ABSTRACT
Benjamin Franklin once famously stated: “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” Far be it from us to correct one of the Founding Fathers, but we would also add “ostracism” (the act of excluding and ignoring; Williams, 2007) to the list. After all, ostracism—in all its insidious glory—is ubiquitous throughout life. It is in the schoolyard, where children gleefully exclude each other from playground games and teachers punish students by placing them in “time-out” (Gruter & Masters, 1986); it is in the workplace, where bosses ignore the existence of subordinates and colleagues deliberately keep specific workmates out of the information loop (Jones, Carter-Sowell, Kelly & Williams, 2009); it is even in the home in myriad forms, from the use of the silent treatment between spouses, to teenagers ignoring their parents in favor of playing their latest video game. In fact, in a phone survey of US citizens, 67% reported that they regularly give the silent treatment (a form of ostracism) to others whereas 75% of respondents reported that the silent treatment had been used on them (Faulkner et al., 1997). Clearly, ostracism, in one form or another, permeates our day-to-day lives.
