Selma Carolin Rudert

When It’s Okay That I Don’t Play Social Norms and the Situated Construal of Social Exclusion

Being excluded and ignored has been shown to threaten fundamental human needs and cause pain. Such reflexive reactions to social exclusion have been conceptualized as direct and unmoderated (temporal need threat model of ostracism). Here, we propose an extension and argue that reflexive reactions depend on how social exclusion situations are construed. If being excluded is understood as a violation of an inclusion norm, individuals will react with pain and threat. In contrast, if being excluded is consistent with the prevailing norm, the exclusion situation is interpreted as less threatening, and negative reflexive reactions to ostracism should be attenuated. Four studies empirically support this conceptual model. Studies 3 and 4 further show that to guide situated construal, the norm has to be endorsed by the individual. In both Studies 1 and 3, the effect of the norm is mediated by the objective situation’s subjective construal.

When Silence Is Not Golden: Why Acknowledgment Matters Even When Being Excluded:

Following ostracism, individuals are highly sensitive to social cues. Here we investigate whether and when minimal acknowledgment can improve need satisfaction following an ostracism experience. In four studies, participants were either ostracized during Cyberball (Studies 1 and 2) or through a novel apartment-application paradigm (Studies 3 and 4). To signal acknowledgment following ostracism, participants were either thrown a ball a few times at the end of the Cyberball game, or received a message that was either friendly, neutral, or hostile in the apartment-application paradigm. Both forms of acknowledgment increased need satisfaction, even when the acknowledgment was hostile (Study 4), emphasizing the beneficial effect of any kind of acknowledgment following ostracism. Reinclusion buffered threat immediately, whereas acknowledgment without reinclusion primarily aided recovery. Our results suggest that minimal acknowledgment such as a few ball throws or even an unfriendly message can reduce the sting of ostracism.

Under threat by popular vote: German-speaking immigrants’ affect and cognitions following the Swiss vote against mass immigration

A popular initiative in support of regulating future immigration to Switzerland was accepted by the electorate in 2014. Assuming that the initiative acted as an exclusionary threat for current immigrants of Switzerland, we conducted an online survey among a sample of highly-skilled German-speaking immigrants (“expats”). Participants reported having experienced negative affect following the vote. Moreover, having a more left-wing orientation, living in a political constituency that had voted pro-regulation and having proportionally few Swiss friends positively predicted negative affect following the vote. Negative affect was associated with a reported negative change in one’s attitudes towards Switzerland, increased considerations to leave the country, and impaired satisfaction with life. In sum, the results suggest that a powerful exclusionary threat such as a national vote may be experienced as distressful by highly-skilled immigrants currently living in the country.

Dark Pathways to Achievement in Science: Researchers’ Achievement Goals Predict Engagement in Questionable Research Practices

Questionable research practices (QRPs) are a strongly debated topic in the scientific community. Hypotheses about the relationship between individual differences and QRPs are plentiful but have rarely been empirically tested. Here, we investigate whether researchers’ personal motivation (expressed by achievement goals) is associated with self-reported engagement in QRPs within a sample of 217 psychology researchers. Appearance approach goals (striving for skill demonstration) positively predicted engagement in QRPs, while learning approach goals (striving for skill development) were a negative predictor. These effects remained stable when also considering Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy in a latent multiple regression model. Additional moderation analyses revealed that the more researchers favored publishing over scientific rigor, the stronger the association between appearance approach goals and engagement in QRPs. The findings deliver first insights into the nature of the relationship between personal motivation and scientific malpractice.

