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Being rejected, excluded, or simply ignored is a painful experience. Ostracism researchers have shown its powerful negative consequences (Williams, 2007 Williams , K. ( 2007 ). Ostracism: The kiss of social death . Social and Personality Psychology Compass , 1 , 236 – 237 . doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00004 Crossref , Google Scholar), and sociologists have referred to such experiences as social death (Bauman, 1992 Bauman , Z. ( 1992 ). Mortality, immortality, and other life strategies . Stanford , CA : Stanford University Press . Google Scholar). Is this is just a metaphor or does being ostracized make death more salient in people's minds? An experiment was conducted in which participants experienced ostracism or inclusion using the Cyberball manipulation, and the accessibility of death-related thoughts was measured via a word-stem completion puzzle. Results showed enhanced death-thought accessibility in the ostracism condition, as well as a negative effect of dispositional self-esteem on the accessibility of death-related thoughts.
Steele et al. (Tue,) studied this question.