Ostracism - giving someone the silent treatment, or acting like they are invisible. Most of us have done it to someone at some time. When we do it, it's completely justified but when it's done to us - well, it's completely unreasonable.
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Human victims of ostracism report a loss of the sense of belonging, loss of control, lower self-esteem and a feeling of unworthiness. Long term, ostracism can ruin relationships and change the personality or behaviour of the victim.
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So if ostracism has such negative effects then why do we do it, and why do we do it when we don't like receiving it?
Williams says the answer to the first question is because it is powerful, it works and we can more easily deny using it than if we use harsh words or actions. To answer the second question he says it's like being both a pedestrian and a driver. "When we're pedestrians we blame car drivers for everything, but when we're driving it's always the pedestrian's fault."
He makes the distinction between physical ostracism, or banishment, and social ostracism - the latter he believes is much worse for targets because they remain in the presence of their ostracisers and so cannot escape the constant reminder that their existence is meaningless.
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Williams organised for two people to begin tossing a ball to one another and then begin including other lab workers who were not aware the game was a set-up. After around five tosses the original two suddenly excluded the others in the group and went back to tossing the ball only to each other.
Williams observed differences in the way males and females dealt with the ostracism. "When they were excluded from the ball-tossing, females kept looking back and forth, trying to maintain eye contact with the others and even laughing that they had been left out. But after a while they looked downcast and obviously disappointed at being excluded."
Men on the other hand almost immediately did something else. "Suddenly the contents of their wallets became very interesting or they did another face-saving activity to show that they were not bothered at all," Williams says. "But after about five minutes of doing that, they too looked dejected and sad."
He then got the group together for another activity to see if the ostracism had any effects on the subsequent dynamics of the group. He found that females would work very hard to get back into the good graces of the others in the group while males would not work hard in the group at all.
"When people are ostracised in this way, it deprives them of their sense of control," Williams explains. "If given the chance, many people try to exercise even more control than they would otherwise exert in a group just to regain the sense of control that was threatened in the ostracism experience."
Williams' studies of ostracism over the years found that regardless of their gender, those being ostracised report a loss of self worth and lower self esteem even when given the silent treatment by complete strangers, although it bothered them more if it was someone important to them.
He says that the ostraciser on the other hand finds the behaviour empowering. "Some are proud of its impact. Others are quite repentant and realise it has ruined their relationship with the other person," Williams says.
"In most cases, the more effective it is the more likely people will use it. A recent study found that low self-esteem people are more likely to use ostracism in their relationships as a tactic, a means to get their own way. But higher self-esteem people are more likely to use it as a reflection of disengagement. When it is used on high self-esteem people, they are more likely to leave the relationship," he adds.
However, the long term effects of ostracism are fundamentally different to the short term effects. In the long term, people run out of energy.
"They don't have the resources to cope with being ignored any more and end up accepting what has been suggested by the ostracism - that they are unworthy. When this happens people become alienated, depressed and lose the perspective that they could be likeable to someone," Williams says.
Williams notes that the behaviour often turns around to bite the ostraciser because they end up losing what made the other person attractive in the first place because they have destroyed that person's self-esteem.
"Ostracisers end up being controlled by their behaviour because they don't know how to stop it and often forget what started it in the first place. But they have to keep it up or admit they were wrong, and most don't want to do that."
