Arts and Social Sciences, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)
Psychology, Department of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Carpenter, Tara Louise
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Social connectedness is a fundamental human need (Baumeister, & Leary, 1995). As an inherently social species, we rely on others for protection, survival, and reproductive success; as such, we are necessarily sensitive to threats to our social connections. This dissertation examined whether individuals that socially ostracize others are perceived as lacking in moral foundations, and whether this effect is moderated by the racial ingroup or outgroup status of the individuals perpetrating the ostracization. I also evaluated individuals’ interest in, and reasoning for, socially affiliative and socially aggressive responses following inclusion and ostracization. I found that the experience of social ostracization influenced judgements of others’ likelihood of violating the moral foundations of fairness and authority, but not of caring, loyalty, or sanctity, irrespective of the others’ ingroup or outgroup status. The experience of social ostracization also influenced participants socially affiliative and social aggressive responses, again irrespective of the others’ ingroup or outgroup status.
IMPACTFUL INTERACTIONS: HOW THE EXPERIENCE OF SOCIAL OSTRACIZATION INFLUENCES OUR MORAL JUDGMENTS OF OTHERS by Tara Louise Carpenter B.Sc. (Honours), Dalhousie University, 2008 M.A., University of British Columbia, 2010 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Psychology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) August 2020 Ó Tara Louise Carpenter, 2020 iiThe following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: IMPACTFUL INTERACTIONS: HOW THE EXPERIENCE OF SOCIAL OSTRACIZATION INFLUENCES OUR MORAL JUDGMENTS OF OTHERS submitted by Tara Carpenter in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy . Dr. Paul Davies, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC (Okanagan) Supervisor Dr. Susan Holtzman, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC (Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Harry Miller, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC (Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Ed Taylor, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC (Okanagan) University Examiner Dr. Chris Schneider, Faculty of Arts, Brandon University External Examiner iiiAbstract Social connectedness is a fundamental human need (Baumeister, & Leary, 1995). As an inherently social species, we rely on others for protection, survival, and reproductive success; as such, we are necessarily sensitive to threats to our social connections. This dissertation examined whether individuals that socially ostracize others are perceived as lacking in moral foundations, and whether this effect is moderated by the racial ingroup or outgroup status of the individuals perpetrating the ostracization. I also evaluated individuals’ interest in, and reasoning for, socially affiliative and socially aggressive responses following inclusion and ostracization. I found that the experience of social ostracization influenced judgements of others’ likelihood of violating the moral foundations of fairness and authority, but not of caring, loyalty, or sanctity, irrespective of the others’ ingroup or outgroup status. The experience of social ostracization also influenced participants socially affiliative and social aggressive responses, again irrespective of the others’ ingroup or outgroup status. ivLay Summary Social connection is an important part of the human experience, and we define ourselves partially based on our connections to others. We can feel disconnected when we are left out intentionally (i.e., ostracization) or unintentionally and this may influence how we evaluate those we have been left out by. Our first impressions of others include an evaluation of their moral character. There is a lack of research addressing how being left out, by those inside or outside of our important social groups, influences our judgements of others morality. Results from this dissertation indicate that the experience of being ostracized is very detrimental to wellbeing, whether or not the individual excluding us is from an important social group. vPreface Tara Carpenter conceived of the original theoretical basis of this work, the methodology and design of each of the three studies was completed collaboratively by Tara Carpenter and Dr. Paul Davies. The supervisory committee provided important feedback about the preliminary design and their ideas were incorporated. Tara Carpenter programed the studies online and gathered all data, the analysis was completed collaboratively by Tara Carpenter and Dr. Paul Davies. Dr. Paul Davies provided feedback on drafts of the full dissertation prior to review and feedback from Dr. Susan Holtzman and Dr. Harry Miller. The Behavioural Research Ethics Board of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus granted ethics approval for this research. The certificate approval numbers for the three studies are: H19-02201 (Pilot Study), H19-02635 (Study 1), and H19-02637 (Study 2). To date, the results of this study have not been published. viTable of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................... iv Preface ............................................................................................................................................ v Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... x Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Importance of Group Membership .......................................................................... 3 1.2 Ingroup favouritism ........................................................................................................ 4 1.3 Causes and Consequences of Social Exclusion .............................................................. 5 1.4 Social Exclusion from Ingroups and Outgroups ................................................................... 8 1.5 Impressions of Social Excluders ........................................................................................... 9 1.6 Moral Judgments of Ingroup (vs. Outgroup) Members ...................................................... 12 1.7 Current Study ...................................................................................................................... 14 1.7.1 Study 1 Hypotheses ...................................................................................................... 14 1.7.2 Study 2 Hypotheses ...................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2: Pilot Study ................................................................................................................ 16 2.1 Detailed Overview of Pilot Study ....................................................................................... 16 2.2 Results ................................................................................................................................. 19 2.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 3: Study 1 ...................................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Detailed Overview of Study 1 ............................................................................................. 22 3.2 Results ................................................................................................................................. 24 3.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 4: Study 2 ...................................................................................................................... 33 4.1 Detailed Overview of Study 2 ............................................................................................. 33 4.2 Results ................................................................................................................................. 36 4.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 5: General Discussion .................................................................................................. 44 vii5.1 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 47 5.2 Future Directions ................................................................................................................ 49 References .................................................................................................................................... 51 Appendices ................................................................................................................................... 59 Appendix A: White and Asian Faces Used in Pilot Study ........................................................ 59 Appendix B: Original and Modified MFVs .............................................................................. 60 Appendix C: Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism ...................................... 62 Appendix D: Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Socially Affiliative and Socially Aggressive Responses ............................................................................................................... 64 viiiList of Tables Table 1: Pilot Study: Average demographic variable ratings of the two White (faces 1 and 4) and two Asian (faces 3 and 4) faces selected for use in Study 1 and Study 2 ............................. 66 Table 2: Pilot Study: Average ratings of the likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing moral transgressions for the two White (faces 1 and 4) and two Asian (faces 3 and 4) faces selected for use in Study 1 and Study 2 ................................................................................ 67 ixList of Figures Figure 1: Socially Affiliative Question Word Cloud – Included Participants .............................. 68 Figure 2: Socially Affiliative Question Word Cloud – Ostracized Participants ........................... 69 Figure 3: Socially Aggressive Question Word Cloud – Included Participants ............................. 70 Figure 4: Socially Aggressive Question Word Cloud – Ostracized Participants .......................... 71 xAcknowledgements I am very fortunate to work under the supervision of Dr. Paul Davies. He consistently encourages me to achieve both my professional and personal goals and I am eternally grateful to him for his guidance and expertise. Dr. Davies has consistently pushed me to develop my skills as a researcher throughout this degree program while simultaneously respecting my desire to pursue my passion – teaching. Dr. Davies has been an integral part of my professional support network and I look forward to continuing to collaborate moving forward. I am very grateful to my committee members, Dr. Susan Holtzman, and Dr. Harry Miller. Their feedback and guidance helped to shape this project. To my previous committee member Dr. Susan Wells (Emeritus), thank you for your support and feedback earlier in my program. I am also grateful to my university examiner Dr. Ed Taylor, and to my external examiner Dr. Chris Schneider. I would also like to thank my primary personal support network; my husband (Lee), my daughters (Quinn & Adley), my parents (Marilyn & Ted), my grandmother (Louisa), my in-laws (Cynthia & Ross), and my chosen family (Christina & Ryan, Leanne & Wayne, Pamela & Neil, and Alysha). Thanks also to my colleagues at Okanagan College (Dr. Leora Dahl, Dr. Chris Newitt, and Laura Loewen), and to the administration (Dr. Rob Huxtable) for their support and understanding as I pursued this degree. xiDedication For Lee, Quinn, and Adley. 