Workplace Ostracism Its Nature Antecedents and Consequences 1St Edition Cong Liu All Chapter
Workplace Ostracism Its Nature Antecedents and Consequences 1St Edition Cong Liu All Chapter
Workplace Ostracism Its Nature Antecedents and Consequences 1St Edition Cong Liu All Chapter
Workplace Ostracism
Its Nature, Antecedents,
and Consequences
Edited by
Cong Liu
Jie Ma
Palgrave Explorations in Workplace Stigma
Series Editor
Julie Gedro
Empire State College
Rochester, NY, USA
This series is a call to action for organizations to not only recognize but
include, support, and value employees of all walks of life, regardless of
the social stigmas that might create material, affective, or psychological
divisions between them and their ostensibly “normal” counterparts. It
fills the gap in scholarship surrounding the difficult issues employees or
job seekers might face based on their demographics, life events, or other
factors. The series explores issues such as mental illness and wellness; and
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often times nuanced issues that face sexual minorities, or those who are
formerly incarcerated, or military veterans in the context of employment
or career decision making.
Through rigorous research and contributions from the foremost
scholars in human resources, books in the series will provide an in-
depth exploration of each population and challenge HR scholars and
practitioners to effectively consider and embrace these explorations and
consider expanding their own awareness. The series speaks on behalf
of anyone who has ever been affected–directly or indirectly–by discrim-
ination or exclusion in the context of work, and promotes a positive,
productive, and purposeful working environment for employees at all
levels.
Workplace Ostracism
Its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences
Editors
Cong Liu Jie Ma
Hofstra University Jinan University
Hempstead, NY, USA Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
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Contents
v
vi CONTENTS
Appendix 293
Index 301
Notes on Contributors
vii
viii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Need to Belong
Baumeister and Leary (1995) advanced the belongingness hypothesis
which states that all people have a fundamental need to form and main-
tain interpersonal relationships. This need to belong, thought to have
developed out of ancient humans’ dependence on belonging to groups
for survival, is satisfied through frequent pleasant interactions with a few
others characterized by mutual care for each other’s welfare. Failure to
meet this need, by way of being rejected, excluded, or ignored, will cause
negative impacts on thought, emotion, and behavior. The authors cited
evidence linking deprivation of belongingness to emotional distress such
as anxiety, depression, and loneliness, and higher levels of mental and
physical illness. The belongingness hypotheses provided a strong theoret-
ical foundation for the subsequent surge of research on social exclusion
and related phenomena.
Workplace Ostracism
At about the same time that scholars were attempting to consolidate
experimental findings on ostracism, interest in workplace ostracism began
to build. Two turning points within the I-O and management litera-
tures were the creation of a scale for assessing perceived ostracism in
the workplace (Ferris, Brown, Berry, & Lian, 2008) and the integrated
model of workplace ostracism proposed by Robinson, O’Reilly, and Wang
(2013). These papers sought to operationally and conceptually differ-
entiate ostracism from other forms of workplace deviance, including
aggression, social undermining, and bullying. Combined with the rich
set of findings from social psychology, they provided the springboard for
the spate of work that would follow.
Ferris et al. (2008) defined workplace ostracism as feelings of being
ignored or excluded by others at work. The 10-item measure provides
respondents with several examples of being ignored in the workplace
(e.g., your greetings have gone unanswered at work; others at work
did not invite you or ask you if you wanted anything when they went
out for a coffee break) and assesses the frequency with which respon-
dents experience these events along 7-point scales ranging from never to
always. The measure demonstrates high internal consistency (∝ = .89 to
.96) and good evidence of construct validity as reflected by confirma-
tory factor analyses and significant but moderate correlations with social
undermining (r = .56), interpersonal justice (r = −.62), and group
cohesion (r = −.53).
Robinson et al. (2013) defined workplace ostracism as occurring when
“an individual or group omits to take actions that engage another orga-
nizational member when it is socially appropriate to do so” (p. 206).
Ostracism reflects the omission rather than commission of behavior
and hence serves to reduce rather than increase social interaction. This
6 K. L. SOMMER ET AL.
Targets of Ostracism
Although most of the work on ostracism has focused on outcomes of
being ostracized, some research has identified factors that increase one’s
risk of ostracism. We outline these briefly below.
