The scarlet letter study: Five days of social ostracism

Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors' offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of th eir academic building. Each morning, the name of that day's ostracized indi vidual was drawn, and a scarlet letter "O" was placed above that individual 's office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the "Os" by, not look ing at them, speaking to them, or responding to anything they said. Open-en ded individual event-contingent diaries were kept to record participants' t houghts, feelings, and behaviors each time they were reminded of the ostrac ism. Despite foreknowledge and consent, attributional confusion surfaced an d strong aversive reactions rt:ere reported. Findings are framed in terms o f Williams's (1997) model of ostracism.