1Chapter 1: Introduction Our need for social connectedness is satisfied by the quality of interpersonal relationships between one’s self and with others, and a sense of belonginess to groups. Research suggests that an individual’s mental representation of social connectedness involves an evaluation in three broad domains: (a) isolation, which involves feelings of aloneness, rejection and withdrawal, (b) relational connectedness, which involves feelings of familiarity, closeness and support, and (c) collective connectedness (Hawkley, Browne, & Cacioppo, 2005). Collective connectedness refers to the need to feel a sense of belonging among large groups (e.g., racial groups). The importance of belonging is reflected in the dramatic consequences of being rejected by a relational partner or being socially excluded from a valued group. Our need to belong can override our need for personal achievement and recognition as articulated by famed soccer player Lionel Messi in a 2012 interview with Reuters (October 1, 2012): I prefer to win titles with the team ahead of individual awards or scoring more goals than anyone else. I am more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with? When I retire, I hope I am remembered for being a decent guy. I like to score goals but I also like to have friends among the people I have played with. Disconnection from important social group(s) is a fundamental threat to an individuals’ sense of belonging, security, and safety, and it has social, emotional, and physical implications. For example, being excluded causes social pain which activates the same neural circuits in the brain as physical pain (e.g., Lieberman, 2013; MacDonald, & Leary, 2005). The experience of both physical and social pain is an objective reality that is based on subjective experience. Loneliness, another description for the subjective experience of social isolation, is associated 2with several negative physical health outcomes including hypertension, heart disease, and stroke, particularly in elderly populations (Tomaka, Thompson, & Palacios, 2006). Canada’s population is rapidly aging with 1 in every 4 (25.6% of the total population) of its citizens born between 1946 and 1965 (aka Baby Boomers), and according to demographic projections, 1 in 5 Canadians will be age 65 or older in 2024 (Statistics Canada, 2019). Simultaneously, more Canadians are now living alone than ever before, and the number of Canadians living alone has doubled in the last 35 years (Tang, Galbraith, & Truong, 2019). As such, social isolation represents a tremendous potential threat to the subjective and physical wellbeing of a sizeable portion of our national population. While people sometimes exclude others unintentionally (i.e., failing to include another with no malicious intent), intentionally choosing not to include and/or ignoring another (i.e., social ostracization), is sometimes used as a form of social punishment (e.g., Davis & Johnson, 2015). Indeed, extreme forms of social ostracization are reserved for the most deviant individuals in society. Inmates placed in solitary confinement (i.e., administrative segregation) currently spend 22 hours or more per day alone in a cell in Canadian federal institutions (White, 2019). This treatment of inmates has recently come under attack, because of the higher rates of many psychological and physical problems for inmates who have been placed in solitary confinement (for a comprehensive overview of the history of the use of solitary confinement and its effects on individuals see: Scharff Smith, 2006). The practice of solitary confinement has been characterized as immoral (e.g., Banks, 2015), and in 2018 the Canadian federal government introduced bill C-83 to eliminate current solitary confinement practices and replace them with new structured intervention units which will allow inmates out of their cell for at least four hours per day (White, 2019). 3While previous research has focused on the effects of being socially ostracized on individuals, the current dissertation examines the social consequences of ostracizing others to individuals perpetrating the ostracism. Specifically, I examined whether individuals that engage in ostracization are perceived as immoral, and whether this effect is moderated by the racial ingroup or outgroup status of the excluded individual. 1.1 The Importance of Group Membership A social group can be defined as two or more individuals who share a common social identification of themselves or perceive themselves to be members of the same social category (Turner, 2010). Groups have roles, expected tasks of members and rights and duties towards other members (Hare, 1994). Groups have norms, rules of conduct and behavioural intention for members (Terry, Hogg, & White, 1999). Groups also have cohesiveness, forces that push members together (Cartwright, & Zander, 1960). The belonging hypothesis (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) suggests that humans are inherently driven to form and maintain interpersonal relationships (e.g., groups) and in order to satisfy this drive we must have frequent, pleasant interactions with a few other people that take place with a general concern for each other’s welfare. Membership in a group does not necessarily meet ones’ need for social connectedness, although it provides the opportunity. Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1997) specifies that the group(s) that individuals belong to directly influence our sense of self (i.e., our self-concept). That is, we define who we believe we are largely based on the characteristics of the groups we do, and do not, identify with. This cognitive representation of oneself as belonging to some groups but not others leads to basic categorization of others as being either part of our ingroup (i.e., “us”) or part of our outgroup (i.e., “them”). Tajfel and Turner (1997) proposed that three mental processes are involved in this 4process: (a) categorization, we assign individuals to groups, (b) identification, we adopt the identity of the group we categorize ourselves as belonging to, and (c) comparison, we maintain our self-esteem by evaluating our group more favourably than other groups. While categorization and identification are primarily focused on the individual, comparison may come at a direct cost to others (for a comprehensive discussion of the implications of differentiating between ingroups and outgroups please see: Sherman, Hamilton, & Lewis, 1999). 1.2 Ingroup favouritism Preferential treatment of those in our ingroups (i.e., ingroup bias) can be understood as an increase in favoritism towards ingroup members rather than an increase in hostility towards outgroup members (Brewer, 1979). With this cognitive framework, Brewer (1979) theorized that individuals see themselves as more like others in their own ingroup rather than more dislike others in their outgroup. More recent work suggests that ingroup favouritism may serve multiple functions, particularly when employed by individuals in low-status groups. Rubin, Badea, and Jetten (2014) found that ingroup favouritism employed by relatively low-status groups was either compensatory, elevating status of the group to the high-status group to compensate, or competitive, elevating status of the group above the high-status group to compete. Practically, these authors suggest that ingroup favouritism may be used to achieve intergroup fairness rather than simply ingroup distinctiveness as predicted by social identity theory, and that social compensation may be an important pathway to more broad social change. Because we preferentially evaluate members of our ingroups, regardless of the compensatory or competitive nature of that evaluation, I expect that exclusion perpetrated by ingroup members will be more socially painful and lead to greater negative judgement of those individuals doing the excluding than when the exclusion is perpetrated by outgroup members. 51.3 Causes and Consequences of Social Exclusion Since groups have important consequences for their members, the constituents of the group will be monitored and individuals who pose a threat to the group’s success may face reproach. The black sheep effect (Marques & Zyerbyt, 1998) describes how ingroup members, when perceived as a threat to the positive social identity of their group, are judged more harshly, and subject to more derogation, than similar outgroup members in order to maintain a positive perception of the ingroup as a whole. By considering a deviant individual (aka a black sheep) as not representative of the group, and effectively ostracizing them, other group members can maintain a positive evaluation of the group. Individuals will identify and ostracize those who threaten their overall positive view of the group, thus maintaining their important group identification while simultaneously distancing their group from the so-called black sheep. Exclusion theory suggests that exclusion (of which ostracization is a specific form) from an ingroup is based on a threat to that group’s security in one or more of three basic domains: (a) an individual fails to make adequate contributions to the group, (b) an individual violates the rules or norms of the group, and (c) an individual is unattractive or has dislikable personality traits (Baumeister & Tice, 1990). Again, because ingroup membership is central to our sense of self, social exclusion (and therefore ostracization) can be used to maintain a positive appraisal by distancing ourselves from those who deviate from the norms and behavioural standards of the group. Those who have been socially ostracized experience a host of social, emotional, and behavioral reactions. Broadly, the research literature suggests that individuals respond to social ostracization from important ingroups with both socially avoidant/detrimental behaviours (e.g., aggression) as well as socially affiliative behaviours (e.g., recognition of positive emotional states of others). 61.3.1 Socially Avoidant/Detrimental Reactions. Social ostracization has been anecdotally implicated as a motivating factor behind extreme acts of aggression such as school shootings – perpetrators are often described as victims of bullying and/or are socially rejected by peers. Empirical investigation of the suspected relationship between feelings of social eostracization and rejection, and perpetration of aggressive behaviours (i.e., Twenge, Baumiester, Tice, & Stuke, 2001), supports a causal link. Twenge and colleagues (2001) manipulated individuals’ perception of social acceptance versus rejection via a forecast that their future would involve a lack of social relationships or an immediate social rejection, then measured aggression either via willingness of the participant to give a target a damaging negative evaluation or administering a blast of aversive, stressful noise, to the target. This manipulation resulted in ostracized participants acting more aggressively towards the targets, and even acting more aggressive towards a neutral target who had not previously interacted with them. The experience of social ostracization appears to increase the proclivity of individuals to act aggressively towards both those associated with the ostracization experience and also individuals who are simply present while they have an ostracization experience. Eisenberger and colleagues (Eisenberger, Way, Taylor, Welch, & Lieberman, 2007) investigated the relationship between sensitivity to social rejection and the biological correlates of aggression (i.e., MAOA polymorphism) and found that interpersonal hypersensitivity to social rejection mediated the relationship between MAOA polymorphism and trait aggression. These authors found that individuals with this biological predisposition were more likely to self-report aggression because they were more sensitive to social rejection than others without the same predisposition. This is contrary to previous suggestions that individuals who are more aggressive are insensitive to, or 7unaffected by, social rejection. More recently, Pujol, Andres-Pueyo, and Maydeu-Olivares (2013) found a similar relationship between aggression and sensitivity to social rejection, although they note that the effect was independent of baseline aggressiveness levels. Individuals more sensitive to social rejection exhibited more aggression following an experimental manipulation of social ostracization. Thus, there is compelling evidence to suggest that aggressive behaviour following social ostracization is due to an individual’s exaggerated, rather than diminished, level of social concern. Interestingly, experiencing a brief positive social connection (even with an individual not involved in the exclusion experience) after social ostracization can prevent the expected aggressive response to the eostracization (i.e., Twenge, Zhang, Catanese, Dolan-Pascoe, Lyche, & Baumeister, 2007). Twenge and colleagues (2007) found that a brief social connection (participants were thanked face-to-face for participating in the study and given a bag of candy) reduced aggression after social ostracization, and importantly it did so independent of mood of the ostracized individual. This suggests that even brief positive social interactions after ostracization may ameliorate aggressive behaviours after social ostracization towards both perpetrators of the ostracization and neutral others. 1.3.2 Social Affiliation Reactions. The experience of social ostracization has also been empirically linked to adaptive responses that facilitate reaffiliation with the group(s) from which the individual has been ostracized (Bernstein, Sacco, Brown, Young, & Claypool, 2010; Bernstein, Young, Brown, Sacco, & Claypool, 2008). Bernstein and colleagues (2008) found that ostracized individuals were better able to differentiate between true and false displays of happiness, and thus were better at detecting individuals with whom they may be able to reaffiliate (i.e., those displaying true, Duchenne, smiles). A Duchenne smile involves activation of the musculature around the 8mouth (zygomatic major) and the eyes (obicularis oculi), as compared to activation around the mouth alone (as in a disingenuous smile), and is associated with genuinely positive affect (Ekman, Davidson, & Friesen, 1990). Bernstein and colleagues (2008) posit that the experience of social ostracization heightens an individual’s motivation to reaffiliate and in doing so increases the level of attention paid to indicators of true and false emotional displays. Further, Bernstein and colleagues (2010) found that ostracized individuals showed a greater desire to work with individuals displaying Duchenne smiles as compared to individuals displaying fake smiles. Again, the authors suggest that ostracized individuals look for signals of possible reaffiliation and thus choose individuals displaying true smiles more often that fake smiles. Importantly, participants were not told that smile sincerity varied across targets, and thus the finding of ostracized individuals’ preference for working with individuals displaying genuine smiles indicates a spontaneous rather than cued judgment (i.e., this is a natural behavioural response). This enhanced ability to detect true displays of happiness should facilitate reaffiliation by allowing the ostracized individual to focus their efforts on targets that are likely to be receptive to reaffiliating. 