Burdensome, underperforming, or unethical group members. Individ-
uals whose behaviors are burdensome or violate descriptive or injunctive
norms are strong candidates for ostracism by their groups (Davis &
Johnson, 2015; Scott & Duffy, 2015). For example, Wesselmann, Wirth,
Pryor, Reeder, and Williams (2013) showed that individuals will make
strong efforts to include a group member who has been unjustifiably
ostracized by the group, but will join others in ostracizing that member
when the person has been particularly slow to perform a task (creating
a burden on the group). Free-riding or loafing behavior is a particu-
larly unattractive quality in a team member. Not only does it objectively
decrease the probability that the team will succeed, but it also conveys
a lack of concern for others’ efforts and personal outcomes associated
with team performance. Indeed, the decision to ostracize undercon-
tributing group members is driven more strongly by members’ intended
contributions than their actual contributions (Liddell & Krusch, 2014).
This suggests that groups may continue to include members whose low
performance stems more from lack of ability than effort.
Employees may also ostracize coworkers who behave unethically,
although this may depend on perceptions of job performance. Quade,
Greenbaum, and Petrenko (2017) found that employees’ unethical
behavior as reported by their supervisors positively predicted employ-
ees’ experiences with ostracism, but only when their job performance was
1 OSTRACISM APPLIED TO THE WORKPLACE 11
organizations and their employees may retaliate among those who expose
wrongdoing within their ranks. For example, an integrative review of six
years of research on whistle-blowing among nurses revealed strong fears
or experiences of being silenced or bullied after whistle-blowing (Jackson
et al., 2014). In another study of 72 Korean whistle-blowers who had
disclosed wrongdoing to the media or authorities outside the organiza-
tion, 97% reported being “ignored or excluded” by colleagues, and 80%
reported having their “opinions or views ignored” by their supervisors
(Park, Bjørkelo, & Blenkinsopp, 2018). This was in addition to receiving
more active forms of mistreatment, such as being subjected to criticism,
gossip, unwarranted allegations, and threats of physical violence. Mistreat-
ment by supervisors was associated with mistreatment by colleagues,
suggesting that supervisors may provoke or set norms for ostracism and
other “bullying” behaviors by coworkers. This is consistent with earlier
research showing that retaliatory responses to whistle-blowing are more
severe for whistle-blowers who feel unsupported by their supervisors or
upper management (Near & Miceli, 1986).
Related evidence on retaliation can be found on reactions to those who
express voice over being unfairly treated in the workplace. In one study
(Cortina & Magley, 2003), federal court employees who voiced concerns
about workplace mistreatment (workplace incivility or sexual harassment)
experienced higher levels of social retaliation, including ostracism, from
colleagues to the extent that the source of mistreatment was higher in
power. Retaliation was strongest when the victims directly confronted
the powerful wrongdoer or sought social support from colleagues. These
findings suggest that those who complain about unfair treatment are
particularly at risk for ostracism when their actions threaten to destabilize
power hierarchies within the organization.
Racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities. Members of minority groups
who experience discrimination at work are at increased risk of ostracism.
Broadly defined, workplace discrimination includes behaviors that would
not be considered illegal per se but nevertheless exert a detrimental
effect on employees (Dhanani, Beus, & Joseph, 2018). This includes
social exclusion due to one’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability,
or other stigmatizing characteristics. Research shows that members of
minority groups are at increased risk of bullying and ostracism in the
workplace (DeSouza, Wesselmann, & Ispas, 2017; Fox & Stallworth,
2005), and that minority employees may feel excluded even when orga-
nizations have formal policies emphasizing diversity and inclusiveness
14 K. L. SOMMER ET AL.
(Priola, Lasio, De Simone, & Serri, 2014). Priola et al. conducted qualita-
tive interviews of sexual minorities working in Italian social cooperatives.
The authors found that, despite working in organizations that priori-
tized employment of individuals from disadvantaged groups, respondents
complained of “heteronormative cultures” and self-silencing with respect
to disclosure of their sexual identities.
Older workers. Older employees may be ostracized by younger
employees, particularly when older employees’ presence in the workforce
is perceived as a barrier to employment by younger generations. North
and Fiske (2016) examined the interactive effects of perceived resource
scarcity and prescriptive age-based stereotypes on intergenerational exclu-
sion of older workers. In three studies, they found that younger workers
were less interested in networking with older workers to the extent that
older workers were perceived as depleting the available pool of jobs and
to the extent that older workers violated prescriptive norms for how older
individuals should behave. Prescriptive norm violations included delaying
retirement, undergoing a resource-intensive healthcare procedure, and
trying to “act like” younger generations.
