(Lab) What Just Happened? Understanding Reactions to Everyday Life - Semester 2 update

Background

Social exclusion poses a powerful psychological threat, undermining fundamental psychological needs for belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence. Past research indicates ostracism can heighten people's openness to extreme beliefs and harshness of moral judgements, potentially also strengthening Moral Attachment– the degree to which moral beliefs are central to identity, characterised by certainty and inflexibility of moral beliefs, emotional defensiveness when those beliefs are questioned, and character judgement of others with dissimilar beliefs (Kirkland et al., 2024). Because strong Moral Attachment is theorised to underlie social division, understanding its antecedents is crucial. While it correlates with broad societal threats (lower GDP per capita, greater pathogen prevalence, weaker democratic institutions; Kirkland et al., 2024), its causal relationship with threat remains untested.

Research Questions / Hypotheses

This laboratory-based study experimentally tested whether participants excluded via the Cyberball paradigm would report stronger Moral Attachment than included participants. We tested a mediation model in which ostracism was expected to increase Moral Attachment (total effect), potentially through increased need-threat (indirect effect). As secondary aims, we sought to extend Henderson and Schnall’s (2021) findings that ostracism increases the harshness of moral judgments via need-threat by using everyday moral vignettes drawn from Kruepke et al. (2018). We also explored individual differences in victim justice sensitivity (Schmitt et al., 2010) as a potential moderator of responses to ostracism. Victim justice sensitivity reflects the tendency to perceive and react strongly to unfair treatment directed at oneself (Schmitt et al., 2010). In the current context it was used as a proxy for threat sensitivity, reflecting the extent to which individuals are more or less reactive to social threat. To test this, we conducted two exploratory moderation analyses: first, to examine whether victim justice sensitivity moderated the extent of need-threat experienced following ostracism, and second, whether it moderated the relationship between ostracism and Moral Attachment.

Participants

A total of 20 REP participants completed the study in the Semester 1 round of data-collection, followed by 107 REP participants in the second round of data-collection in Semester 2. After excluding three participants due to substantial missing data (n = 1), failing two or more attention checks (n = 1), or failing manipulation checks (n = 1), the final sample consisted of 124 participants (n = 61 ostracism, n = 63 inclusion).

Methods

Participants attended the lab in groups of one to six and completed baseline demographic questions on Qualtrics, along with various exploratory measures including victim justice sensitivity (Schmitt et al., 2010). They were then randomly assigned to either an inclusion or ostracism condition using the Cyberball paradigm (Williams, 2009), followed by manipulation checks asking what percentage of the time they received the ball. Then, they completed measures of need-threat (Williams, 2009), Moral Attachment (Kirkland et al., 2024), and moral judgements (Kruepke et al., 2018). Finally, participants were debriefed and informed of the use of deception in the Cyberball task, and the true purpose of the study.

Results

Contrary to predictions, ostracism did not strengthen Moral Attachment (t(118) = 1.48, p = .141, 95% CI [-0.07, 0.51], d = 0.27), nor elicit harsher moral judgments (t(121) = 1.20, p = .232, 95% CI [-0.08, 0.32], d = 0.22). While Cyberball reliability induced need-threat with a large effect, (t(119) = -15.04, p < .001, 95% CI [-3.79, -2.91], d = 2.69), need-threat did not mediate these relationships with moralisation outcomes. Additionally, although victim justice sensitivity did not significantly moderate the effect of ostracism on Moral Attachment, higher victim justice sensitivity was associated with stronger Moral Attachment overall (r = 0.34).

Implications

Although prior research has shown that ostracism can increase moral condemnation through psychological need-threat, and heighten receptivity to extreme beliefs, the present findings suggest this effect may not generalise. Ostracism may not constitute the kind of threat that reliably triggers moralisation. Additionally, while exploratory, the correlation between Moral Attachment and victim justice sensitivity (conceptualised as a proxy of threat sensitivity) provides weak evidence for the association between Moral Attachment and threat. The findings offer a cautiously optimistic perspective. Brief episodes of exclusion may not automatically cause people cling more tightly to their moral beliefs, become emotionally defensive, or judge others more harshly. At the same time, the absence of this effect raises important questions about what does generate strong Moral Attachment, and moralisation more broadly. If exclusion is not sufficient to trigger moralisation, other forms of threat that are more broad instead of local, more enduring instead of brief, or challenge deeply-held beliefs, may be more apt targets of future research. This work was the basis of my Honours thesis and was shared at the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists (SASP) and ACPID 2025 conference in Melbourne.