The Scarlet Letter Study: Five Days of Social Ostracism

Abstract

Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors’ offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of their academic building. Each morning, the name of that day's ostracized individual was drawn, and a scarlet letter “O” was placed above that individual's office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the “Os” by not looking at them, speaking to them, or responding to anything they said. Open-ended individual event-contingent diaries were kept to record participants’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors each time they were reminded of the ostracism. Despite foreknowledge and consent, attributional confusion surfaced and strong aversive reactions were reported. Findings are framed in terms of Williams's (1997) model of ostracism