Older work on temporal changes in group socialization suggests that
both newcomers and old-timers within an organization may be ostracized,
albeit for different reasons. Newcomers need to develop relationships and
earn their place in the group, whereas old-timers are no longer valued
and are viewed as replaceable (Moreland & Levine, 1982).
Personality. Four of the five Big 5 personality traits have been linked
to workplace ostracism. Research by L. Wu, Wei, and Hui (2011)
revealed that extraversion and agreeableness were associated with lower
perceptions of being ostracized, and neuroticism was associated with
higher perceptions of ostracism. Hales, Kassner, Williams, and Graziano
(2016) found that people were more likely to ostracize targets who
were described as disagreeable compared to agreeable, and this was inde-
pendent of whether targets behaved prosocially or antisocially. Being
ostracized in return reduced one’s desire to be agreeable. In multiple
studies using a variety of methods, Rudert, Keller, Hales, Walker, and
Greifeneder (2020) found that participants reported stronger intentions
or were more likely to ostracize targets portrayed as low (compared
to high) in conscientiousness or agreeableness. This effect held when
controlling for target likeability. The authors suggest that people low
in agreeableness and conscientious are ostracized because they violate
prosocial norms and are perceived as burdensome to others, respectively.
1 OSTRACISM APPLIED TO THE WORKPLACE 15
Reactions to Ostracism
The literature on psychological and behavioral reactions to workplace
ostracism is voluminous and discussed in detail in other chapters of this
book. We review them only briefly here. A more comprehensive list of
relevant citations can also be found in the recent meta-analysis conducted
by Howard et al. (2020).
Employee well-being. A number of studies have explored the impact
of workplace ostracism on various indicators of well-being. For example,
data from a two-wave study of Chinese workers found that workplace
ostracism positively related to psychological distress, which the authors
operationalized according to self-reported job tension, emotional exhaus-
tion, and depressed mood at work (Wu, Yim, Kwan, & Zhang, 2012).
S. Zhang and Shi (2017) demonstrated that workplace ostracism was
linked with lower subjective well-being by way of correlating negatively
with life satisfaction and positive affect, and positively with negative
affect. Hitlan, Cliffton, and DeSoto (2006) found that effects of work-
place exclusion on psychological well-being were moderated by gender.
Well-being was higher among men compared to women in the face of
workplace inclusion, but lower among men compared to women in the
face of exclusion. A daily diary study by Pereira, Meier, and Elfering
(2013) illustrated that daily workplace exclusion was positively related to
sleep fragmentation the following night.
Spillover effects on family life. Although family support can mitigate the
adverse impacts of ostracism, family life can also be negatively impacted
by workplace ostracism. A three-wave study conducted by J. Liu, Kwan,
Lee, and Hui (2013) revealed that workplace ostracism predicted future
16 K. L. SOMMER ET AL.
East Asian populations (mostly China and South Korea), little atten-
tion has been devoted to understanding if or how culture moderates
responses to social ostracism. A growing body of work suggests
that people in highly collectivistic cultures may be less negatively
impacted by ostracism than those in more individualistic culture (see
Uskul & Over, 2017, for a review). This runs contrary to the more
intuitive assumption that cultures that emphasize social harmony
and interpersonal bonds will be more threatened by ostracism. It
appears as though high levels of interdependency serve a protective
function, as evidenced by both lower physiological and self-report
indicators of distress associated with ostracism (Pfundmair et al.,
2015) and faster recovery from ostracism (Ren, Wesselmann, &
Williams, 2013).
Interdependency may also have implications for the propensity
to use ostracism in reaction to burdensome, free-riding, uncivil, or
otherwise aversive team members. Ostracism may be viewed as a
less effective means of punishing bad behaviors in interdependent
cultures (Over & Uskul, 2016). On the other hand, concerns about
direct confrontations and minimizing overt conflict within interde-
pendent cultures may make ostracism a particularly attractive option
for dealing with unappealing coworkers (Jahanzeb & Fatima, 2018).
Research is needed to shed light on these competing predictions.
5. A greater focus on actual behaviors. With rare exception, the I-O and
management literatures on ostracism rely on self-reported behavior.
