Excluded, then inebriated: A preliminary investigation into the role of ostracism on alcohol consumption

Abstract

Introduction: Ostracism has only recently been investigated as a relevant social stressor that might precede college student alcohol use. The present study continues initial efforts to examine the effects of ostracism on subsequent alcohol consumption in the laboratory. A 2 (sex: male, female) × 2 (condition: ostracism, control) between-subjects experimental design was conducted to examine the effects of these variables on alcohol consumption in the laboratory.

Methods: Social drinking college students (N = 40; 43% female) were randomly assigned to one of two social interaction tasks: either an in-person conversation from which the participant was excluded by two confederates, or independently rating neutrally valenced photographs alongside confederates. Participants then consumed a priming drink (targeted dose = 0.03 BrAC) before completing a mock taste test of up to 710 ml of light beer. Amount consumed (in ml) during the mock taste test served as the primary dependent variable.

Results: The ostracism condition was effective at decreasing mood and psychological need variables (i.e., control, belonging) compared to the control condition. After removing from analyses those who identified the confederates as part of the study (n = 7; 3 control, 4 ostracism), results indicated that males consumed more beer than females, and that ostracized participants trended toward consuming more beer than control participants.

Conclusions: Findings contribute important methodological additions to a burgeoning literature on the effects of ostracism on drinking, and suggest that ostracism may be a valuable addition to studies examining drinking to cope behaviors.

Keywords: Alcohol; College students; Ostracism; Social exclusion.

Fig. 1

Results from the Aversive Impact Index [AII] assessing (a) psychological needs and (b) mood from pre- and post-social interaction between control and ostracism conditions. Neither psychological needs nor mood differed between conditions prior to the social interaction. Following the social interaction, (a) psychological needs decreased significantly in the ostracism condition (p = .001). (b) Mood significantly increased from pre- to post- in the control condition (p = .03), and marginally significantly decreased in the ostracism condition (p = .08).

Fig. 2

Beer consumed (in ml) following the social interaction task, by sex and condition. (a) Represents analysis of the full sample (N = 40), which yields only a significant main effect of sex, F (1, 36) = 11.77, p = .002, partial η² = 0.25. (b) Represents analysis of those participants who did not report suspiciousness of study protocols (n = 33), which yields a significant main effect of sex F (1, 28) = 14.18, p = .001, partial η² = 0.34., and a marginally significant main effect for condition, F (1, 28) = 3.96, p = .06, partial η² = 0.12. Raw data (no covariates) are depicted; error bars indicate standard error.