1.4 Social Exclusion from Ingroups and Outgroups The detrimental effects of social ostracization on an individual’s basic needs are moderated by the importance (i.e., degree of essentialization or entitativity) of the group from which that individual is being ostracized (Bernstein, Sacco, Young, Hugenberg, & Cook, 2010). Bernstein and colleagues (2010) found that social ostracization was particularly harmful when perpetrated by members of ingroups that we perceive as essentialized, that is immutable and highly salient (i.e., one’s racial ingroup). A high degree of entitativity of a group also predicts denigration of ingroup members (the black sheep effect) since these negative members represent 9a threat to the positive social identity of other group members (Lewis & Sherman, 2010). It hurts to be left out of our ingroup(s) and we are motivated to punish members who tarnish the reputation of those same groups. Ostracization by ingroup members has also been shown to increase subsequent mimicry of ingroup members’ behaviour (Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2008). Nonconscious mimicry of postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviours (aka, the chameleon effect) occurs unintentionally to match others in our social environments in order to increase rapport between interaction partners (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999). More simply, we act like the individuals we want to interact with. Facial mimicry in particular is affected by the relationship between the expressor and observer, as well as the type of emotion that is being shown (Bourgeois & Hess, 2008). These authors found that the level of mimicry varied based on group membership; specifically, negative emotion expressions were only mimicked when shown by an ingroup member, but happiness was always mimicked. Lakin and colleagues (2008) found that all participants experienced belongingness threat after ostracization, but only those who experienced this threat from an important ingroup (i.e., their gender ingroup) used mimicry to address their threatened belonging need and to attempt to reaffiliate. Not only do we find ostracization from important groups to be painful, but we are motivated to mimic individuals in our ingroups in order to reaffiliate after ostracization. 1.5 Impressions of Social Excluders While the extant research on social ostracization has largely focused on the socially avoidant and affiliative reactions of the excluded, little is known about impressions of those who do the excluding. The characteristics on which people evaluate others generally fall along three basic dimensions: warmth, competence, and morality (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Goodwin, 10Piazza & Rozin, 2014). Warmth is broadly defined as being related to traits such as friendliness, kindness, and sociability, and competence as possessing traits related to assertiveness and ambition (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). A relatively recent addition, morality, is defined as the global evaluation an individuals’ character (Goodwin, Piazza & Rozin, 2014; see also Haidt, 2003, and Goodwin, 2015). To form impressions of a target’s morality, observers often rely on that individual’s actions, including actions that violate norms. For example, people are perceived as immoral when they violate norms of fairness or reciprocity (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009). Just as stealing or cheating may lead to impressions of immorality, I propose that undeservingly ostracizing others will result in the same. Moral judgment stems from an individual’s perception that another has violated some type of social norm or institutional norm. Theorists describe the various ways in which we may judge an individual as lacking in moral character and some have suggested that individuals have an innate ability to feel either approval, or disapproval, towards the actions of others (Haidt & Joseph, 2004). Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Haidt & Graham, 2007) categorizes moral institutions into five foundations that address social dilemmas: (a) dislike for the suffering of others (Care/harm), (b) proportional fairness (Fairness/Cheating), (c) group loyalty (Loyalty/Betrayal), (d) deference to authority (Authority/Subversion) and (e) concerns with purity and contamination (Sanctity/Degradation). These foundations have further been categorized as either individualizing (Care/Harm, and Fairness/Cheating) or binding (Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degredation) depending on their respective focus on the rights and welfare of individuals versus the group (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009). 11Much of the existing literature evaluating MFT and related concepts uses the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ: Graham, Nosek, Haidt, Iyer, Koleva, & Ditto, 2011) and/or the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS: Graham, & Haidt, 2012) both based on MFT. The MFQ is a self-report measure that asks respondents to rate abstract principles to assess their endorsement of the five foundations. The MFSS is a measure of one’s willingness to engage in moral transgressions for money. The MFT and MFSS have been used to measure individuals own endorsement of the five foundations and the relationships between these foundations and various behavioural outcomes. For example, Vecina (2014) found that endorsement of the authority foundation on the MFSS significantly distinguished between violent and not violent participants and endorsement of the purity foundation on the MFSS predicted self-rated probability of future fights. Recently, the MFQ has also been used to investigate how individuals stereotype outgroup members with respect to their perceived moral foundations endorsements (Simpson, & Rios, 2016). These authors found that individuals often held inaccurate stereotypes about their outgroup’s moral values. While MFT clearly delineates the foundations of social relationships and social dilemmas, it does not provide an empirically validated measure for evaluating intuitive moral judgements (Gray & Keeney, 2015). This shortcoming of the MFT has recently been addressed by Clifford and colleagues (Clifford, Iyengar, Cabeza, & Sinnott-Armstrong, 2015) who created and empirically evaluated a large set of Moral Foundations Vignettes (MFVs) based on MFT. Each vignette is a short description of behaviour that violates a particular moral foundation as outlined by MFT, while simultaneously not including aspects of disparate foundations. The current dissertation will use a modified subset of these standardized MFVs to evaluate participants moral judgments of others. 12Moral psychological theories such as relationship regulation theory (Rai & Fiske, 2011) view moral transgressions not only as distinct acts but rather as acts that are embedded in relevant social relationships and context dependent. Rai and Fiske identified four distinct moral motives: (a) unity, the motive to care for and support the integrity of ingroups, (b) hierarchy, the motive to respect rank in social groups, (c) equality, the motive for balance, in-kind reciprocity, and equal treatment, and (d) proportionality, the motive for rewards and punishments to be proportionate to merit and calculations of the costs and benefits. These authors emphasize the role of social-relational cognition in the evaluation of morality; that is, they state that moral institutions are defined by the social relationships in which they occur. As such, the morality of social ostracization is likely to depend on the social group from which the individual is rejected. Similarly, I expect that the perception of the moral foundations of others will be influenced differently by participants experiencing ostracization from individuals in either their racial ingroup or racial outgroup. A recent meta-analysis on the psychology of morality (Ellemers, van der Toorn, Paunov, & van Leeuwen, 2019) evaluated the empirical literature from 1940 through 2017 to identify areas of related inquiry that are relatively well addressed and those that are relatively poorly understood or understudied in comparison. These authors found that most publications address moral reasoning, and they suggest that understanding how an individual’s own experience influences their judgement of others (i.e., the current dissertation) is a promising area for new research. 1.6 Moral Judgments of Ingroup (vs. Outgroup) Members When moral judgments are made with respect to ingroup members as compared to outgroup members, an interesting pattern emerges in the literature. Consistent with relationship 13regulation theory (Rai & Fiske, 2011), our moral judgments are dependent on the relational context in which transgressions occur. Generally, transgressions committed by outgroup members are judged as more severe than the same transgressions committed by ingroup members, as described by moral hypocrisy theory (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007). In this work, the same act (e.g., purposefully assigning a more difficult and time-consuming task to another rather than to oneself) was seen as more immoral when committed by an individual in a social outgroup from the participant than when committed by an individual within a minimal social ingroup with the participant. Thus, we are more generous in justifying immoral behaviour when committed by ourselves, or when those same acts are committed by individuals that we feel socially connected to. Please note the discrepancies between these findings and the black-sheep findings discussed early. More recent research (Bettache, Hamamura, Idrissi, Amenyogbo, & Chiu, 2018) has further investigated the effect of ingroup or outgroup status on moral judgements by breaking down moral transgressions into two types, harmful, and harmless based on the presence or absence of a harmful intention or interpersonal consequence. Bettache and colleagues emphasize the difference between individualizing foundations, those that protect individuals, and binding foundations, those that enhance cohesion in social groups. These authors found that individuals who identified more strongly with their religious group (a powerful social ingroup) rated harmless transgressions that violated binding foundations as more detrimental when perpetrated by ingroup members. More simply, ingroup members were judged more harshly (contrary to moral hypocrisy theory) when the transgression was specifically detrimental to their own ingroup, which is inline with the black-sheep findings discussed early. 141.7 Current Study This dissertation will be the first empirical effort I am aware of to address three theoretically related areas of study; social ostracism, ingroup/outgroup membership status, and moral judgment 1.7.1 Study 1 Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Participants in the ostracization condition will rate their fellow players as more likely to engage in moral transgressions than participants in the inclusion condition. Hypothesis 2: Participants ostracized by ingroup members will rate their fellow players as more likely to engage in moral transgression than participants ostracized by outgroup members. Hypothesis 3: Participants who rate their fellow players as more likely to engage in moral transgressions as predicted in my first two hypotheses will also rate those players as more likely to violate the binding foundations (Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degredation) as compared to the individualizing foundations (Care/Harm, and Fairness/Cheating). 1.7.2 Study 2 Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Participants who experience ostracization by ingroup members will prefer to play with the same players again (respond with social affiliation) rather than change players (respond with social avoidance) more often than participants who experience exclusion by outgroup members. Hypothesis 2: Participants who report wanting to play with the same members after being ostracized from their ingroup will report their motivation as primarily to reaffiliate with those individuals and therefore that ingroup. 15Hypothesis 3: Participants who report wanting to change players after being ostracized from their outgroup will report their motivation as primarily to punish or avoid those individuals. 