Abstract
We examined 120 Cyberball studies (N = 11,869) to determine the effect size of ostracism and conditions under which the effect may be reversed, eliminated, or small. Our analyses showed that (1) the average ostracism effect is large (d > |1.4|) and (2) generalizes across structural aspects (number of players, ostracism duration, number of tosses, type of needs scale), sampling aspects (gender, age, country), and types of dependent measure (interpersonal, intrapersonal, fundamental needs). Further, we test Williams’s (2009) proposition that the immediate impact of ostracism is resistant to moderation, but that moderation is more likely to be observed in delayed measures. Our findings suggest that (3) both first and last measures are susceptible to moderation and (4) time passed since being ostracized does not predict effect sizes of the last measure. Thus, support for this proposition is tenuous and we suggest modifications to the temporal need-threat model of ostracism.
Highlights
Cyberball [1] is a virtual ball-tossing game that is used to manipulate the degree of social inclusion or ostracism in social psychological experiments
Our aim was to gauge the typical effect size of being ostracized in the Cyberball game and to see whether this effect is moderated by cross-cutting variables that were hypothesized to reduce/enhance the psychological impact of ostracism, structural aspects that are inherent in Cyberball, sampling aspects of the studies, the type of dependent variables used
We observed that the average effect size approaches 1.5 standard deviations and that this average effect size is not affected by the composition of the sample used nor by structural aspects of the game
Summary
Cyberball [1] is a virtual ball-tossing game that is used to manipulate the degree of social inclusion or ostracism in social psychological experiments. In this game the participant supposedly plays with two (or more) other participants, who are part of the computer program. Included players are repeatedly passed the ball and obtain an equal number of ball tosses as the other players. Our literature search showed that at least 200 published papers involved the use of the Cyberball paradigm to study ostracism and that over 19,500 participants have played the game far. Our aim was to gauge the typical effect size of being ostracized in the Cyberball game and to see whether this effect is moderated by cross-cutting variables that were hypothesized to reduce/enhance the psychological impact of ostracism, structural aspects that are inherent in Cyberball (e.g., number of players, number of ball tosses), sampling aspects of the studies (e.g., gender composition), the type of dependent variables used
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