Artigo Revisado por pares

“I Feel Your Pain”: The effects of observing ostracism on the ostracism detection system

2009; Elsevier BV; Volume: 45; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jesp.2009.08.003

ISSN

1096-0465

Autores

Eric D. Wesselmann, Danielle Bagg, Kipling D. Williams,

Tópico(s)

Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs

Resumo

Ostracism—being ignored and excluded—is a painful experience with negative psychological consequences. Social psychologists (Kerr and Levine, 2008, Spoor and Williams, 2007) argue humans have an evolved system for automatically detecting cues of ostracism and exclusion. Detection elicits pain and threats to fundamental needs. We hypothesize simply observing ostracism will cause negative affect and need threat in the observer. Participants observed a three-player Cyberball game; a target player was included or ostracized, and participants were either instructed to take the perspective of this player or given no such instructions. Participants observing ostracism reported negative affect and need threat. Our results indicate that ostracism detection is even more powerful than previously suggested, because vicariously, we feel the pain of others’ ostracism as our own.

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