Journal of Applied Psychology © 2014 American Psychological Association

2015, Vol. 100, No. 2, 547–556 0021-9010/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038034

RESEARCH REPORT

Excluded and Behaving Unethically:

Social Exclusion, Physiological Responses, and Unethical Behavior

Maryam Kouchaki Justin Wareham

Northwestern University University of Utah
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Across 2 studies, we investigated the ethical consequences of physiological responses to social exclusion.
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In Study 1, participants who were socially excluded were more likely to engage in unethical behavior to
make money and the level of physiological arousal experienced during exclusion—measured using
galvanic skin response—mediated the effects of exclusion on unethical behavior. Likewise, in Study 2,
results from a sample of supervisor–subordinate dyads revealed a positive relationship between experi-
ence of workplace ostracism and unethical behaviors as rated by the immediate supervisors. This
relationship was mediated by employees’ reports of experienced physiological arousal. Together, the
results of these studies demonstrate that physiological arousal accompanies social exclusion and provides
an explanatory mechanism for the increased unethical behavior in both samples. Theoretical implications
of these findings for research on ethical behavior and social exclusion in the workplace are discussed.

Keywords: social exclusion, ostracism, unethical behavior, physiological arousal, emotional responses

As social beings, humans have an inherent desire to belong and and outcomes of exclusion in the workplace (e.g., Robinson,
to be accepted as a member of a group (for a review, see Baumeis- O’Reilly, & Wang, 2013; Scott, Restubog, & Zagenczyk, 2013).
ter & Leary, 1995). The breaking of social bonds among people in Empirical research examining the adverse impact of exclusion in
situations involving exclusion creates a lack of belongingness and the workplace has demonstrated a negative association between
really does hurt, as the experience of being excluded by others ostracism and job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational
parallels that of physical pain (e.g., Eisenberger, Lieberman, & commitment) and in-role job performance (Ferris et al., 2008). In
Williams, 2003; MacDonald & Leary, 2005). The manifestation of addition, more recent studies have linked ostracism to workplace
social exclusion, often labeled ostracism (Williams, 2001), in deviant behaviors, such as making fun of a co-worker or neglecting
everyday life suggests that these processes are prevalent and occur to follow boss’s instructions (Ferris et al., 2008); studies have also
across a wide range of social settings, including in the workplace. shown that employees who are ostracized at work are less likely to
The experience of workplace exclusion, defined as “the extent to engage in organizational citizenship and other prosocial behaviors
which an individual perceives that he or she is ignored or excluded (Balliet & Ferris, 2013). Although this work has begun to unpack
by others” at work (Ferris, Brown, Berry, & Lian, 2008, p. 1348), the potential negative consequences of exclusion in the workplace,
can occur in many different ways. For example, employees may be it has focused primarily on behaviors in organizations that are
purposefully left out of conversation with their peers in the break either functional or dysfunctional to an organization such as those
room, or they may feel excluded from taking part in activities with related to employees’ participation in prosocial behaviors (e.g.,
others in their office (Ferris et al., 2008). In addition, researchers helping a co-worker) and deviant work behaviors (e.g., gossiping
have found that ostracism in the workplace can result from an
about a co-worker).
employee feeling “out of the loop,” or uninformed about informa-
Despite conceptual and empirical overlap between workplace
tion that is mutually known by others (Jones, Carter-Sowell, Kelly,
deviance and unethical behavior, they are distinct concepts
& Williams, 2009).
(Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Trevino, 2010; Trevino, Weaver, &
Organizational scholars have addressed the issue of employees
Reynolds, 2006). Workplace deviance is defined as an organi-
being excluded with conceptual models outlining the antecedents
zational member’s action that violates organizational norms
(Bennett & Robinson, 2000), while unethical behavior involves
violations of widely accepted societal moral norms (Trevino et
al., 2006). Therefore, workplace deviance may or may not
This article was published Online First October 13, 2014.
match the societal norms. Similarly, a behavior may violate
Maryam Kouchaki, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern Univer-
sity; Justin Wareham, David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. accepted societal moral norms while being normative in the
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maryam organization. Thus, despite some overlap, the two are distinct.
Kouchaki, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Ev- Here, we examine the relationship between social exclusion and
anston, IL 60208. E-mail: [email protected] unethical behaviors.