16Chapter 2: Pilot Study 2.1 Detailed Overview of Pilot Study Forming impressions of others is a fundamental task of social cognition; however, our rapid inferences based on facial features are often unreliable and incorrect. Within approximately 1/10th of a second of viewing a new face we make judgments about whether a person can be trusted (Willis & Todorov, 2006). In response to a presentation of a new face, specific regions of the brain are activated including the amygdala (the “fear center”) and the anterior insula (Molapour, Golkar, Navarrette, Haaker, & Olsson, 2015). Our first impressions of others rely on these biological responses as well as our social categorization; that is, our beliefs about others based on their group memberships (e.g., race and sex). Less is known about how facial characteristics may influence an individuals’ suspected likelihood to perpetrate moral transgressions. This pilot study served to pre-rate the faces that I used in Studies 1 and 2 on their perceived likelihood of violating moral foundations, using modified MFVs. Participation was restricted to females for each of the three studies in the current dissertation to ensure that participants would only vary on the essentialized group (race) that was manipulated in Studies 1 and 2. 2.1.1 Participants. One-hundred and thirty-four female participants were recruited through the SONA research participation system at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The average age of participants was 20.74 years (SD = 6.11). Most participants (63.4%) identified their race as White, 10% identified as Mixed, 7.5% identified as Northern Asian, 6.7% identified as Southern Asian, 2.2% identified as Black, 1.5% identified as Latino, 4% identified as Other, and 5.2% did not identify their race. 172.1.2 Materials and Procedure. Professional photographs of female faces were selected from a stock photography website (iSTOCK). Five images of White female and Asian female faces were chosen (i.e., a total of 10 photographs, please see Appendix A for the photographs). Photographs were matched on age to approximate the typical undergraduate student population at UBC. Each photograph had a similar background and was cropped to show just the face and upper shoulders. Also, the individuals in all ten photographs had similar facial expressions. Participants rated each face on their suspected likelihood of violating each of the five moral foundations by evaluating the modified MFVs. In total, participants made 19 ratings of each face they were assigned; that is, 3 ratings representing each of the 5 moral foundations from MFT for a total of 15, and 4 demographic questions. Each modified MFV was presented with a 5-item Likert-type scale (1- “very unlikely” to 5 “very likely”) for participants to rate their suspected likelihood of that target engaging in that specific act. The content related to the specific type of moral transgression was the same as the original MFVs, however, the phrasing of the vignettes was modified for the current dissertation (for a comprehensive list of the original and modified MFVs please see Appendix B). These modified vignettes were not empirically validated prior to use in the current dissertation, although I did not expect that the changes outlined below would substantively influence participant’s interpretation of the violations of the moral foundations. The original MFVs (Clifford, Iyengar, Cabeza, & Sinnott-Armstrong, 2015) were developed for use in research on moral judgement and were modified for the current study. Vignettes depicting the Care foundation involve either emotional harm to a human, physical harm to a human, or physical harm to a non-human animal. For example, “You see a girl 18laughing when she realized her friend’s dad is the janitor.” This was modified to “How likely do you think this person would be to laugh when they realize their friend’s dad is the janitor?” Vignettes depicting the Fairness foundation involve instances of cheating or free riding. For example, “You see a student copying a classmate’s answer sheet on a makeup final exam.” This was modified to “How likely do you think this person would be to copy a classmate’s answer sheet on a makeup final exam?” Vignettes depicting the Loyalty foundation involve individuals putting their own interests ahead of the group. For example, “You see a man leaving his family business to go work for their main competitor.” This was modified to “How likely do you think this person would be to leave their family business to go work for their main competitor?” Vignettes depicting the Authority foundation involve disobedience or disrespect towards traditional authority figures. For example, “You see a girl repeatedly interrupting her teacher as he explains a new concept.” This was modified to “How likely do you think this person would be to repeatedly interrupt their professor as they explain a new concept?” Lastly, vignettes depicting the Sanctity foundation involve sexually deviant acts, or other behaviours that would be considered degrading. For example, “You see two first cousins getting married to each other in an elaborate wedding.” This was modified to “How likely do you think this person would be to marry their first cousin in an elaborate wedding?” Participants also rated each of their assigned faces on perceived age, attractiveness, racial stereotypicality, and friendliness. Our first impressions of others rely on our social categorization; that is, our beliefs about others based on their group memberships. The faces used in Studies 1 and 2 needed to be similar to participants with respect to age so they were perceived as “students” and seen as ingroup members of this social group. The faces were matched on attractiveness so that there were no significant differences in assumptions of socially desirable 19characteristics between the White and Asian face conditions. The “what is beautiful is good” stereotype (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972) states that physically attractive individuals are assumed to have more socially desirable personality characteristics than individuals who are less physically attractive. If the faces in either racial group were rated as significantly more attractive than faces in the other racial group, it could have confounded my investigation of likelihood of engaging in behaviours that violated the moral foundations (i.e., socially undesirable behaviours). The faces were matched on racial stereotypicality in order to assure that they adequately represented White and Asian categories during the Cyberball game and would be perceived as either racial ingroup or outgroup members by participants. Finally, the faces were matched on friendliness between the White and Asian conditions to ensure that facial expression (i.e., smiling, an indicator of friendliness) did not impact perception of likelihood of engaging in behaviours that violate the moral foundations. Smiling influences person perception such that when individuals are presented with photographs of the same individual either smiling or not smiling, the individual is rated more positively in the smiling photograph (Lau, 1982). 2.2 Results As discussed above, five Asian faces and five White faces were pilot tested to find a pair from each race that were comparable on key variables to ensure their appropriateness for use in Studies 1 and 2. The key variables that these two pairs of faces needed to be matched on were age, attractiveness, perceived racial stereotypicality, and friendliness. From the original 10 faces, the two White faces chosen for the below supplemental testing were faces 1 and 4; whereas, the two Asian faces chosen were faces 3 and 4 (please see Appendix A for all 10 faces). A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of age for the average scores of the two White faces and two Asian faces, the analysis was not significant, F(1, 129) = 0.57, p = 0.45. A one- 20way ANOVA was then conducted on participant ratings of attractiveness, this analysis was also not significant, F(1, 127) = 1.38, p = 0.24. A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of racial stereotypicality, this analysis was not significant, F(1, 127) = 0.19, p = 0.66. Finally, a one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of friendliness, which also was not significant, F(1, 126) = 1.26, p = 0.26 (please see Table 1 for average ratings of the four chosen faces on these four key variables). I also needed the faces matched on their perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours violating each of the five moral foundations. A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the caring moral foundation, this analysis was not significant, F(1, 132) = 0.85, p = 0.36. A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the fairness moral foundation, this analysis was not significant, F(1, 128) = 0.01, p = 0.93. A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the loyalty moral foundation, this analysis was not significant, F(1, 127) = 0.06, p = 0.80. A one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the authority moral foundation, this analysis was not significant, F(1, 128) = 0.02, p = 0.90. Finally, a one-way ANOVA was conducted on participant ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the sanctity moral foundation, which also not significant, F(1, 128) = 3.81, p = 0.05 (please see Table 2 for average ratings of likelihood of violating the five moral foundations for the four chosen faces). 212.3 Discussion Based on the nonsignificant statistical analyses above, it was determined that the two racial pairs of faces (White faces 1 and 4, Asian faces 3 and 4) did not differ significantly on any of the key variables or on their likelihood of engaging in behaviours that violate the moral foundations; consequently, these were the four faces used throughout Studies 1 and 2. 22Chapter 3: Study 1 3.1 Detailed Overview of Study 1 While a large body of research suggests that social ostracization leads to both social affiliation and social avoidance, less is known about how the experience of being socially ostracized influences our evaluations of those who did the ostracizing and in particular our perception of others as moral or immoral agents. Even less information is available evaluating this potential relationship with respect to the ingroup or outgroup status of the individual perpetrating the ostracization. This dissertation is situated at the intersection of these three areas of study; social ostracism, ingroup/outgroup membership status, and social perception (i.e., moral judgment). I investigated the implications of social ostracization on person perception and provide a preliminary understanding of the potentially complicated nature of this relationship as it relates to the ingroup or outgroup standing of the individual perpetrating the ostracization. Specifically, I investigated how the experience of social ostracization influences our perception of others as moral or immoral agents, and if this effect is influenced by the ingroup or outgroup status of the individual(s) perpetrating the ostracization. Further, I investigated if ostracization influences moral judgments globally or if specific foundations of morality are particularly impacted by the experience of ostracization. 3.1.1 Participants. Two-hundred and ten female participants were recruited through the SONA research participation system at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The average age of participants was 20.21 years (SD = 2.51). Most participants (68.6%) identified their race as White, 4.3% identified as Mixed, 10.5% identified as Northern Asian, 10.0% identified as Southern Asian, 3.3% identified as Black, 0.5% identified as Latino, and 2.9% 23identified as Other. Individuals who had previously participated in the Pilot study were ineligible to participate in Study 1. 