Coping with ostracism

Ostracism is a form of social exclusion. It means that you feel ignored and excluded. It can make you feel invisible, like you don’t exist. People deal with ostracism in different ways. How you respond to ostracism matters for your well-being and for your relationship with those who ostracize you. Researchers usually describe three types of reactions to ostracism. The first is antisocial (anger or aggression). The second is prosocial (trying to improve the relationship). The third is withdrawal (wanting to be alone). Our research shows that people more often react with prosocial or withdrawal responses than with antisocial ones. This is important because antisocial reactions often get the most attention. For example because such reactions can be extreme and harmful to others. This can create the idea that antisocial behavior is the “typical” response to ostracism. But actually, this is not always true. Ostracism experiences can be very different. And so, there is not just one reaction to ostracism that is always the most common in every situation. What matters more is what makes people react in different ways. Our research looked at four different things: 1) What is the reason? People can have different thoughts and ideas about why they are ostracized by others. Believing “others don’t like me” may come with different reactions than believing “others think I’m stupid”. 2) How does your body respond? Ostracism can make you feel physical stress. Sometimes we can even see this in temperature changes in people’s faces. Such changes in temperature seem to be different for people who react to ostracism in different ways. 3) What options do you have? People respond in different ways to ostracism when they have only one option or when they can choose between different option. It also matters if these options are good or bad for them and for the people who made them feel ostracized. 4) When do you respond? Reactions to ostracism can be immediate as well as delayed. Short-term reactions can differ from longer-term responses. Finally, our research also shows that responses to ostracism do not always fit into the three groups: antisocial, prosocial, and withdrawal. We think it helps to look at people’s responses in three ways: 1) What are the pros and cons of your response for you? 2) What are the pros and cons of your response for the people who ostracized you? And 3) When exactly does your response happen after ostracism? These questions can give us more information about when and why people respond the way they do. This is important to help people recover and to restore positive connections with others after ostracism.