547
 548 KOUCHAKI AND WAREHAM

Perhaps more important, however, is the question of why ex- Kross, Berman, Mischel, Smith, & Wagner, 2011), which leads to
clusion is consistently associated with a wide variety of negative increased sympathetic arousal of the autonomic nervous system
behaviors and, in this case, unethical behavior. In their review of (Cavanagh & Allen, 2009). Furthermore, research has found that
workplace ostracism, Robinson et al. (2013) argued that the rela- people who are excluded have greater levels of salivary cortisol,
tionship between ostracism and negative behavioral outcomes is one biomarker of increased physiological arousal and stress reac-
mediated, in part, by the psychological effect of ostracism. Several tivity to negative emotion, following a period of exclusion (Black-
mediating psychological mechanisms for the link between exclu- hart et al., 2007; Stroud et al., 2000).
sion and negative behaviors have been demonstrated. Emotional Together, these findings suggest that social exclusion results in
responses such as anger (Buckley, Winkel, & Leary, 2004; Chow, increased physiological arousal1, while also illustrating that exclu-
Tiedens, & Govan, 2008), threatened sense of control (Gerber & sion has effects on both short-term physiological reactions (as
Wheeler, 2009; Warburton Williams, & Cairns, 2006), and hostile indexed by increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system)
cognition (DeWall, Twenge, Gitter, & Baumeister, 2009) are as well as on longer term reactions (as indexed by increased levels
among them. of cortisol). We believe that the strongest mechanisms through
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Studies examining the effects of people’s psychological re- which exclusion impacts behavior are likely physiological ones
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sponses have relied on participants’ report of various types of because these reactions are less likely to be within people’s con-
psychological states following social exclusion (for a meta- trol. Consistent with Bernstein and Claypool (2012), we posited
analytic review, see Gerber & Wheeler, 2009), including reduced that the social pain of exclusion results in greater experienced
mood (e.g., Leary et al., 2003; Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, physiological arousal.
2004), lowered self-esteem (e.g., Leary, Tambor, Terdal, &
Downs, 1995), and arousal (DeWall & Baumeister, 2006; Zadro, Hypothesis 1: Excluded individuals are more likely to expe-
Williams, & Richardson, 2005). Despite the potentially important rience heightened levels of physiological arousal compared
role of physiological mechanisms (e.g., Blackhart, Eckel, & Tice, with individuals who are not excluded.
2007), few studies have explored the interplay of exclusion, phys- Most models of ethical decision making (e.g., Jones, 1991; Rest,
iological responses, and behaviors (Gunther Moor, Crone, & van 1986; Trevino, 1986) follow the tradition of rational decision
der Molen, 2010). We argue that physiological reactions co-occur making in emphasizing the role of a “cognitive, deliberate, and
with psychological responses during experienced exclusion, and governed by reason” process (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008,
these physiological markers can be used as a stronger predictor of p. 571). Recent work has challenged this notion, demonstrating
behavioral responses such as unethical behaviors, in particular, that somatic-markers are important in general for effective deci-
because these reactions are less likely to be within people’s con- sion making (Damasio, 1994) but also in particular for moral
trol. judgments and behaviors (Greene & Haidt, 2002; Greene, Som-
We investigated the relationship between exclusion and uneth- merville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Teper, Inzlicht, &
ical behavior by examining physiological responses to ostracism Page-Gould, 2011). The somatic-markers hypothesis (Bechara &
(i.e., physiological arousal during the experience of exclusion) as Damasio, 2005) proposes that somatic markers induce an associ-
the underlying mechanism. In addition to addressing the general ated physiological affective state, which can influence cognitive
need for research on exclusion–physiological effects, the current processing. In other words, the somatic marker created by the
investigation makes several important contributions to the litera- relevant stimuli produces a net somatic state, which subsequently
ture. First, we assessed the behavioral outcomes of the exclusion– affects decisions and behaviors.
physiological relationship. We examined the effects of exclusion Given this importance of somatic states, and following Dienst-
on unethical behaviors as opposed to deviant or prosocial behav- bier and Munter’s (1971) emotion-attribution approach to moral
iors, which have been the primary focus of prior research. Second, behavior, we argue that physiological arousal resulting from ex-
in addition to testing in a controlled laboratory setting, we exam- clusion can increase unethical behaviors. Under tempting situa-
ined the link between social exclusion, physiology, and unethical tions, when people have an opportunity to engage in unethical
behavior in the workplace. Although evidence has suggested that behaviors, behavior is heavily influenced by negative emotional
exclusion elicits physiological arousal (e.g., Stroud, Tanofsky-
Kraff, Wilfley, & Salovey, 2000), it is unclear what implications
1
physiological arousal has for organization-relevant unethical be- Whereas we proposed that experienced exclusion results in physiolog-
haviors. Third, we manipulated and measured experienced exclu- ical arousal, some social psychological theories of social exclusion and
rejection posit that individuals experience a state of emotional numbness as
sion, allowing us to draw conclusions about the causal effects of a consequence of being excluded or rejected by others (DeWall &
social exclusion on physiological activity and unethical behaviors. Baumeister, 2006). The proposition that exclusion results in temporary
feelings of numbness and increased insensitivity to pain has been supported
by a pattern of results indicating no significant differences in self-reported
Theory Development and Hypotheses emotion among participants who were socially excluded and those who
were not (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002). This emotional numbing
Many empirical studies have shown the adverse psychological, hypothesis fits with the lack of self-reported emotional reactions to exclu-
emotional, physiological, and behavioral consequences of exclu- sion; however, other studies have shown that exclusion is associated with
sion (e.g., Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005; Ferris emotional distress and self-reported heightened levels of negative affect
et al., 2008; Twenge, Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Bartels, (Chow et al., 2008; Gerber & Wheeler, 2009) and arousal (Zadro et al.,
2005). To reconcile the contradictory findings, Bernstein and Claypool
2007; Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000). Research has consistently (2012) suggested that the social pain of exclusion generally results in
shown that emotional distress created by exclusion is related to greater arousal, except that when the pain becomes too great it leads to
enhanced activation of the limbic system (Eisenberger, 2012; feelings of numbness.
 SOCIAL EXCLUSION 549

