The Hidden Devastation of Ostracism at Work
Understanding a psychological deterrent to disagreement and dissent
Despite increased consideration of diversity and inclusion, insufficient attention is given to the mechanics of ostracism.
Few of us pass through childhood unscathed. It is easy to recall moments when we felt excluded by peers, and even easier when friends served as persecutors. While peers may have forgotten these events, I suspect you have not. Which raises the question: what is the impact of rejection within groups we affiliate with?
To volunteer for a committee in my Department of Psychology at George Mason University, you nominate yourself. Then an email goes to the department and whoever receives the most votes wins. This has been the decision-making process for decades.
Tabulating votes might be a meritocracy, where anonymous workers conduct a comprehensive analysis of who has the most experience, skills, and vision and then vote accordingly. In truth, it’s a popularity contest. Which means:
people on the margins are rarely chosen.
people with ideas outside of the mainstream are excluded from consideration.
people who look different, think different, or are wired differently are often defeated.
Ostracism works because it is often hard to detect. There is always an alternative explanation to offer for why someone wasn’t hired, voted for, rewarded, or invited to a social gathering (and the more intelligent you are, the easier it is to wield coherent narratives that justify biases). Now being ignored, neglected, and rejected at work might seem inconsequential when pitted against adversity such as chronic pain, cancer, and the death of a child. But I hold the maxim that what matters is the harm, not the cause. If the goal of a group is to maximize human potential and produce exceptional decisions then allowing ostracism to creep in is akin to intentionally handicapping group members.
Underestimating Ostracism
To understand the ease of ostracism, consider the single wish of flight attendant Kristie Koerbel:
Acknowledging us as people and not treating us as part of the aircraft furniture…It is demoralizing to welcome people aboard flights who look right through us with no response.
Kristie just wanted to be seen. As passengers physically maneuvered to their seat, they failed to acknowledge Kristie’s humanity. Saying hello and receiving nothing in return feels degrading and demoralizing.
Dr. Kip Williams explores the detrimental impact of seemingly small slights. In one set of studies, actors hide behind a shrub waiting for a lone pedestrian to walk across the street. Upon spotting one, the actors walk toward and then past them on a crosswalk. Instructions include ignoring the pedestrian’s presence along with any eye contact, head nods, or verbal greeting. Pedestrians who receive this cold treatment show a decline in mood, lower self-esteem, less sense of control in their lives, and a lower sense of meaning in life. This cannot be stressed enough: these adverse effects arise from a brief, trivial encounter with a stranger on a public street.
In other studies, a small group of people get acquainted in a conversation. Afterwards, each person is separated and asked to identify a partner for a task. Next, they receive fake feedback, supposedly from group members, that everyone chose them as a partner (inclusion condition) or nobody wanted to work with them (exclusion condition). Upon being excluded, people show high levels of aggression in subsequent social situations, perform poorly on effortful tasks, and show an impairment in intelligent thought.
Consider the consequences of these ostracism studies on discerning someone’s potential. You might reach an erroneous conclusion that someone is mentally weak and deficient in problem-solving as opposed to being under the influence of a problematic social situation.
Constructing Healthier Cultures
Two economists, Bruno Frey and Lasse Steiner, suggest an alternative to letting popularity dictate group norms. When an opportunity is present, and multiple people are interested, why not remove applicants who lack the requisite skills and with the remaining pool, randomly choose who wins?1 With randomness, you remove bias from the equation. Sexism. Racism. Ageism. Affinity toward others with ideologically similar beliefs. A preference for the physically attractive and fit - smooth skin, clean teeth, light eyes against dark skin, muscular tone, and facial symmetry. We also know that some personality traits are more desirable, especially high levels of extraversion (as opposed to introversion), emotional stability (as opposed to someone with mental health difficulties), and agreeableness (as opposed to quarrelsomeness).
The greatest gift to creative decision-making is an influx of idea breadth and depth. Removing popularity from group operations serves as a low cost intervention for leveraging diversity. You access new voices. You expand the supply of possibilities.
Provocation
Our knowledge of the psychology of ostracism hints at how to accurately gauge someone’s performance and promise. Residual feelings of exclusion, even from unrelated situations, increases the probability of inaccurate assessments. With this insight, be careful to map out events that occurred before an individual assessment. Be wary of what the results mean if a person feels something other than a sense of group belonging.
Be observant about individual experiences of inclusion and exclusion. Notice how group culture changes with the onboarding of newcomers, departure of long-standing members, flow of gossip, and rearrangement of alliances.
Notice who holds the most power in swaying group decisions. Regularly take stock of how this unequal distribution of power helps and hurts the group.
Build group operations such that people on the margins have an equal opportunity to leverage their unique capabilities.
Leaning heavily on old school popularity approaches such as voting counts or consensus are a barrier to leading with diversity.
Beware of the destructive effects of subtle rejection and ostracism. To truly build a diverse culture where unique knowledge and perspectives are unearthed, we must understand the perverse incentives that push people toward seeking likability instead of competence.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please leave a ❤️. Even better, share this and initiate a conversation about how your group fails to protect diverse members from unwarranted rejection. And if you read The Art of Insubordination (with strategies, tactics, and habits on the Rules of Principled Dissent), send me thoughts, questions, or beefs. I love hearing from readers.
WIDE RANGING RESPONSEs TO MY LAST ISSUE: I shared thoughts on how people treat people from minority racial groups as if they are a monolithic entity. I criticized a popular idea in modern culture that I refer to as the race-matching hypothesis: we can only criticize the ideas of people of the same race as us. I think this is bonkers. Read the issue and Footnote 3 here.
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Extra Curiosities
The STUDY - How about a comparison between 23 interventions to reduce hatred between members of different political parties. Click the link to find out the most and least promising.
The READ - There are few variables as important as autonomy support to produce exceptional work performance, creativity, and group decision-making. There is as vast reservoir of boring articles and books on this topic. Conscious Accountability is a 280-page guidebook for leaders, no just in business to get this concept right.
The ANTICIPATION - My next read is Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. There are too many happiness books rehashing the same studies with the same thesis. Since Dr. Cassie Holmes is a killer researcher, I’m looking forward to her original approach to the most precious of resources: time.
For me, the real origin of this idea for randomly choosing candidates is the brilliant 1955 science fiction, psychological thriller book by Philip K. Dick called Solar Lottery.