TY - JOUR
T1 - “You’re such a pain!”
T2 - Investigating how psychological pain influences the ostracism of a burdensome group member
AU - Wirth, James H.
AU - LeRoy, Angie S.
AU - Bernstein, Michael J.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Paul Turchan for his contributions to this research, especially related to the development of the Exclusionary Cues Scale, and Jeremy Rohrer for programming the slow-player version of Cyberball. We also appreciated the feedback Bradley Okdie, Zachary Baker, Heather Krieger, and Reese Tou provided on a previous version of the manuscript. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/6/1
Y1 - 2020/6/1
N2 - Maintaining social relationships with others is essential for survival, but not all relationships are beneficial. Individuals exclude nonbeneficial burdensome group members, those who encumber group success. We investigated whether feeling psychological pain is a mechanism that prompts assessment of social threats―potentially putting the “brakes” on burdensome (nonbeneficial) relationships. Specifically, we investigated if interacting with burdensome individuals caused others to experience psychological pain, negative affect, and to dislike the burdensome individual. Across 5 studies, using 3 different paradigms, we found those who interacted with a burdensome individual experienced psychological pain, which influenced ostracizing (excluding and ignoring) the burdensome group member. In Studies 4 and 5, we found psychological pain mediated the relationship between burdensomeness and ostracism even when we accounted for negative affect and dislike of the burdensome individual. Our results suggest psychological pain can guide social interactions and should be the subject of future research involving social threat.
AB - Maintaining social relationships with others is essential for survival, but not all relationships are beneficial. Individuals exclude nonbeneficial burdensome group members, those who encumber group success. We investigated whether feeling psychological pain is a mechanism that prompts assessment of social threats―potentially putting the “brakes” on burdensome (nonbeneficial) relationships. Specifically, we investigated if interacting with burdensome individuals caused others to experience psychological pain, negative affect, and to dislike the burdensome individual. Across 5 studies, using 3 different paradigms, we found those who interacted with a burdensome individual experienced psychological pain, which influenced ostracizing (excluding and ignoring) the burdensome group member. In Studies 4 and 5, we found psychological pain mediated the relationship between burdensomeness and ostracism even when we accounted for negative affect and dislike of the burdensome individual. Our results suggest psychological pain can guide social interactions and should be the subject of future research involving social threat.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068600589&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85068600589&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1368430219844312
DO - 10.1177/1368430219844312
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068600589
VL - 23
SP - 519
EP - 545
JO - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
JF - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
SN - 1368-4302
IS - 4
ER -