states such as guilt, fear, or anxiety, which prevent people from of supervisor–subordinates to test whether experience of work-
behaving unethically. However, for the arousal associated with place ostracism is positively related with unethical behavior in the
negative feelings to serve an inhibitory function, the individual workplace. We also tested for reports of physiological arousal as
must identify the arousal and discomfort as due to a moral situation the mediating mechanism in this sample.
(e.g., the possibility of being caught, the implications for moral
self-image, and so forth), rather than due to other causes, such as
experiences of ostracism. Dienstbier and Munter (1971) demon- Study 1
strated that people cheat more and disregard the natural, inhibiting
arousal as a result of cheating when they can attribute the emo- Method
tional arousal associated with cheating to a placebo pill, which
supposedly had associated emotional side effects. Therefore, if Participants. Forty-seven students (31 male; Mage ⫽ 23.6
individuals are already in a high arousal state, they may likely years, SD ⫽ 3.6) participated in the study in exchange for course
misattribute the arousal associated with behaving unethically to the credit but also had an opportunity to earn money based on their
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ostracism experience. In other words, the higher the arousal from reported performance. Nine participants (seven male; six partici-
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an exclusion episode, the less likely a person is to associate the pants in the exclusion condition and three in the inclusion condi-
natural emotional responses connected with unethical actions to tion) were excluded from the study due to technical errors resulting
the current, ethical decision-making process. This makes a person in incomplete/insufficient physiological responses.
more likely to behave in a disinhibited fashion and to engage in Procedure. Participants were brought into the lab individually
unethical behavior. and randomly assigned to one of two conditions: inclusion or
Of course, as noted earlier, several mediating psychological exclusion. Once at the computer, participants were asked to indi-
mechanisms can lead excluded individuals to engage in more cate their dominant hand. In order to obtain a measure of physio-
unethical behaviors. Earlier, we noted that negative emotional logical activity (skin conductance level; SCL), the experimenter
responses and threatened sense of control are among them. Past attached two pre-gelled surface electrodes to the middle volar
research has showed that experienced anger can drive unethical surfaces of the first and second fingers of the nondominant hand.
behaviors (Schweitzer & Gibson, 2008). Thus, it is plausible that This configuration allowed participants to respond using their
encountering an exclusion interaction could induce enough nega- dominant hand to minimize the amount of movement during the
tively valenced affect to compel an individual to behave unethi- experiment.
cally. Therefore, it is important to demonstrate that physiological Prior to beginning the experimental tasks, participants were
arousal makes a unique contribution in explaining people’s instructed to relax and clear their minds for a period of 1 min to
unethical behavior. To address this issue, we tested for the allow the experimenter to obtain a baseline level of their physio-
mediating effect of physiological arousal on increasing uneth- logical arousal. Following this, the experimenter left the room, and
ical behaviors after controlling for individuals’ affective re- the computerized tasks were automatically initiated after the base-
sponses in order to effectively demonstrate the unique effects of line measurement. Participants completed two tasks: a virtual
physiological arousal. ball-tossing game and a problem-solving matrix task. Participants
In sum, we predicted that social exclusion would increase a first played Cyberball (Williams & Jarvis, 2006), a virtual ball-
person’s likelihood to act unethically and that physiological tossing game in which participants are engaged with two other
arousal mediates this relationship. players and each player must determine to whom they will pass the
ball, which served as our manipulation of exclusion. Participants
Hypothesis 2: Excluded individuals are more likely to engage were told that they were paired with other participants and that the
in unethical behaviors compared with individuals who are not study was being conducted simultaneously in multiple labs. In
excluded. reality, participants played Cyberball against a computer. In the
exclusion condition, participants were thrown the ball for the first
Hypothesis 3: Physiological arousal mediates the relationship
10 throws but then were excluded by the other players for the rest of
between exclusion and unethical behaviors, such that excluded
the 5-min session. In the inclusion condition, participants were thrown
individuals are more likely to experience heightened physio-
the ball equally throughout the duration of the 5-min session.
logical arousal, which in turn increases the likelihood of
After playing Cyberball for 5 min, participants reported on a
engaging in unethical behaviors.
5-point scale (1 ⫽ not at all, 5 ⫽ extremely) the extent to which,
Hypothesis 4: The indirect effect of exclusion on unethical during the ball-tossing game, they felt the five positive and five
behavior via physiological arousal remains significant after negative emotions that compose the short form of the Positive and
controlling for emotional responses. Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Mackinnon et al., 1999), with