3.1.2 Materials and Procedure. Study 1 was conducted online through UBC’s SONA research participation system and Qualtrics. Participants were asked to provide a picture (head shot) to the author via email prior to being given the link to the study protocol online. The pictures that participants provided were not used in the study but were requested to provide a reasonable justification for why they saw photos of the other “student” players later in the study. To manipulate the experience of social ostracization, participants played a game of Cyberball (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000), a short ball-toss game in which individuals pass a virtual ball between themselves and two other players they assume to also be online, but who are actually computer-controlled. Each ball toss between the computer-controlled players and to the participant was pre-programed although participants were led to believe the game was being played in real time. Cyberball is a frequently used method in the social exclusion literature, and a recent meta-analysis of empirical studies using Cyberball (Hartgerink, van Beest, Wicherts, & Williams, 2015) found that the effect of social ostracization was generalized over situational factors thought to be moderators (i.e., duration of the ostracism, gender) and individual difference factors (i.e., gender, age). Participants were told that they were playing against other students, although the other players are actually computer-controlled players. Participants were represented as a computer-generated characters only (similar to many other uses of Cyberball) and computer-controlled group members were represented by a computer-generated characters and pre-rated photos (see Pilot Study) to ensure salience of the racial ingroup or racial outgroup status. Participants were randomly assigned to experience either the social ostracization or social 24inclusion condition with either two White females or two Asian females as the other players. Participants were then asked to rate the other players on their suspected likelihood of engaging in the acts as described by the modified MFVs on a five-point Likert scale ranging from (1) very unlikely to (5) very likely (please see Appendix B). Participants then completed some brief manipulation checks. To ensure that participants were aware of their inclusion or exclusion during the Cyberball game, participants were asked to rate how often they were passed the ball during the game on a five-point Likert scale ranging from (1) much less often than other players to (5) much more often than other players. To ensure that participants identified that the other players either belong to their racial ingroup or outgroup, participants were asked to identify all the characteristics of the other players that are similar to themselves from a list of possible characteristics including; age, race/ethnicity, and gender. Ingroup/outgroup membership of the other players for analysis was determined by the participant self-report described above, participants were asked explicitly if the other players were similar to themselves with respect to race/ethnicity and they answered with a dichotomous yes/no. Participants also completed the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism questionnaire (please see Appendix C) to ensure that those in the ostracization condition reported the expected need threats (i.e., less belonging, lower self-esteem, less control, and a sense of meaninglessness). Lastly, participants completed a brief demographics questionnaire, they were debriefed and thanked for their participation. 3.2 Results 3.2.1 Modified Moral Foundations Vignettes. 25The analyses below were conducted with 55 participants in the outgroup ostracized condition, 44 participants in the ingroup ostracized condition, 65 participants in the outgroup included condition, and 46 participants in the ingroup included condition. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the caring moral foundation. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of caring, F(1, 206) = 2.45, p = 0.12. Further, there was no main effect of ostracization, F(1, 206) = 0.19, p = 0.66, nor was there a main effect of group membership, F(1, 206) = 0.05, p = 0.82. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the fairness moral foundation. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of fairness, F(1, 206) = 0.21, p = 0.65. There was a main effect of ostracization, F(1, 206) = 18.40, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like the other players were more likely to engage in behaviours representing violations of fairness when they were ostracized (M = 9.39, SD = 1.82) as compared to included (M = 8.13, SD = 2.19). There was no main effect of group membership, F(1, 206) = 2.55, p = 0.11. 26 A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the loyalty moral foundation. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of loyalty, F(1, 206) = 0.03, p = 0.87. Moreover, there was no main effect of ostracization, F(1, 206) = 2.50, p = 0.12, nor was there a main effect of group membership, F(1, 206) = 0.02, p = 0.88. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the authority moral foundation. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of authority, F(1, 206) = 0.00, p = 0.97. There was a main effect of ostracization, F(1, 206) = 11.66, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like the other players were more likely to engage in behaviours representing violations of authority when they were ostracized (M = 8.52, SD = 2.19) as compared to included (M = 7.50, SD = 2.04). There was no main effect of group membership, F(1, 206) = 0.52, p = 0.47. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the sanctity moral foundation. There was no statistically significant interaction 27between ostracization and group membership on ratings of the other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing violations of sanctity, F(1, 206) = 1.27, p = 0.26. Further, there was no main effect of ostracization, F(1, 206) = 2.53, p = 0.11, nor was there a main effect of group membership, F(1, 206) = 0.47, p = 0.49. In summary, there were no significant interactions between being ostracized or included by an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of other players’ perceived likeliness of engaging in behaviours representing any of the five moral foundations. There were significant main effects of being ostracized on ratings of the other players’ perceived likeliness of engaging in behaviours representing violations of the fairness and authority foundations, but not the caring, loyalty, or sanctity foundations. There were no significant main effects of group membership on ratings of other players’ perceived likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing any of the five moral foundations. That is, only the experience of ostracization significantly influenced participant ratings, and only for two of the five moral foundations. 3.2.2 Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the belonging sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of belonging, F(1, 206) = 0.06, p = 0.81. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of belonging, F(1, 206) = 28.29, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like they did not belong as much after being ostracized (M = 9.15, SD = 4.49) as compared to after being included (M = 12.63, SD = 4.90). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of belonging, F(1, 206) = 0.05, p = 0.83. 28 A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the self-esteem sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 206) = 0.02, p = 0.90. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 206) = 11.60, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like they had lower self-esteem after being ostracized (M = 11.99, SD = 3.70) as compared to after being included (M = 13.80, SD = 3.88). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 206) = 1.02, p = 0.32. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the meaningful existence sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 206) = 0.58, p = 0.45. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 206) = 40.17, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling lower levels of meaningful existence after being ostracized (M = 10.92, SD = 4.00) as compared to after being included (M = 14.69, SD = 4.70). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 206) = 0.71, p = 0.40. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the control sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on 29ratings of control, F(1, 206) = 0.47, p = 0.49. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of control, F(1, 206) = 22.44, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling lower levels of control after being ostracized (M = 9.10, SD = 3.87) as compared to after being included (M = 11.58, SD = 3.71). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of control, F(1, 206) = 0.19, p = 0.66. With respect to the Assessment of Needs Questionnaire, there were no significant interactions between being ostracized or included by an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of any of the subscales, nor were there any main effects of group membership on ratings of any of the subscales. There were significant main effects of being ostracized on ratings of all of the subscales. Again, like with the MFVs, only the experience of ostracization significantly influenced the participant ratings. 3.3 Discussion I predicted that participants in the ostracization condition would rate the other players as more likely to engage in moral transgressions than participants in the inclusion condition after playing Cyberball. I expected that participants who were ostracized would perceive the other players who left them out as having relatively weaker moral foundations as compared to participants who were included. That is, I expected that participants would view the other players ostracizing them as a proxy for a more global assessment of those other players’ morality. Overall, participants did not rate the other players as less moral in the ostracization condition as I predicted. I did find a significant main effect of being ostracized as compared to being included on judgments of the other players’ likelihood of engaging in behaviours that violate two of the five moral foundations; fairness and authority. My finding that participants in the ostracization condition judged the other players as more likely to violate the foundations of fairness and 30authority may be related to the specific experimental task of playing Cyberball. There are no rules presented with Cyberball indicating how players must interact with one another, yet traditional social convention may have led participants to expect equal ball passing behaviour. When the other players did not engage as participants expected, that may have been interpreted as a lack of (assumed) rule following or blatant disregard for reciprocity and rules (source of authority) and explain the higher ratings of likelihood of engaging in behaviours that violate the fairness and authority foundations. Participants may have interpreted this specific instance of unfair ball passing behaviour as an indicator of the other players’ overall likelihood of being unfair and lacking respect for a source of authority. It is less obvious why there was no effect of being ostracized on judgements of loyalty, sanctity, and caring, and this will be discussed further below. I also predicted that participants ostracized by ingroup members would rate the other players as more likely to engage in moral transgressions than participants ostracized by outgroup members. Based on the work of Bettache and colleagues mentioned earlier (Bettache et al., 2018) I anticipated that participants would judge ingroup members more harshly when the transgression was specifically detrimental to their own ingroup. In the current dissertation, I expected that other players who ostracized an ingroup member would be rated as less moral globally as compared to other players who ostracized an outgroup member, since ostracizing group members (unless sufficiently justified to protect group integrity as predicted by the “black sheep effect”) is detrimental to group cohesion. Contrary to my prediction, there was no significant main effect of the ingroup or outgroup status of the other players on participant perception of the other players’ likelihood to violate any of the five moral foundations. 31Lastly, I predicted that participants who rate their fellow players as more likely to engage in moral transgressions would rate those players as more likely to violate the binding foundations: loyalty, authority, and sanctity, as compared to the individualizing foundations: caring, and fairness. I expected that being ostracized would have a direct influence on participant’s perceptions of the moral foundations that enhance relationships within social groups more so that moral foundations that underlie individual protection. In partial support of this prediction, I found that being ostracized increased judgements of the other player’s likelihood of violating the binding foundation of authority but not the binding foundations of loyalty or sanctity. Participant’s perception of the other players’ likelihood of undermining all of their boss’ ideas in front of others (representing the authority foundation), was significantly higher for participants who had been ostracized as compared to those who had been included. I also found that being ostracized increased judgements of the other player’s likelihood of violating the individualizing foundation of fairness. Participant’s perception of the other players’ likelihood of copying a classmate’s answer sheet on a final exam (representing the fairness foundation) was significantly higher for participants who had been ostracized as compared to those who had been included. This finding may have been due to the necessarily unfair ball passing in the ostracization condition of Cyberball rather than to a global judgment of morality and one’s sense of fairness. Given that participants had experienced unfair behaviour by the other players in the ostracization condition, their judgements of these individuals as less fair may also be attributed to the availability bias. The availability bias is a cognitive heuristic in which individuals judge the probability of an event based on the ability to recall a recent example of the event (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). The participant’s judgements of the other player’s fairness may have been 32influenced more by having recently been treated unfairly rather than the experience of ostracization itself as I predicted. 