Recovering from social exclusion: The interplay of subtle Facebook reminders and collectivistic orientation

Abstract The sense of being connected with others through Social Networking Sites (SNS) can counteract feelings of loneliness. We examined whether subtle reminders of Facebook, the largest SNS, mitigate people's responses to ostracism (i.e., being ignored and excluded), taking into account individual differences in collectivistic orientation. We examined two typical responses to ostracism: interest in social contact (Study 1) and the need to belong (Study 2). After being included or ostracized in Cyberball, a Facebook (vs. Word) icon was displayed on the margin of a computer screen while participants focused on a primary task. We found three-way interactions between icon presentation, ostracism, and participants' horizontal collectivism. In the Facebook-icon (vs. Word-icon) condition, ostracized (vs. included) participants with higher (vs. lower) collectivistic orientation exhibited less compensatory interest in social contact (Study 1) and a greater recovery of their need to belong (Study 2). A meta-analytical synthesis of the effect sizes from the two studies suggests a significant, medium-sized effect of the moderation by collectivistic orientation. The findings suggest that thoughts about being connected through SNS can help people cope with threats to belonging, especially those who cherish relationships with equal others.

[1]  Kipling D. Williams,et al.  Ostracism: Consequences and Coping , 2011 .

[2]  D. Oyserman,et al.  Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism. , 2008, Psychological bulletin.

[3]  G. Echterhoff,et al.  The interplay of oxytocin and collectivistic orientation shields against negative effects of ostracism , 2014 .

[4]  Rick Richardson,et al.  How long does it last? The persistence of the effects of ostracism in the socially anxious , 2006 .

[5]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Does Social Exclusion Motivate Interpersonal Reconnection ? Resolving the “ Porcupine Problem ” , 2006 .

[6]  Jelte M. Wicherts,et al.  The Ordinal Effects of Ostracism: A Meta-Analysis of 120 Cyberball Studies , 2015, PloS one.

[7]  Gerald Echterhoff,et al.  When virtual contact is all you need: Subtle reminders of Facebook preempt social‐contact restoration after exclusion , 2015 .

[8]  Christian H. Jordan,et al.  Motivation by positive or negative role models: regulatory focus determines who will best inspire us. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[9]  D. Frey,et al.  The Different Behavioral Intentions of Collectivists and Individualists in Response to Social Exclusion , 2015, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[10]  Kerk F. Kee,et al.  Being Immersed in Social Networking Environment: Facebook Groups, Uses and Gratifications, and Social Outcomes , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[11]  M. Gelfand,et al.  Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism , 1998 .

[12]  M. Pillutla,et al.  Social reconnection revisited: The effects of social exclusion risk on reciprocity, trust, and general risk-taking , 2010 .

[13]  John Raacke,et al.  MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses and Gratifications Theory to Exploring Friend-Networking Sites , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[14]  M. Gelfand,et al.  A theory of individualism and collectivism. , 2012 .

[15]  R. Baumeister,et al.  The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. , 1995, Psychological bulletin.

[16]  Joseph B. Bayer,et al.  Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. , 2015, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[17]  S. Syme,et al.  Social connections and mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular disease: prospective evidence from eastern Finland. , 1988, American journal of epidemiology.

[18]  J. Bonds-Raacke,et al.  MySpace and Facebook: Identifying dimensions of uses and gratifications for friend networking sites. , 2010 .

[19]  Ayse K. Uskul,et al.  Culture moderates children's responses to ostracism situations. , 2016, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  A. Tanaka,et al.  The effect of the color red on avoidance motivation , 2011 .

[21]  K. Williams,et al.  When ostracism leads to aggression: The moderating effects of control deprivation , 2006 .

[22]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Estimating and testing mediation and moderation in within-subject designs. , 2001, Psychological methods.

[23]  Kipling D. Williams,et al.  Chapter 6 Ostracism: A Temporal Need‐Threat Model , 2009 .

[24]  G. Hofstede.  Culture′s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations , 2001 .

[25]  K. Williams,et al.  Cyberostracism: effects of being ignored over the Internet. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[26]  D. Frey,et al.  Exclude Me If You Can , 2015 .

[27]  Christina M. Brown,et al.  Friends with benefits: on the positive consequences of pet ownership. , 2011, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  Andy P. Field,et al.  Discovering Statistics Using SPSS , 2000 .

[29]  M. Gelfand,et al.  Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of Individualism and Collectivism: A Theoretical and Measurement Refinement , 1995 .

[30]  Rick Richardson,et al.  How low can you go? Ostracism by a computer is sufficient to lower self-reported levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence , 2004 .

[31]  Kennon M. Sheldon,et al.  A two-process view of Facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: disconnection drives use, and connection rewards it. , 2011, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  Harsha Gangadharbatla.  Facebook Me , 2008 .

[33]  M. Knowles,et al.  Does Facebook magnify or mitigate threats to belonging , 2015 .

[34]  Fenne große Deters,et al.  Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness? An Online Social Networking Experiment , 2013, Social psychological and personality science.

[35]  K. Williams,et al.  Interdependent self-construal moderates coping with (but not the initial pain of) ostracism , 2013 .

[36]  E. Erdfelder,et al.  Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses , 2009, Behavior research methods.

[37]  Rachel Grieve,et al.  Face-to-face or Facebook: Can social connectedness be derived online? , 2013, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[38]  M. Leary,et al.  Interpersonal Rejection as a Determinant of Anger and Aggression , 2006, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[39]  W. Chiou,et al.  Facebook effects on social distress: Priming with online social networking thoughts can alter the perceived distress due to social exclusion , 2015, Comput. Hum. Behav..