Overview of Studies 2
Results of experimental studies (e.g., Teper et al., 2011; Tranel &
Damasio, 1994) provide robust empirical evidence to support the conclu-
We conducted two studies to test our hypotheses. In Study 1, we sion that changes in galvanic skin conductance reflect sympathetic arousal
examined whether the changes in physiological arousal, as mea- activation of the autonomic nervous system and thus serve as valid proxies
sured by skin conductance level2, mediate an increase in unethical for measuring and operationalizing physiological arousal. Galvanic skin
conductance measurements have been shown to be significantly correlated
behavior. In doing so, we empirically investigated whether social and overlap with other measures of physiological arousal, including vari-
exclusion leads to heightened levels of physiological arousal and ous indices of cardiovascular activity such as heart rate variability and
results in unethical behaviors. In Study 2, we used data from pairs respiratory sinus arrhythmia.
 550 KOUCHAKI AND WAREHAM

an additional item, “Angry,” included in the measure (Chow et al., To test Hypothesis 1, we compared the mean SCLs between
2008). Afterward, participants completed a problem-solving ma- conditions during Cyberball. As predicted, participants in the
trix task (adapted from Wiltermuth, 2011) in which they were exclusion condition experienced a significantly higher level of
instructed that they would earn $0.25 for each correctly solved physiological arousal (M ⫽ 1.86, SD ⫽ 1.25) compared with those
matrix (i.e., “Find the two numbers in the matrix that sum to 10”) in the inclusion condition (M ⫽ 0.86, SD ⫽ 1.73), t(36) ⫽ 2.08,
and were presented with 20 matrices of 12 three-digit numbers p ⫽ .04, d ⫽ 0.67 (see Figure 2).3
(e.g., 4.27) appearing on the screen for 15 s (see Figure 1 for an To test Hypothesis 2, we performed a t test that revealed that
example). Participants were asked to only indicate whether they participants in the exclusion condition reported solving a higher
found the matching pair for each matrix. Half of the matrices (n ⫽ number of unsolvable (M ⫽ 5.35, SD ⫽ 3.17) matrices than those
10) were solvable (i.e., contained two numbers summing to 10), in the inclusion condition (M ⫽ 3.39, SD ⫽ 2.25), t(36) ⫽ 2.18,
while the other half were unsolvable (i.e., did not contain two p ⫽ .033, d ⫽ 0.71. Results show that participants in both condi-
numbers summing to 10). That is, unbeknownst to participants, tions cheated to some degree, but participants who were excluded
this task allowed us to gauge cheating behavior. If a participant cheated more, thus supporting Hypothesis 2. See Tables 1 and 2
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reported finding a solution pair in an unsolvable matrix, it is a clear for the means, standard deviations, effect sizes, and zero-order
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indication that he or she had cheated on that matrix. correlations between all of the measured variables and for each
After participants finished both tasks, two items were used to condition.
measure the extent to which participants felt both excluded and To assess whether physiological arousal mediated the relation-
included (reverse-scored) during the ball-tossing game on a ship between the exclusion manipulation and unethical behaviors
9-point scale (1 ⫽ not at all, 9 ⫽ very much), which served as our
(Hypothesis 3), we followed procedures recommended by
manipulation check (␣ ⫽ .81). At the end, participants were paid
Preacher and Hayes (2004). The results of the bootstrapping anal-
in cash based on their reported number of solved matrices.
ysis (with 5,000 iterations) indicated that the exclusion condition
Physiological data recording and analysis. All materials
had a statistically significant effect on physiological arousal during
were presented to participants using the stimulus presentation
exclusion (b ⫽ 1.00, SE ⫽ 0.49, p ⫽ .047) which, in turn,
