Not all exclusions are created equal: effects of physical and social components of exclusion on well-being, prosocial, and antisocial behavioral intentions

ABSTRACT

Over decades, research has shown that people are negatively affected by social exclusion. However, no experimental research has examined the effects of physical exclusion and how it might combine and interact with social exclusion. Across two studies (N = 1,238), we manipulated both components of exclusion separately via an imaginative scenario paradigm and measured their impact on established social exclusion outcomes. Social exclusion, irrespective of being paired with physical in- or exclusion, affected individuals more negatively than mere physical exclusion. Social inclusion was not able to reduce the impact of physical exclusion per se but to protect overall levels of well-being to some extent. Our findings add to a more nuanced understanding of social and physical aspects of exclusionary experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Social exclusion
• ostracism
• physical exclusion
• physical contact
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2023.2242617

Data availability statement

Materials and data of both studies can be accessed openly at: https://osf.io/7gph9/?view_only=3eb45d46d0e9439f92d94da4e8037577

Notes

1. Descriptions of the coworkers’ behavior were designed in a way that they were equally plausible in a scenario with or without physical contact.

2. The scale on loneliness contained an attention-check item asking participants to mark a specific option within the Likert-scale answering format.

3. Original p-values and confidence intervals next to corrected ones as well as details on the number of corrections for all analyses can be observed in the supplementary material.

4. Per number of comparisons and dependent variables.

Additional information

Funding

This research did receive funding from the University of Klagenfurt’s internal support grant for doctoral dissertations.