R U There? Ostracism by Cell Phone Text Messages.

Ostracism has a powerful negative effect on individuals. Face-to-face (i.e., social) ostracism is not necessary for these effects to emerge; they occur also in Internet ball toss games and within chat rooms. In previous research, ostracized individuals ob-served the interaction between other members of a group. In this experiment, the authors tested whether imagined ostracism is sufficient to inflict psychological pain. They used a triadic cell phone text-messaging method such that after initial inclusion in a conversation, participants either continued to be included or received no further messages from the others (and saw no messages between the others). Ostracized participants reported worse mood; reported lower state levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence; and wrote more provoking messages. Considerable research in the areas of ostra-cism (i.e., being ignored and excluded; Eisen-