software E–Prime Version 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools). Dur-
significantly affected the reported number of unsolvable matrices
ing all experimental tasks, participants’ skin conductance level
(b ⫽ 0.74, SE ⫽ 0.29, p ⫽ .014). The effect of our manipulation
(SCL) was recorded using the Biopac MP150 system (Biopac
was reduced (from b ⫽ 1.96, SE ⫽ 0.90, p ⫽ .036 to b ⫽ 1.22,
Systems, Goleta, CA) and GSR100C electrodermal activity am-
SE ⫽ 0.87, p ⫽ .18) when physiological arousal was included in
plifier at a sample frequency of 1Hz. SCL was recorded using two
pre-gelled electrodes (isotonic gel, 0.05% NaCl solution) attached the equation. The bootstrap analysis showed that the 95% bias-
to the system via two shielded electrode leads. The time phases for corrected confidence interval (CI) for the size of the indirect effect
specific tasks were established using digital channel signal outputs excluded zero [0.024, 1.855], suggesting that physiological arousal
from the E–Prime software in order to determine time points at mediated the effect of exclusion on unethical behavior.
which participants started and completed each task. SCL was quan- To test the Hypothesis 4 that the indirect effect of exclusion on
tified using the electrodermal analysis suite of Biopac’s AcqKnowl- unethical behavior via physiological arousal remains significant
edge software to obtain mean SCLs for each participant during after controlling for emotional responses, we performed a multiple
Cyberball (both overall and 30-s time intervals) and the matrix task. mediation analysis (i.e., simultaneous mediation by multiple vari-
Mean baseline SCL was then subtracted from each of these means to ables). Results with 5,000 bootstrapping samples (Preacher &
obtain the level of physiological arousal during each time period. Hayes, 2008) revealed that the indirect effect of manipulation was
significant through physiological arousal, as expected, 95% CI
Results and Discussion [0.079, 2.036]. People who were excluded experienced higher
levels of physiological arousal, and this level of physiological
The manipulation check, the average of the two questions, arousal mediated the effect of interpersonal exclusion on level of
showed that participants in the exclusion condition felt signifi- cheating. Study 1 provided initial support for the proposed rela-
cantly more excluded by other players (M ⫽ 6.60, SD ⫽ 1.68) than tionship between the experience of exclusion and unethical behav-
those in the inclusion condition (M ⫽ 3.72, SD ⫽ 1.39), t(36) ⫽ iors.
32.69, p ⬍ .001.
3
To better understand individuals’ physiological responses during the
exclusion or inclusion experience, we conducted hierarchical linear mod-
5.64 2.85 9.48 eling (HLM) analyses to uncover the pattern of arousal over the course of
participation in Cyberball. Mean level of arousal for each 30-s time interval
1.68 9.52 2.15 was computed. We tested a two-level hierarchical model where the Level
1 (within-participant) predictor was time and the Level 2 (between-
6.71 4.55 1.67 participants) predictor was the condition (inclusion vs. exclusion). The
results reveal that participants’ levels of arousal were not significantly
8.10 5.48 8.91 different between two conditions at the start of the Cyberball (␥01 ⫽ –.04,
p ⫽ .94). Whereas changes in the level of arousal for participants in the
inclusion condition were not significantly different from zero, excluded
Found it  participants experienced significant changes in level of arousal (␥11 ⫽ .16,
p ⫽ .02), representing increased arousal during Cyberball. However,
comparing the mean SCLs during the matrix task, we found no significant
Figure 1. An example of an unsolvable matrix. difference across conditions, p ⫽ .40.
 SOCIAL EXCLUSION 551
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Figure 2. Skin conductance level, SCL (physiological arousal) over time by condition in Study 1. The graph
shows mean changes in arousal (Cyberball minus baseline).