33Chapter 4: Study 2 4.1 Detailed Overview of Study 2 Study 2 was designed to build on Study 1 and investigate how participants react to the experience of ostracization, with either primarily socially affiliative or primarily socially aggressive responses. Further, this study evaluated if these reactions differ based on the in-group or out-group status of the excluder. As outlined earlier, affiliative behaviours are often employed to establish or re-establish social connections and avoidant behaviours are employed to help individuals to avoid further distress. While individuals may show affiliative behaviours toward in-group members in order to re-establish a connection to an important in-group, they may alternately show aggressive behaviours towards in-group members to distance from a deviant member as predicted by the black sheep effect (Lewis & Sherman, 2010). Study 2 also integrated a qualitative component to allow me to explore how the experience of ostracization by ingroup/outgroup members influences an individual’s broader experience of their social world, and themselves, in their own words. I hoped to gain a preliminary understanding of the personal meaningfulness of the experience of ostracization, and how it is influenced by essentialized characteristics of the individual(s) ostracizing. 4.1.1 Participants. One-hundred and forty-four female participants were recruited through the SONA research participation system at the Okanagan campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC). The average age of participants was 19.92 years (SD = 3.26). Most participants (64.6%) identified their race as White, 2.8% identified as Mixed, 9.0% identified as Northern Asian, 15.3% identified as Southern Asian, 2.8% identified as Black, and 5.6% identified as Other. 34Individuals who had previously participated in the Pilot study or Study 1 were ineligible to participate in Study 2. 4.1.2 Materials and Procedure. Study 2 was conducted online through UBC’s SONA research participation system and Qualtrics. To manipulate the experience of social ostracization, participants played the same game of Cyberball that was previously described in Study 1. Participants were randomly assigned to experience either the social ostracization or social inclusion condition with either two White females or two Asian females as the other players. After playing Cyberball, participants were informed that they would be required to play another game (although they did not play a second game) and asked to respond to a series of questions that assessed their experience with, and future interest in, playing with the same players. All questions presented after the Cyberball game included the photo of either player 1 or player 2 as appropriate to help participants differentiate. To assess socially affiliative responses, participants were asked to rate the following statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) completely disagree to (5) completely agree; (a) I enjoyed playing with player 1 in the game, (b) I enjoyed playing with player 2 in the game, (c) I would like to play with player 1 again next game, and (d) I would like to play with player 2 again next game. If participants indicated that they would like to play with either or both player 1 or player 2 again (as indicated by a rating of 4 or 5), they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they would like to play with that player again. If participants indicated that they would not like to play with either or both player 1 or player 2 again (as indicated by a rating of 1 or 2), they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they would not like to play with that player again. If participants respond 35that they are neither interested or disinterested in playing with either or both player 1 or player 2 (as indicated by a rating of 3) they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they are neither interested or disinterested in playing with that player again. To assess socially aggressive responses, participants were asked to rate the following statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) completely disagree to (5) completely agree; (a) I think player 1 in the game should be reported to the researchers for inappropriate behaviour, (b) I think player 2 in the game should be reported to the researchers for inappropriate behaviour, (c) I think player 1 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future, and (d) I think player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. If participants indicated that they would like to report either or both player 1 or player 2 to the researchers (as indicated by a rating of 4 or 5), they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they believe that player should be reported to the researchers. If participants indicated that they would not like to report either or both player 1 or player 2 to researcher (as indicated by a rating of 1 or 2), they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they believe that player should not be reported to researchers. If players responded that they were neither interested nor disinterested (as indicated by a rating of 3) they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they were neither interested or disinterested in reporting that player to the researchers. If participants indicated that they believed either or both player 1 or player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future (as indicated by a rating of 4 or 5) they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they believe that player should be blocked from participating in similar studies in the future. If participants indicated that they do not believe either or both player 1 or player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future (as 36indicated by a rating of 1 or 2) they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they believe that player should not be blocked from participating in similar studies in the future. If participants indicated that they neither believe or do not believe that either or both player 1 or player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future (as indicated by a rating of 3) they were directed to a question that asked them to briefly describe why they neither believe or do not believe that player should be blocked from participating in similar studies in the future. For the full list of dependent measures employed in Study 2 please see Appendix D. Participants then completed the same brief manipulation check as Study 1 to ensure that participants were aware of their inclusion or exclusion during the Cyberball game, identified that the other players either belong to their racial ingroup or outgroup, and identified all the characteristics of the other players that are similar to themselves. Again like Study 1, ingroup/outgroup membership of the other players for analysis was determined by the participant self-report described above, participants were asked explicitly if the other players were similar to themselves with respect to race/ethnicity and they answered with a dichotomous yes/no. Participants then completed the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism questionnaire, a brief demographics questionnaire, and then they were debriefed and thanked for their participation. 4.2 Results 4.2.1 Socially Affiliative and Socially Aggressive Measures. The analyses below were conducted with 46 participants in the outgroup ostracized condition, 47 participants in the ingroup ostracized condition, 27 participants in the outgroup included condition, and 24 participants in the ingroup included condition. 37A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the first socially affiliative response (enjoyment playing with the other players). There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on enjoyment playing with the other players, F(1, 140) = 0.17, p = 0.68. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on enjoyment playing with the other players, F(1, 140) = 66.66, p < 0.001. Participants reported enjoying playing with the other players less when they were ostracized (M = 2.47, SD = 0.86) as compared to when they were included (M = 3.67, SD = 0.83). There was no statistically significant main effect of group membership, F(1, 140) = 1.16, p = 0.28. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the second socially affiliative response (interest in playing with the same players again). There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on interest in playing with the same players again, F(1, 140) = 0.13, p = 0.72. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on interest in playing with the same players again, F(1, 140) = 61.45, p < 0.001. Participants reported being less interested in playing with the same players again when they were ostracized (M = 2.40, SD = 0.97) as compared to when they were included (M = 3.69, SD = 0.88). There was no statistically significant main effect of group membership, F(1, 140) = 2.03, p = 0.16. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the first socially aggressive response (belief the other players should be reported to the 38researchers). There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on belief the other players should be reported to the researchers, F(1, 140) = 0.17, p = 0.68. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on belief the other players should be reported to the researchers, F(1, 140) = 15.68, p < 0.001. Participants believed the other players should be reported to the researchers more when they were ostracized (M = 2.04, SD = 1.07) as compared to when they were included (M = 1.42, SD = 0.75). There was no statistically significant main effect of group membership, F(1, 140) = 0.66, p = 0.42. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the second socially aggressive response (belief the other players should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future). There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on belief the other players should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future, F(1, 140) = 0.16, p = 0.69. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on belief the other players should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future, F(1, 140) = 23.93, p < 0.001. Participants believed the other players should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future more when they were ostracized (M = 2.22, SD = 1.15) as compared to when they were included (M = 1.42, SD = 0.75). There was no statistically significant main effect of group membership, F(1, 140) = 1.14, p = 0.29. In summary, there were no significant interactions between being ostracized or included by an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings for either of the socially affiliative measures or either of the socially aggressive measures. Similarly, there were no significant main effects of group membership on either of the socially affiliative measures or either of the socially 39aggressive measures. There were significant main effects of being ostracized on ratings for both of the socially affiliative measures and both of the socially aggressive measures. Again, consistent with Study 1, only the experience of ostracization significantly influenced participant ratings. 4.2.2 Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the belonging sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of belonging, F(1, 140) = 0.65, p = 0.42. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of belonging, F(1, 140) = 85.42, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like they did not belong as much after being ostracized (M = 8.22, SD = 3.46) as compared to after being included (M = 15.10, SD = 4.75). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of belonging, F(1, 140) = 0.06, p = 0.80. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the self-esteem sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 140) = 0.36, p = 0.55. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 140) = 45.80, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling like they had lower self-esteem after being ostracized (M = 10.77, SD = 3.88) as compared to after being included (M = 15.68, SD = 4.16). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of self-esteem, F(1, 140) = 0.33, p = 0.56. 40A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the meaningful existence sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 140) = 2.32, p = 0.13. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 140) = 62.75, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling lower levels of meaningful existence after being ostracized (M = 9.71, SD = 3.57) as compared to after being included (M = 15.83, SD = 4.76). