Ostracism and ego depletion: The strains of silence

Two studies examined whether ostracizing someone depletes psychological res ources in the ostracizer In Study 1, people who followed instructions to av oid conversation with a confederate for 3 minutes later showed decrements i n persistence on unsolvable problems, In Study 2, ostracizers showed subseq uent impairments in physical stamina on a handgrip task. Although ostracism affected mood too, mood did not appear to mediate the main findings. Past work has shown that ostracism has negative consequences for the victim, but the Present results indicate that ostracism has a harmful impact on the os tracizer too.