Study 2 Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007). The website identified a pool of

individuals and their immediate supervisors who consented to be
In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated feelings of exclusion contacted to participate in research studies. Per our request,
and demonstrated increases in unethical behaviors through in- StudyResponse contacted a random sample of 100 participants and
creased physiological arousal. In Study 2, we examined whether their immediate supervisors to participate. We obtained completed
employees’ self-reported exclusion at work and physiological data from 73 subordinate–supervisor pairs.
arousal predicted their supervisors’ ratings of their unethical be- Data were collected from surveys administered to both employ-
havior. We collected data from subordinate–supervisor dyads to ees and their supervisors who were currently working full time.
test our hypotheses in an organizational setting and also to elim- The sample was drawn from a variety of jobs and organizations. Of
inate common methods bias. the 73 employee respondents, 82% were male with the average age
of 36.5 years (SD ⫽ 5.9). The employee respondents had a mean
Method of 13.2 years of work experience (SD ⫽ 6.7) and a mean organi-
Participants. We recruited participants for this study through zational tenure of 7.9 years (SD ⫽ 4.6). The mean position tenure
a paid online participant pool, StudyResponse.com (a number of was 5.6 years (SD ⫽ 3.2). Of the supervisors in the sample, 77%
prior studies have used this website; e.g., Ng & Feldman, 2013;
Table 2
Means and Comparison Tests for the Variables Assessed by
Table 1
Condition (Study 1)
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations (Study 1)
Mean (SD)
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5
Variable t (36) Cohen’s d Exclusion Inclusion
1. Condition 0.53 0.51
2. Cheating 4.42 2.91 .34ⴱ Cheating 2.18 ⴱ
.71 5.35 (3.17) 3.39 (2.25)
3. Arousal (mean SCL) 1.39 1.56 .33ⴱ .47ⴱⴱ Arousal (mean SCL) 2.08ⴱ .67 1.86 (1.25) 0.86 (1.73)
4. Negative affect 1.63 0.58 .20 .05 .30† Negative affect 1.22 .40 1.74 (0.60) 1.51 (0.55)
5. Positive affect 2.44 0.82 ⫺.15 ⫺.22 .13 ⫺.17 Positive affect ⫺0.92 .30 2.32 (0.78) 2.57 (0.88)
6. Anger 1.47 0.92 .32ⴱ .22 .36ⴱ .57ⴱⴱⴱ .02 Anger 2.10ⴱ .65 1.75 (1.12) 1.17 (0.51)
Note. N ⫽ 38. SCL ⫽ skin conductance level. Note. SCL ⫽ skin conductance level.
†
p ⬍ .10. ⴱ p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001. ⴱ
p ⬍ .05.
 552 KOUCHAKI AND WAREHAM