Coworker and supervisor reports are extremely valuable in this
sense, but even these methods can be contaminated by other factors
that characterize working relationships with employees. To take
a simplistic example, supervisors may rate employees whom they
like as demonstrating higher levels of citizenship behaviors, a sort
of halo effect, and perceptions of being liked in turn reduce self-
reported experiences of ostracism. Methods that allow researchers
to directly observe behaviors in the workplace, or that rely on other
non-self-report data, would bolster support for some of the claims
made in the literature. Turnover rates, for example, derive from an
examination of who is still working in a company and hence do
not suffer from the same limitations of self-report. In university
settings, discretionary service such as the number of committees
for which one volunteers or the number of students one advises
could be taken as measures of citizenship behavior. Longitudinal
or cross-lagged panel designs could be employed to probe the
directionality of these relationships.
1 OSTRACISM APPLIED TO THE WORKPLACE 23
Conclusion
Organizational scholars have amassed a great deal of knowledge on the
factors that give rise to experiences of workplace ostracism and its impacts
on individual functioning. Future research would benefit from greater
attention to the various forms that ostracism can take, cultural differ-
ences in use of and reactions to ostracism, and practical interventions
for reducing both the likelihood of ostracism and the negative impacts
of ostracism on employee behavior.
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1 OSTRACISM APPLIED TO THE WORKPLACE 31
The chief was quite right about the road. It certainly was not good,
for it led us, to begin with, across an inundated plain, where we were
up to our knees in water for about a mile. It was also oppressively
hot, and the upper part of our bodies was as wet with perspiration as
our legs were with the mud of the marsh. It was with a sigh of relief
that we came to the rising ground where the road was better, except
for the steep and rough bit strewn with sharp flints. We had this kind
of thing for some four miles, and Taburet, who was toiling along
beside me, became the colour of a ripe cherry. Was this colour a
favourite one in these parts, I wondered? Anyhow our doctor made a
deep impression on the heart of one of the beauties of Tenda, who
had come to see us in our boats, and walked with us to the chief’s
village. It was a regular case of love at first sight, for she never took
her eyes off Taburet, offering him flowers and pea-nuts, and moving
the flints out of his way. It was a real idyll. I felt pretty sure of the
doctor’s power of resisting the blandishments of the syren, but still I
thought it was as well to remind him of the negro eunuchs, who, if he
did lapse from virtue, would be pretty sure to sew him up in an ox-
hide, and fling him into what answered here to the Bosphorus. We
arrived at Tenda laughing merrily, in spite of the condition of our
socks and boots, which, soaked through and swollen as they were
with the water we had shipped en route, hurt our feet dreadfully.
We had already been told that this village was the capital of
Dendi, but for all that its appearance greatly surprised us, for it is
surrounded with a tata nearly seven feet high, and at its base is a
moat no less than nine feet deep by four, twelve to fifteen feet wide.
Throughout the Sudan I had never seen any fortification to equal it in
the mass of material used. It is in an excellent state of preservation,
and the crest of the wall is covered with sharp thorns, forming a
regular chevaux de frise. It would be very difficult to take the place
even with artillery. I was delighted to see so formidable a stronghold
in these parts, and should the Toucouleurs who took Kompa try their
skill on it, they will have their hands pretty full.
The whole population came out to meet us, and when we entered
the village we found it had quite wide streets, which would have
been clean but for the tornado of the morning, which had filled them
with horrible mud. Splashed with dirt, like water-spaniels on their
return from a shooting expedition in the marshes, we were
introduced into an immense circular room, with a platform of earth at
one end, forming the audience chamber of the chief. On the royal
throne, or rather bench which represented it, was flung one of those
horrible carpets such as are sold in bazaars, representing a fierce-
looking tiger springing forward on a ground of a crude red colour,
giving a note of civilization, if of rather a comic kind, to the whole
apartment.
The chief now appeared, and turned out to be a very old but still
vigorous man. Instead of a sceptre, he carried a cane encased in
copper, and on the forefinger of the right hand he wore a ring, the
stone of which consisted of a silver disk nearly six inches in
diameter, quite hiding his hand. He sat solemnly down upon the
carpet with the tiger; and our beauty of the road, who, it turned out,
was his own daughter, took her place beside him, never ceasing to
cast languishing glances at Taburet throughout the interview. I now
spread out the presents I had brought, and set going a little musical-
box. The sound from the latter caused such an excitement that the
crowd outside managed to get into the audience hall, in spite of all
the efforts of the guard, who plied their whips vigorously, even on the
shoulders of the most beautiful of the besiegers. There was such a
noise that I had to shout at the top of my voice in telling the chief our
business; but it was all no use, I might as well have tried to play the
flute beside a sledge-hammer in full swing.
GIRRIS.
GIRRIS CANOES.