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Ostracism

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Synonyms

Being ignored and excluded; social exclusion; social rejection

Definition and Theoretical Background

Ostracism – being ignored and excluded by individuals or groups – threatens individuals’ psychological and physical well-being (Williams and Nida 2011). Ostracizing behaviors can be subtle – averted eye gaze, or overt – being completely nonresponsive to the person’s presence. Ostracism can be delivered by close others or complete strangers (Wesselmann et al. 2013). Ostracism can be physical, as in banishment, social, while in the presence of others, or cyber, through social media (Williams 1997). Regardless of the source or nature of the behavior, ostracism elicits feelings of distress and pain (Nezlek et al. 2012; Williams 2007, 2009). Nevertheless, there are certain individual characteristics that create differences in one’s reactions to ostracism at different stages of ostracism experience.

A large body of research has been devoted to investigate physiological, cognitive,...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2081, USA

    Ezgi Besikci, Maayan Dvir & Kipling Williams

Authors
  1. Ezgi Besikci
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  2. Maayan Dvir
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  3. Kipling Williams
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ezgi Besikci .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Patrizia Velotti

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Besikci, E., Dvir, M., Williams, K. (2017). Ostracism. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_832-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_832-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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