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of meaningful existence, F(1, 140) = 0.00, p = 0.95. A 2 (ostracization/inclusion) by 2 (ingroup/outgroup) ANOVA was conducted to examine the effect of being ostracized or included by either an ingroup or outgroup member on the control sub-scale of the Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. There was no statistically significant interaction between ostracization and group membership on ratings of control, F(1, 140) = 0.36, p = 0.55. There was a statistically significant main effect of being ostracized on ratings of control, F(1, 140) = 40.17, p < 0.001. Participants reported feeling lower levels of control after being ostracized (M = 8.40, SD = 3.12) as compared to after being included (M = 11.83, SD = 3.85). There was no main effect of group membership on ratings of control, F(1, 140) = 0.03, p = 0.86. Consistent with the findings in Study 1, there were no significant interactions between being ostracized or included by an ingroup or outgroup member on ratings of any of the subscales, nor were there any main effects of group membership on ratings of any of the subscales. There were significant main effects of being ostracized on ratings of all of the 41subscales. Again, like with the socially affiliative and socially aggressive measures, only the experience of ostracization significantly influenced the participant ratings. 4.2.3 Qualitative Data. All qualitative responses were downloaded from Qualtrics and organized in a word document by type of question (socially affiliative or socially aggressive) and condition (ostracized or included). Based on the previous qualitative analysis indicating no significant differences between player ratings, and no main effect of ingroup or outgroup status of the other players, the data was collapsed for both players and for ingroup or outgroup status of the other players, resulting in 4 sets of responses. The responses were compiled, and word frequencies were evaluated for patterns. To demonstrate the word frequency patterns in responding, 4 word clouds were generated; one for each of the ostracized and included participants responses to the socially affiliative question, and one for each of the ostracized and included participants responses to the socially aggressive question (please see Figures 1 through 4). The themes that emerged in the data were generally descriptive (i.e., “player”, “ball”, “passed”, and “game”) and as such this data was limited in its utility to support complex inferences about the participants’ experiences. 4.3 Discussion I predicted that participants who experience ostracization by ingroup members would prefer to play with the same players again (respond with social affiliation) rather than change players (respond with social avoidance) more often than participants who experience ostracization by outgroup members. I did not find a significant interaction between ostracization and group membership, or a main effect of group membership, on interest in playing with the same players again. Similarly, there was no significant interaction between ostracization and 42group membership, or main effect of group membership, on participant reports of wanting to play with the same players again. Contrary to my prediction, participants were less satisfied and less likely to want to affiliate with the other players after they had been ostracized regardless of whether the players ostracizing them were from their racial ingroup or racial outgroup. I also predicted that participants who report wanting to play with the same members after being ostracized from their ingroup would report their motivation as primarily to reaffiliate with those individuals and therefore that ingroup. Unfortunately, the qualitative data gathered was insufficient to complete a complex analysis, and only anecdotal inferences can be drawn. Based on the previous analyses finding no significant main effects of group membership on any of the variables of interest, the qualitative data was collapsed across group membership. There is limited support from the qualitative data to suggest that some ostracized participants did wish to play with the same players again and reaffiliate, irrespective of the group membership of the other players. For example, one participant responded: “I am slightly disinterested as player 1 never passed the ball to me. However, it was only one game and they look friendly (i.e., smiling) so I am not completely disinterested.” Another ostracized participant responded that they were interested in playing with those players again even though the participant acknowledged that they had been ostracized: “They never passed to me to give me a turn”. Lastly, I predicted that participants who report wanting to change players after being ostracized from their outgroup will report their motivation as primarily to punish or avoid those individuals. Again, the qualitative data gathered was insufficient to complete a complex analysis, and only anecdotal inferences can be drawn. Statements from the ostracized participants generally acknowledged that they had been treated unfairly, yet they seemed reluctant to seek retribution, and in some instances thought it would be inappropriate. For example, one 43participant responded: “Despite being neglected during the game, the individual has the right to exclude me if they want to.” Another participant responded by expressing concern about how their own morality would be perceived if they sought retribution: “Player 1 never passed the ball to me but she shouldn’t be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future because that’s exclusionary and if I were to prevent her from “playing” this game, I would be just as bad of a person.” 44Chapter 5: General Discussion Participants in both Studies 1 and 2 completed the Assessment of Needs Satisfaction Following Ostracism questionnaire to ensure that the ostracization condition in Cyberball had the intended effect. I found significant main effects of being ostracized on each of the four subscales of the Assessment of Needs Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure (belonging, self-esteem, meaningful existence, and control) in both Studies 1 and 2. Participants in both studies who were ostracized reported feeling a significantly diminished sense of belonging, lower self-esteem, less meaningful existence and less control, than those who were included. The brief experience of being ostracized during Cyberball profoundly influenced how participants felt, yet some of the qualitative responses from ostracized individuals on the socially aggressive questions in Study 2 demonstrated a surprisingly ambivalent attitude towards the other players who had ostracized them. For example: “Despite being neglected during the game, the individual has the right to exclude me if they want to.” This participant clearly indicated that they understood they had been ostracized (neglected) and yet did not believe that the other players should face a reprimand (be prevented from playing the game again) for their actions. I expected that participants who had been ostracized would want the opportunity to punish those who had ostracized them, if given the opportunity. Interestingly, another participant responded, “don’t have the authority for such a decision”. While some of the participants did not appear to want to seek retribution, some like the participant quoted above, may have been reluctant to suggest punishment due to a lack of perceived control or authority. Based on the superficial qualitative responses provided, I am unable to provide further conjecture with any reasonable degree of certainty. I did not find any significant effects of the ingroup or outgroup status of the other players in either Studies 1 or 2. I expected participants would respond differently to being ostracized by 45those who are either in or out of their racial group (an essentialized group). That is, I anticipated that participants who were ostracized by racial ingroup members would judge those other players more harshly than those who were ostracized by racial outgroup members, because ostracizing ingroup members is detrimental to the group as a whole. While this hypothesis was not supported, it could be argued that being ostracized from your racial outgroup would lead participants to judge outgroup members more severely than ingroup members– as predicted by moral hypocrisy theory (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007). Observed differences in judgements may be a result of participants justifying immoral behaviours committed by those that they feel socially connected to. Participants did not rate outgroup members as less moral globally, and therefore there was no evidence to support a difference in how participants justify moral transgressions. I am cautious when evaluating the effects of ingroup and outgroup membership in both Studies 1 and 2 because of the large statistical main effects of being ostracized in both studies. I believe that the experience of being ostracized was so overwhelmingly detrimental to participants that other typically relevant social observations (i.e., racial categorization) became unimportant. While this dissertation endeavoured to parse the effects of violating one’s need for social inclusion from one’s identity as a group member on judgments of other’s moral foundations, it may not be reasonable given the magnitude of importance of being included. Alternately, the non-significant finding may be an unintended consequence of the modifications I made to the moral vignettes. I did not empirically validate the modified moral vignettes prior to using them in the Pilot Study or Study 1, and while the changes were not substantive regarding the content, they may have been perceived as more directive (i.e., how likely do you think this person is to…) than the original vignettes (i.e., you see a man…) Participants may have been 46hesitant to make this more direct judgement of the other players in the outgroup condition if they were concerned that doing so could be perceived as racist. When designing this study, I had some reservations that Cyberball may not have sufficient experimental or mundane realism to have its intended impact on social ostracization. Despite the research noted earlier regarding Cyberball’s efficacy in previous studies, I was apprehensive of its potential power as my experimental manipulation because of the artificial appearance of the game and its simplicity. To address this concern, I assessed the impact of Cyberball by having participants complete the Assessment of Needs Satisfaction Following Ostracism measure. The ostracized participants, as compared to the included participants, consistently reported a strong negative impact on their wellbeing on all four subscales of the measure. The surprising magnitude of power of this simple game may have actually been detrimental in my studies, potentially washing out the effect of my other main manipulation (group membership of the other players), and any potential interaction effects. This work on the impact of social ostracization is timely given the current COVID-19 pandemic. In Canada, all citizens were mandated to physically distance from others and those showing symptoms of the illness or having travelled recently are legally required to self-isolate for 14 days (for a comprehensive overview of the Government of Canada’s response please see: Government of Canada: Department of Justice, 2020). At the time of this writing (August, 2020), these strict distancing measures are being relaxed by provincial authorities, and the province of BC is currently implementing a gradual economic restart plan (see Government of BC: BC’s Restart Plan, 2020). Given the sizeable negative impact on wellbeing of the minor (i.e., less than 2 minute) social ostracization experience in the current dissertation, I expect unprecedented negative repercussions on wellbeing during this pandemic response. While the mental health 47impacts of this pandemic cannot yet be evaluated, anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals are experiencing substantively more psychological distress than before COVID-19. To this point, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) recently changed their webpage to immediately present information, resources, and contact links for individuals experiencing mental health struggles as a result of COVID-19 (CAMH, 2020). I expect a negative impact of the real and/or perceived ostracization on wellbeing as the provinces gradually reopen and individuals are allowed to slowly expand the number of individuals they are in direct contact with. As individuals move from interacting only with those living in the same household to a select number of others (the suggested number varies by province), I expect that those not chosen to be in these expanded social circles will experience the same negative impacts on wellbeing as observed in my participants in this dissertation – feeling as though they do not belong, lowered self-esteem, lower levels of meaningful existence, and feeling as though they have less control. The long-term impacts of this expected decrease in subjective wellbeing will likely depend on the duration of the response (i.e., mandated distancing), an individual’s subjective perception of the degree of ostracization they experience, the level of mental health support available to individuals during the response, and an individual’s willingness to access the support available. 