Impaired self-regulation following ostracism : the moderating role of implicit theories about willpower

Abstract

Human beings are born with a fundamental motivation to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Being included brings about abundant physical and psychological benefits. On the contrary, being ostracized is painful and instigates numerous deleterious consequences. In particular, ostracism impairs self-regulation, which underlies the exertion of behaviors and success in life (e.g., Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005). Given the recent concerns on the replicability of psychological findings (e.g., Ioannidis, 2005), the first aim of this thesis was to examine whether the main effect of ostracism on self-regulation could be replicated among different samples using various research paradigms to manipulate ostracism. It was first hypothesized that the detrimental effect of ostracism on self-regulation would be replicated. Additionally, given the recent improved understanding on the strength model of self-control, especially the finding that implicit theories about willpower moderate the ego-depletion effect (e.g., Job, Walton, Bernecker, & Dweck, 2015), the second aim of the present research was to examine whether implicit theories about willpower moderate the impairment effect of ostracism on self-regulation. Specifically, it was hypothesized that only people with a limited-resource theory, but not those with an unlimited-resource theory would suffer from impaired self-regulation after being ostracized. Three experiments using various measures of self-regulation including delayed gratification, anagrams, and Stroop task were conducted to test these hypotheses. All measures across the three studies failed to replicate the main effect of ostracism on self-regulation. Further analyses provided mixed support to the hypothesized moderation effect between ostracism and implicit theories about willpower on self-regulation. In the first two studies, implicit theories about willpower were measured. Study 1 recruited participants on MTurk and manipulated ostracism via Cyberball. Support for the hypotheses was found in delayed gratification, but not in anagram performance. Study 2 was conducted in the laboratory and induced ostracism using a bogus feedback paradigm. Results in the Stroop and anagram tasks instead of delayed gratification supported the moderating effect of implicit theories about willpower. Study 3 manipulated implicit theories about willpower and ostracism using a biased questionnaire and a recall task, respectively on MTurk. Analyses on anagram performance and delayed gratification both failed to support the moderating effect of implicit theories about willpower. Failures in replicating the main effect of ostracism on self-regulation may arise from the fact that small sample sizes were used in previous studies and that various self-regulation measures differ from one another. It is also argued that diverse ostracism manipulation paradigms and experimental settings may contribute to the inconsistent interaction findings. Future studies are recommended to investigate whether consistent results supporting the moderating effect of implicit theories about willpower will be observed, by taking into account the limitations of the present studies. (443 words)