were male, and the mean age was 41.2 years (SD ⫽ 7.5). The mean pleasant feelings to (9) strong pleasant feelings and (1) no un-
number of years of supervisor respondents’ full-time work expe- pleasant feelings to (9) strong unpleasant feelings.
rience was 16.9 (SD ⫽ 7.9). They had a mean organizational Unethical behaviors. We used Akaah’s (1996) 17-item uneth-
tenure of 11.0 years (SD ⫽ 5.8), and the mean position tenure was ical behavior scale (a number of prior studies have used these
8.4 years (SD ⫽ 5.6). items; Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012) to measure
Both subordinates and supervisors were asked to complete an supervisors’ ratings of their subordinates’ unethical behavior at
online survey in reference to their current job. The supervisor work (␣ ⫽ .97). Each supervisor rated the extent to which their
survey contained questions measuring subordinates’ unethical be- subordinate engaged in each of the described ethically question-
haviors and asked supervisor to provide their own basic demo- able behaviors at work (e.g., “Falsifying time/quality/quantity re-
graphic information. The employee survey contained measures of ports”) on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ never, 7 ⫽ always).
ostracism, self-reported physiological arousal, as well as personal Control variables. To accurately assess the relationship, we
demographic information. included a number of control variables that have been found to be
Measures. significantly related to individuals’ unethical behaviors. Relying
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Experienced exclusion. To measure ostracism at workplace, on the recent meta-analysis by Kish-Gephart et al. (2010), we
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we used a 10-item measure of workplace ostracism developed by controlled for individual demographic characteristics (gender, age,
Ferris et al. (2008). Participants indicated how often they had and education level).
experienced a variety of behaviors at work, such as “Others left the
area when you entered,” on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ never, 7 ⫽ Results
always). The responses were averaged to form a composite score
of workplace ostracism (␣ ⫽ .97). The means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations are
Self-reported physiological arousal. To measure arousal, we presented in Table 3. To test the main effects predicted in Hypoth-
adopted items from the autonomic arousal subscale of the Depres- eses 1 and 2, we conducted a series of regressions that predicted
sion Anxiety and Stress scale (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, physiological arousal and unethical behaviors. Table 4 depicts the
1995) consisting of five physiological– emotional symptoms of results of regression analyses. Hypothesis 1 predicted that ostra-
arousal (␣ ⫽ .92). Participants self-rated the extent to which they cism at work would be positively related to arousal. Perceptions of
had experienced each symptom during or after interpersonal inter- ostracism were significantly associated with arousal (r ⫽ .579, p ⬍
actions at work on a 4-point scale labeled (1) did not apply to me .001). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 2 predicted
at all, (2) applied to me to some degree or some of the time, (3) that ostracism would be positively related to unethical behaviors.
applied to me a considerable degree or a good part of the time, and As the results on Table 3 show, feelings of ostracism were posi-
(4) applied to me very much or most of the time. The five items tively related to unethical behavior (r ⫽ .701, p ⬍ .001).4 Thus,
were “I experienced breathing difficulty (e.g., excessively rapid Hypothesis 2 was also supported. Conducting these analyses con-
breathing, breathlessness in the absence of physical exertion),” “I trolling for employees’ individual characteristics variables resulted
perspired noticeably (e.g., hands sweaty) in the absence of high in similar findings (see Table 4).
temperatures or physical exertion,” “I was aware of the action of Hypothesis 3 predicted the mediating role of arousal for the
my heart in the absence of physical exertion (e.g., sense of heart positive relationship between ostracism and unethical behaviors.
rate increase, heart missing a beat), “I experienced trembling (e.g., Following procedures recommended by Preacher and Hayes
in the hands),” and “I was aware of dryness of my mouth.” (2004), the results of the bootstrapping analysis (with 5,000 iter-
To provide evidence for validity of the self-reported measure of ations) indicated that ostracism had a statistically significant effect
physiological arousal, we conducted a pilot study with a sample of on physiological arousal (b ⫽ 0.31, SE ⫽ 0.05, p ⬍ .001) which,
21 student participants (12 male; Mage ⫽ 24.6 years, SD ⫽ 3.5) in in turn, significantly affected the unethical behaviors as rated by
which we asked participants to watch a short video clip designed the immediate supervisors (b ⫽ 0.56, SE ⫽ 0.21, p ⫽ .008). The
to induce high arousal emotional states while recording their effect of experienced ostracism was reduced (from b ⫽ 0.80, SE ⫽
physiological activity (skin conductance level; SCL) using proce- 0.10, p ⬍ .001 to b ⫽ 0.62, SE ⫽ 0.11, p ⬍ .001) when physio-
dures identical to those of Study 1. Participants watched a clip logical arousal was included in the equation. The bootstrap anal-
from the movie Silence of the Lambs (Goetzman & Demme, 1991; ysis showed that the 95% bias-corrected CI for the size of the
Gross & Levenson, 1995) while SCL was continuously recorded. indirect effect excluded zero [0.069, 0.340], suggesting that phys-
Afterward, they were asked to complete the self-reported physio- iological arousal partially mediated the effect of ostracism on
logical arousal measure used in the survey (␣ ⫽ .82) using a unethical behavior.
5-point scale (1 ⫽ very slightly or not at all, 5 ⫽ extremely). To test Hypothesis 4 that the indirect effect of ostracism on
Results showed a positive correlation between induced physiolog- unethical behavior via physiological arousal remains significant
ical arousal (mean SCL) and self-reported measure of physiolog-
ical arousal (r ⫽ .63, p ⫽ .002). This pilot study provides support 4
The correlation observed between subordinates’ self-reported ostra-
for the convergent validity of our physiological arousal measure cism and supervisors’ ratings of their unethical behavior appears to be high.
used with employee respondents. However, examining the past field research on social exclusion or ostra-
Emotions. Following Kron, Goldstein, Lee, Gardhouse, and cism in organizational settings, several co-worker-dyad studies (e.g., Ferris
Anderson (2013), we measured feelings using two separate uni- et al., 2008; Scott et al., 2013) have reported correlation coefficients
between a target’s self-reported ostracism and work-peer-rated measures
polar ratings of pleasant and unpleasant valence. Participants were (such as co-worker-reported incivility, negative exchange partner quality,
asked to rate their feelings at work during or after interpersonal distrust or interpersonal deviance) that range in magnitude from r ⫽ .50 to
interactions using two separate scales, one ranging from (1) no r ⫽ .65.
 SOCIAL EXCLUSION 553