5.1 Limitations The current dissertation used White and Asian as the racial groups for differentiating participant ingroup and outgroup members. These two were chosen because they represent the two largest racial groups of students on campus and thus were predicted to best represent possible ingroups and outgroups for most student participants. Unfortunately, because these are the two largest groups of students on campus, they may not have been perceived as sufficiently distinct enough to evoke the sense of an Asian participant being an outgroup member for a White 48participant or a White participant being an outgroup member for an Asian participant. That is, their social identity of “university student” may have trumped their racial identity in this context. The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) suggests that intergroup contact reduces prejudice if four positive conditions of contact are present: there is equal status between the groups, common goals, intergroup cooperation, and the support of authorities, law, or custom. Arguably, each of these four are present on a university campus and as such White and Asian students (while distinct) may not have be perceived as sufficiently different racial groups to participants. Ethnicity was reported by participants, however, ingroup or outgroup status for statistical analysis was determined by asking participants to self-report if the other players were similar to themselves with respect to ethnicity, measuring (rather than assuming) participant perception of ingroup and outgroup members. Related to this, Asians who were viewed as outgroup members may have been seen as members of an exceptional outgroup (Park, Martinez, Cobb, Park, & Wong, 2015). According to Park and colleagues, Asian Americans are viewed as exceptional to other minority groups (i.e., Blacks and Latinos), and represent a so called “model minority.” The authors argue that Asian Americans are perceived as more competent than other minority outgroups by Whites. If White participants in the current dissertation also perceive Asian students similarly then we may not have detected the true magnitude of effect for the other players’ ingroup or outgroup status. Despite my efforts to ensure that participants believed they were playing Cyberball in real-time against other student participants, there is some qualitative data to suggest that this was not universally believed. I required participants to submit a photo of themselves prior to participating in an effort to reasonably convince them that I had pictures of all participants and that they would be playing Cyberball with their peers rather than computer-controlled players. 49All of the photos used for the computer-controlled players were screened and matched during the pilot study to ensure that they were approximately equal on age, attractiveness, racial stereotypicality, and friendliness. Given the result of the pilot study, participants should have reasonably believed that the computer-controlled players were students; however, participants may not have believed they were playing in real-time given the complications of playing synchronously with 2 others at whatever time the participants accessed the study. Anecdotally, one participant in Study 2 responded that “It was not like player 1 was super good or super bad at the game, it's just that I was passing a ball to a computer, and there isn't much more that I can say about that.” If participants perceived the other players as computer-controlled, this may have influenced their perception of the players as true ingroup or outgroup members. Lastly, the current study was limited by relying on participants to provide qualitative responses that would be sufficiently detailed for my planned analyses. The qualitative questions were presented with large boxes for text entry; however, I did not set limits on how much information had to be entered. I wanted participants to have the freedom to contribute as much as they wanted, but some participants took advantage of this by entering responses such as “kkk” in order to move forward in the survey. Employing a more strict requirement for response (i.e., minimum word count) may have circumvented this issue. 5.2 Future Directions I would like more comprehensive and detailed qualitative data to guide how to proceed with this line of inquiry moving forward. I assumed that the experience of ostracization, and the group membership of those perpetrating the ostracization, would both be critical to understanding how we form moral judgements of others. This was not supported by my results, and only ostracization had a statistically significant effect on perception of moral foundations. I 50anticipated using the themes and trends in the qualitative data to begin to parse out the relative importance of both ostracization and the group membership status of those perpetrating the ostracization. Given my limited qualitative data I was unable to come to any conclusions regarding the importance of ostracization or group membership status, regardless of my finding that group membership was not statistically significant based on my quantitative analysis. I was limited to explorational conclusions based on anecdotal evidence in the current dissertation. Using an in person or real-time interview method, rather than an online response, may generate more comprehensive qualitative data. I suspect that there was a lack of believability of playing in real-time with other student participants in the online environment and moving forward this could be resolved by conducting similar studies in person. 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Psychological Science, 17, 592-598. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01750. 59Appendices Appendix A: White and Asian Faces Used in Pilot Study Face Number White Faces Asian Faces 1 2 3 4 5 60Appendix B: Original and Modified MFVs Foundation Original MFV (Clifford et al., 2015) Modified MFV Care You see a girl laughing when she realized her friend’s dad is the janitor. How likely do you think this person would be to laugh when they realize their friend’s dad is the janitor? You see a girl telling her classmate that she looks like she has gained weight. How likely do you think this person would be to tell their classmate that they look like they have gained weight? You see a woman swerving her car in order to intentionally run over a squirrel. How likely do you think this person would be to would swerve their car in order to intentionally run over a squirrel? Fairness You see a student copying a classmate’s answer sheet on a makeup final exam. How likely do you think this person would be to copy a classmate’s answer sheet on a makeup final exam? You see a boy skipping to the front of the line because his friend is an employee. How likely do you think this person would be to skip to the front of the line because their friend is an employee? You see a tenant bribing a landlord to be the first to get their apartment repainted. How likely do you think this person would be to bribe their landlord to be the first to get their apartment repainted? Loyalty You see a man leaving his family business to go work for their main competitor. How likely do you think this person would be to leave their family business to go work for their main competitor? You see the class president saying on TV that her rival college is a better school How likely do you think this person would be to say on TV that a rival University is better than UBC? 61 You see a man secretly voting against his wife in a local beauty pageant. How likely do you think this person would be to secretly vote against their friend in the student elections? Authority You see a girl repeatedly interrupting her teacher as he explains a new concept. How likely do you think this person would be to repeatedly interrupt their professor as they explain a new concept? You see an employee trying to undermine all of her boss’ ideas in front of others. How likely do you think this person would be to undermine all of their boss’ ideas in front of others? You see a man turn his back and walk away while his boss questions his work. How likely do you think this person would be to turn their back and walk away while their boss questions their work? Sanctity You see two first cousins getting married to each other in an elaborate wedding. How likely do you think this person would be to marry their first cousin in an elaborate wedding? You see a man searching through the trash to find women’s discarded underwear. How likely do you think this person would be to search through the trash to find an ex’s discarded underwear? You see a homosexual in a gay bar offering sex to anyone who buys him a drink. How likely do you think this person would be to offer to have sex with anyone in the bar that buys them a drink? 62Appendix C: Assessment of Need Satisfaction Following Ostracism For each question, participants were asked to indicate which response best represented their feelings experienced during the Cyberball game on a 5-point scale. 1- not at all how I felt 2- somewhat not how I felt 3- neither how I did or did not feel 4- somewhat how I felt 5- very much how I felt (R) = reversed scored. Belonging I felt “disconnected” (R) I felt rejected (R) I felt like an outsider (R) I felt I belonged to the group I felt the other players interacted with me a lot Self-esteem I felt good about myself My self-esteem was high I felt liked I felt insecure (R) I felt satisfied Meaningful existence 63I felt invisible (R) I felt meaningless (R) I felt nonexistent (R) I felt important I felt useful Control I felt powerful I felt I had control over the course of the game I felt I had the ability to significantly alter events I felt I was unable to influence the action of others (R) I felt the other players decided everything (R) 64Appendix D: Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Socially Affiliative and Socially Aggressive Responses 1) I enjoyed playing with player 1 in this game. 2) I would like to play with player 1 again next game. *One of the following will be presented based on the response to the question above. i) Please briefly describe why you would like to play with player 1 again. ii) Please briefly describe why you would not like to play with player 1 again. iii) Please briefly describe why you are neither interested or disinterested in playing with player 1 again. 3) I enjoyed playing with player 2 in this game. 4) I would like to play with player 2 again next game. *One of the following will be presented based on the response to the question above. i. Please briefly describe why you would like to play with player 1 again. ii. Please briefly describe why you would not like to play with player 1 again. iii. Please briefly describe why you are neither interested or disinterested in playing with player 1 again. 5) I think player 1 should be reported to the researchers for inappropriate behaviour. 6) I think player 1 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. *One of the following will be presented based on the response to the question above. i. Please briefly describe why you think player 1 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. ii. Please briefly describe why you do not think player 1 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. 65iii. Please briefly describe why neither believe or not believe that player 1 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. 7) I think that player 2 should be reported to the researchers for inappropriate behaviour. 8) I think player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. *One of the following will be presented based on the response to the question above. i. Please briefly describe why you think player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. ii. Please briefly describe why you do not think player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. iii. Please briefly describe why you neither believe or not believe that player 2 should be prevented from participating in similar studies in the future. 66Table 1 Pilot Study: Average demographic variable ratings of the two White (faces 1 and 4) and two Asian (faces 3 and 4) faces selected for use in Study 1 and Study 2 Race Age Attractiveness Stereotypicality Friendliness White 23.75 3.45 3.24 3.90 Asian 26.70 3.22 3.36 3.78 67Table 2 Pilot Study: Average ratings of the likelihood of engaging in behaviours representing moral transgressions for the two White (faces 1 and 4) and two Asian (faces 3 and 4) faces selected for use in Study 1 and Study 2 Race Caring Fairness Loyalty Authority Sanctity White 2.50 2.89 2.89 2.66 2.63 Asian 2.35 2.90 2.86 2.68 2.34 68Figure 1 Socially Affiliative Question Word Cloud – Included Participants 69 Figure 2 Socially Affiliative Question Word Cloud – Ostracized Participants 70Figure 3 Socially Aggressive Question Word Cloud – Included Participants 71 Figure 4 Socially Aggressive Question Word Cloud – Ostracized Participants
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Psychology
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Impactful interactions : how the experience of social ostracization influences our moral judgments of others
Text