Bedrohung der Zugehörigkeit: Soziale Ausgrenzung in Organisationen

Die Zugehorigkeit zu sozialen Gruppen ist ein zentrales menschliches Bedurfnis. Bereits kleinste Anzeichen davon, ausgeschlossen zu sein oder ignoriert zu werden, konnen dazu fuhren, dass Menschen sich in ihrer Zugehorigkeit bedroht und verletzt fuhlen. Werden Menschen haufig ausgegrenzt, kann dies schwerwiegende Folgen nach sich ziehen, wie Depressionen, „innere Kundigung“ oder aggressives Verhalten. In Organisationen ist Ausgrenzung ein haufiges Phanomen und kann verschiedene Grunde haben: Bestrafung fur ein Fehlverhalten des Betroffenen, rollen- und normbedingter Ausschluss aufgrund von Hierarchien und Arbeitsteilung sowie unbewusster Ausschluss, bei welchem Betroffene einfach ubersehen werden. Investitionen in das Zugehorigkeitsgefuhl und organisationale Masnahmen, welche die Risiken sozialen Ausschlusses senken, konnen sich somit nachhaltig positiv sowohl auf das Wohlbefinden des einzelnen Organisationsmitglieds als auch auf die Effizienz der Organisation als Ganzes auswirken.

Who’s to blame? Dissimilarity as a cue in moral judgments of observed ostracism episodes.

When observing an ostracism episode, observers may wish to know whether ostracism is justified or not. If ostracism appears unjustified, observers will likely blame the sources and sympathize with the target; if it appears justified, observers will likely blame and devalue the target. Here we introduce the “social dissimilarity rule,” which holds that observers base their moral judgments on dissimilarities between the members of the observed group. In five studies, participants either recalled observed ostracism episodes or observed group interactions in which one group member was ostracized (e.g., in a chat or a group-working task). Results show that if similar persons exclude a dissimilar target (target is an “odd-one-out”), observers attribute ostracism to malicious motives of the ostracizers, such as ingroup favoritism, and devalue the ostracizers. However, if ostracism cannot be explained by social dissimilarity between the sources and the target, observers assume that the target is being punished for a norm deviation (punitive motive) and devalue the target. Use of the social dissimilarity rule was neither moderated by cognitive load (Study 3) nor by the perceived essentiality of the group distinction (Study 4). But if participants knew that the target previously deviated from a norm, knowledge about the situation had a stronger effect on moral judgments (Study 5) than social dissimilarity. These findings further our understanding of how observers make moral judgments about ostracism, which is important given that an observer’s moral judgment can strongly impact bystander behavior and thus target recovery and well-being.

Knowing One’s Place: Parental Educational Background Influences Social Identification with Academia, Test Anxiety, and Satisfaction with Studying at University

First-generation students (i.e., students whose parents did not attend university) often experience difficulties fitting in with the social environment at universities. This experience of personal misfit is supposedly associated with an impaired social identification with their aspired in-group of academics compared to continuing-generation students (i.e., students with at least one parent with an academic degree. In this article, we investigate how the postulated differences in social identification with the group of academics affect first-generation students’ satisfaction with studying and test anxiety over time. We assume that first-generation students’ impaired social identification with the group of academics leads to decreased satisfaction with studying and aggravated test anxiety over the course of the first academic year. In a longitudinal study covering students’ first year at a German university, we found that continuing-generation students consistently identified more strongly with their new in-group of academics than first-generation students. The influence of social identification on test anxiety and satisfaction with studying differed between groups. For continuing-generation students, social identification with the group of academics buffered test anxiety and helped them maintain satisfaction with studying over time. We could not find these direct effects within the group of first-generation students. Instead, first-generation students were more sensitive to effects of test anxiety on satisfaction with studying and vice versa over time. The results suggest that first-generation students might be more sensitive to the anticipation of academic failure. Furthermore, continuing-generation students’ social identification with the group of academics might have buffered them against the impact of negative experiences during the entry phase at university. Taken together, our findings underscore that deficit-driven approaches focusing solely on first-generation status may not be sufficient to fully understand the importance of parental educational background for students’ well-being. More specifically, continuing-generation students might reap benefits from their parental educational background. These benefits widen the social gap in academia in addition to the disadvantages of students with first-generation status. In sum, understanding the benefits of continuing-generation status has important implications for interventions aiming to reduce social class gaps in academia.

When “We” or “They” exclude others: attributing and evaluating ostracism observed in in-groups and out-groups

ABSTRACTOstracism is a common social occurrence with severe psychological and behavioral consequences. Whereas many studies have focused on the perspective of ostracized individuals, our research e...