Table 3
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations (Study 2)

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Unethical behavior 2.61 1.84 —

2. Ostracism 3.11 1.60 .70ⴱⴱⴱ —
3. Arousal 2.16 0.88 .58ⴱⴱⴱ .57ⴱⴱⴱ —
4. Unpleasant feelings 5.15 2.25 .47ⴱⴱⴱ .47ⴱⴱⴱ .44ⴱⴱⴱ —
5. Pleasant feelings 6.82 1.46 .14 .08 .08 ⫺.01 —
6. Gender 0.82 0.39 .28ⴱ .05 .13 .08 ⫺.08 —
7. Age 36.5 5.9 ⫺.18 ⫺.23† ⫺.33ⴱⴱ ⫺.36ⴱⴱ ⫺.08 ⫺.00 —
8. Education 5.2 0.91 .00 .13 ⫺.04 .09 .16 .19 .09
Note. N ⫽ 73. Gender coded as 0 ⫽ female, 1 ⫽ male. Education code ranges from 1 (less than high school) to 7 (doctoral degree).
†
p ⬍ .10. ⴱ p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001.
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after controlling for emotional responses, similar to Study 1, a unethical behavior. Across two studies using both samples of
multiple mediation analysis with 5,000 samples revealed that, as undergraduates and full-time working adults, we demonstrated that
expected, the indirect effect of ostracism was significant through people who experienced interpersonal exclusion were more likely
physiological arousal, 95% CI [0.045, 0.330]. to engage in unethical behaviors and, as expected, the relationship
Although results of Study 1 provide support for the our inter- between ostracism and greater unethical behavior was mediated by
pretation of experienced exclusion leading to heightened arousal to the level of physiological arousal elicited by social exclusion.
unethical behaviors, it is important to note that the correlational These findings supported our prediction that physiological arousal
nature of the data in Study 2 prevents strong inferences regarding serves as a mechanism through which ostracism increases a per-
causal sequences in this sample since it is possible that those son’s likelihood to behave unethically. The specific patterns of
employees who engage in unethical behaviors would be at higher increased arousal and cheating for people who experienced social
risk of being ostracized by their supervisors and co-workers be- exclusion suggest that the consequences of exclusion are not only
cause of their unethical and self-interested behavior.
manifested at the physiological level but also have a significant
Across the two studies, we used different operationalization of
effect on ethical behavior. In addition, these effects were observed
unethical behaviors as outcome variable. In Study 1 with a sample
using data from supervisor–subordinate dyads in organizational
of undergraduate students, we used a cheating task (Wiltermuth,
settings, suggesting that the influence of social exclusion through
2011) to measure participants’ cheating behavior. In Study 2 with
a sample of employees, we used a well-established measure of physiological arousal on unethical behavior is manifested in the
unethical behavior at work (Akaah, 1996; Mayer et al., 2012). The workplace. It should be noted that we manipulated and measured
outcome variables we employed both have been previously used to experienced exclusion, allowing us to draw conclusions about the
measure unethical behavior. Thus, the consistent findings cross the causal effects of social exclusion on physiological functioning and
two samples and the different operationalization of the dependent unethical behaviors. Nonetheless, we recognize that causal infer-
variable demonstrate that the findings can be generalized to wide ences cannot be reliably drawn from our findings in Study 2.
range of ethical behaviors. Our research adds to the growing body of recent literature
outlining the conditions and contexts in which people are moti-
General Discussion vated to engage in either unethical or prosocial behaviors (Kish-
Gephart et al., 2010). In particular, our findings demonstrate the
The current investigation examined the relationships among mediating role of physiological responses in dictating a person’s
social exclusion, physiological reactions to being excluded, and unethical behavior in response to situations involving social ex-
clusion. As noted earlier, research on ethical decision making
Table 4 traditionally has emphasized rational aspects of ethical decision
Results of Regression Analyses (Study 2) making (e.g., Rest, 1986); however, recent work has found that
emotional processes, for instance, are important for effective eth-
Dependent variable: Unethical behavior
ical decision making and behavior (Greene & Haidt, 2002). Our
Model 2 study contributes to this body of research by highlighting the
Variable Model 1 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 importance of physiological responses on morally relevant acts.
Independent variable
When taken together, our results also suggest that physiological
Ostracism .70ⴱⴱⴱ .55ⴱⴱⴱ .58ⴱⴱⴱ arousal may be an important determinant of moral behavior. This
Arousal .58ⴱⴱⴱ .27ⴱⴱ .23ⴱ research adds to an emerging body of work that has examined the
Controls neural (Greene et al., 2001) and physiological (Carney & Mason,
Gender .28ⴱ .24ⴱⴱ
Age ⫺.18 .04 2010; Teper et al., 2011) processes underlying moral decision
Education ⫺.03 ⫺.11 making. By showing that cheating is more prevalent among indi-
Adjusted R2 .07ⴱ .48ⴱⴱⴱ .33ⴱⴱⴱ .53ⴱⴱⴱ .57ⴱⴱⴱ viduals who are aroused, our findings specifically highlight that
Note. Standardized regression coefficients (betas) are shown. physiological responses can influence the likelihood of engage-
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001. ment in unethical behavior. The present study extends the under-
 554 KOUCHAKI AND WAREHAM

standing of when and how physiological arousal and emotional ethical behavior in an effort to demonstrate themselves as moral
responses guide moral behaviors and decisions. to reconnect with other people.
Another contribution of this research is that it extends the Furthermore, our investigation was specifically focused on test-
knowledge about employees’ emotional, physiological, and behav- ing the interrelationships among social exclusion and unethical
ioral reactions to social exclusion and ostracism in workplace. In behavior that were mainly self-interested. As a result, it may be
particular, our results suggest that there is a strong relationship necessary to consider whether there would be similar effects on
between subordinates’ subjective perceptions of ostracism in the different types of unethical behavior (e.g., pro-organizational un-
workplace and their supervisors’ objective ratings of the likelihood ethical behaviors). Additionally, it is important to examine
that employees would engage in wide range of unethical behaviors whether there are other stressors besides social exclusion, such as
at work. As Robinson et al. (2013) pointed out, the majority of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload, or other interper-
previous work on ostracism in organizations has focused on the sonal mistreatment constructs, such as bullying, harassment, and
psychological impact that ostracism has on employees. However, incivility that may have a significant influences on employees’
our current findings broaden the methodological scope of research unethical behavior. Therefore, future studies should investigate
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on exclusion and ostracism in organizations and indicate that the generalizability of these results, along with utilizing other
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

physiological reactions to ostracism are important determinants of modalities for measuring physiological consequences of social
negative behavioral consequences (e.g., unethical behavior) in exclusion.
organizations. Our work would also appear to have theoretical
implications for research on ostracism at work. For example, our
results inform a social exchange-based perspective of workplace
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