Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Aug;47(8):1294-1308.
doi: 10.1177/0146167220968612. Epub 2020 Nov 2.

Leaving the Loners Alone: Dispositional Preference for Solitude Evokes Ostracism

Dongning Ren  1 , Anthony M Evans  1
Affiliations

Leaving the Loners Alone: Dispositional Preference for Solitude Evokes Ostracism

Dongning Ren et al. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

What are the interpersonal consequences of seeking solitude? Leading theories in developmental research have proposed that having a general preference for solitude may incur significant interpersonal costs, but empirical studies are still lacking. In five studies (total N = 1,823), we tested whether target individuals with a higher preference for solitude were at greater risk for ostracism, a common, yet extremely negative, experience. In studies using self-reported experiences (Study 1) and perceptions of others' experiences (Study 2), individuals with a stronger preference for solitude were more likely to experience ostracism. Moreover, participants were more willing to ostracize targets with a high (vs. low) preference for solitude (Studies 3 and 4). Why do people ostracize solitude-seeking individuals? Participants assumed that interacting with these individuals would be aversive for themselves and the targets (Study 5; preregistered). Together, these studies suggest that seeking time alone has important (and potentially harmful) interpersonal consequences.

Keywords: exclusion; ostracism; person perception; preference for solitude.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The association between preference for solitude and ostracism experience (Studies 1 and 2).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The effects of perceived preference for solitude in targets (Studies 3 and 4).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The effects of perceived preference for solitude in targets (Study 5).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Multiple mediation model (Study 5). Note. bs are unstandardized. 95% confidence intervals are in brackets. Solid lines indicate significant paths; dashed lines indicate nonsignificant paths. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Perceptions of targets (Studies 3–5).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ajzen I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.
    1. Allen M., Poggiali D., Whitaker K., Marshall T. R., Kievit R. A. (2019). Raincloud plots: A multi-platform tool for robust data visualization. Wellcome Open Research, 4, 63. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Anderson C., Kilduff G. J. (2009). The pursuit of status in social groups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 295–298.
    1. Bates D., Maechler M., Bolker B., Walker S. (2014). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. https://cran.r-project.org/package=lme4
    1. Baumeister R. F., Leary M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529. - PubMed