Feeling entitled to more: ostracism increasesdishonest behavior

Abstract

No man is an island. Across cultures and evolutions, human beings desire to be socially accepted by groups and individuals. Having sustainable and positive social connections with others not only promote physical and psychological well-being, but they also provide easy access to important resources, such as food, protection, and information (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Because ostracism is an aversive interpersonal experience that unjustifiably deprives people's access to important benefits and resources (e.g. Williams, 2007, 2009), ostracized people may feel that they are psychologically entitled to more internal and external rewards than others. These increased feelings of psychological entitlement may then increase their propensity to behave dishonestly.

Six experiments were conducted to examine the hypotheses that ostracism increased dishonesty through increased feelings of psychological entitlement. The results revealed that compared to included and control participants, ostracized participants indicated higher levels of dishonest intentions (Experiments 1, 2, and 5) and behaved more dishonestly in a performance task to obtain undeserved money (Experiments 3, 4 and 6). Furthermore, increased feelings of psychological entitlement mediated the effect of ostracism on dishonesty (Experiments 4 to 6). Framing ostracism as an experience that may be beneficial to the self weakened the effects of ostracism on psychological entitlement and dishonest behavior (Experiment 6).

Taken together, these findings provide the first experimental evidence that ostracism increases dishonesty. They also highlight the importance of psychological entitlement in explaining and understanding when and why ostracism increases dishonesty. The understanding of the mechanism underlying the effect of ostracism on dishonesty is useful in deciding methods to weaken the connection between ostracism, psychological entitlement and dishonest behavior. Further implications are discussed.