ostracism is not only more common than full ostracism at work, but targets of partial ostracism also make fewer internal attributions than do targets of full ostracism. The experimental study examined two dimensions of partial ostracism: activity exclusion (AE) and people exclusion (PE). Results indicate that as AE increases, i.e. targets are excluded from more activities, targets make fewer internal attributions, feel more threats to their basic needs (mediated by internal attributions), and have more desire to help others. As PE increases, targets feel more threats to their needs and put less effort into group tasks. Comparing AE and PE simultaneously, AE makes a difference in targets’ well-being while PE affects targets’ efforts in group tasks

A common form of partial ostracism, information exclusion, can be an everyday experience for some people. This study examined the role of information exclusion on subsequent information sharing behaviors. After being included or excluded on information in a previous task, participants had the opportunity to share information on a second task. When faced with the decision of how much information to share, it was framed in one of three ways: an opportunity to gain belonging and self-esteem, a chance to exercise control and meaningful existence, or no framing at all. Results indicated that participants that were in the loop shared more information than participants that were out of the loop. However, there was no difference for task framing on information sharing. The results of the study also indicated that in-the-loop participants reported stronger fortification of the inclusionary cluster (belonging and self esteem) and provocation cluster (control and meaningful existence) of fundamental needs than out-of-the-loop participants. On the other hand, there was no difference for task framing on the fortification of fundamental needs.

Being excluded from one's group has been found to be a painful and distracting experience. The current study predicted that emotional pain mediated the path between information exclusion and cognitive performance. Attributions for information exclusion were also predicted to have differing effects on pain and performance. In this study, 206 undergraduate participants presented with one of five randomly assigned scenarios differing on attribution dimensions (intent, foreseeability, and control) were asked to imagine themselves in the situation. Participants then spent five minutes performing a journal exercise reflecting on the experience. An immediate measure of pain was taken to serve as a manipulation check, followed by a 15-item word association task. The word association task consisted of 5 easy and 10 difficult items. Participants then completed a 20-item measure of pain to be included in the mediation analysis. Finally, participants completed a 28-item measure of social anxiety. The manipulation check showed that pain levels differed significantly between the control and manipulation conditions. The initial pain experienced also differed along the intent and foreseeability dimensions. However, the group differences for pain had diminished before participants reached the final pain measure. Group scores for the word association task did not differ significantly. Thus, there was not support for the mediation model.

The current research examined the effects of the cost of sharing information and individual levels of agreeableness on participants' willingness to help out-of-the-loop individuals. In this study, 119 students from undergraduate psychology courses played the role of a CEO of a pharmaceutical company with three regional managers under their supervision. The participants were given the opportunity to give any number of facts to both in-the-loop managers and the single out-of-the-loop manager. Participants in the high-cost condition were informed that they would be required to spend an additional 2 minutes in the lab explaining the usefulness of the facts distributed for every fact they gave a general manager. Participants in the low-cost condition were told they would be required to spend an additional 10 seconds for each fact they gave a regional manager. After distributing facts among the three regional managers under their supervision, the participants were asked to complete an agreeableness scale, a conscientiousness scale, a needs assessment, and a demographics questionnaire. The results indicated that only the amount of time it would cost an individual to share facts dictated how many facts they would share. The results also found that neither condition nor individual level of agreeableness significantly influenced the difference between the number of facts individuals gave to out-of-the-loop individuals versus in-the-loop individuals.

Ostracism arouses negative affect. However, little is known about variables that influence the intensity of these negative affective responses. Two studies seek to fill this void by incorporating work on approach- and withdrawal-related emotional states and their associated cortical activations. Study 1 found that following ostracism, anger related directly to relative left frontal cortical activation. Study 2 used unilateral hand contractions to manipulate frontal cortical activity prior to an ostracizing event. Righthand contractions, compared to left-hand contractions, caused greater relative left frontal cortical activation during the hand contractions as well as during ostracism. Also, righthand contractions caused more self-reported anger in response to being ostracized. Within-condition correlations revealed patterns of associations between ostracisminduced frontal asymmetry and emotive responses to ostracism consistent with Study 1. Taken together, these results suggest that asymmetrical frontal cortical activity affects angry responses to ostracism, with greater relative left frontal cortical activity being associated with increased anger.

The allocation of attentional resources to a focal task can influence performance on that task, but within-person changes in allocation policy is typically understudied. This study investigates the off-task pull of emotional experiences and the competing on-task pull of goals. Emotional experience was manipulated using an ostracizing event and goals were experimenter-assigned. The results did not support the off-task pull of emotional experiences or the on-task pull of goals. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 2007. / Title from screen (viewed on July 23, 2009). Includes vita. Graduate Program in Psychology, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-101).