Originally published August 2 2005
Feeling "left out" is more harmful than ever, study finds
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new study has shown that feelings of being left out are even more harmful than before because people don’t have the support they had in previous times.
"Excluding and ignoring people, such as giving them the cold shoulder or silent treatment, are used to punish or manipulate, and people may not realize the emotional or physical harm that is being done," said Purdue social psychologist Kipling Williams.
"Some purposely hurt others by not inviting them to a party or ignoring them at work, and others may not even realize they are ostracizing someone when they ignore a new temporary employee or a friend after a disagreement," he said.
Williams says in the past, ostracized people could seek support and control through another significant relationship.
But because people report growing more distant from extended family and relying on fewer close friendships, they might now lack the support to deal with ostracism.
He says there's an irony about the attraction of ostracism.
Many children's games are based on some form of social exclusion.
And adults apparently find exclusion entertaining, since much of today's reality television programming is about excluding and rejecting people.
The study is to appear this fall in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
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