Long-term ostracism drains resilience resources and is difficult to stop once started. There is a vicious cycle where psychiatric symptoms increase the chance of being ostracised, and ostracism consolidates or even aggravates psychopathology [1].
People with long term ostracism tend to accept alienation and isolation without seeking belonging; they also become depressed and withdraw from social interactions to avoid further painful rejection. In many cases, ostracism experiences were associated with preference for solitude [2].
Ostracism (or rejection) reduces perceived meaning in life by impacting one’s sense of purpose, value, and positive self-worth [3].
Ostracism results in three stages of responses. The immediate, or reflexive response stage involves pain and distress. Following the reflexive stage, people may enter the reflective stage, which includes short-term cognitive or behavioural responses to cope with ostracism. People who suffer from long-term ostracism will enter the third response stage and tend to view themselves as less worthy and as burdensome to others
There is ostracism’s resignation stage, during which the resources that fortify the four threatened fundamental needs (the needs for belonging, control, self-esteem, and meaningful existence) become scarce, creating a sense of helplessness and worthlessness
Self-compassion has the ability to make people less susceptible to depression following long-term ostracism and buffers and weakens the relationship between long-term ostracism and depressive symptoms by moderating the relationship between the threatened sense of meaning in life and depressive symptoms [3]
"...encouraging a compassionate attitude toward oneself or boosting people’s self-compassion could make people who suffer from long-term ostracism less prone to depressive symptoms and restoring the sense of meaning in life could weaken the association between long-term ostracism and depressive symptoms."
Interplay with negative symptoms:
There appears to be a psychosocial pathogenesis of negative symptoms [3] with adverse interpersonal experiences, such as social exclusion, lead to a collapse in drive and affiliation (i.e. amotivation) - experiences of social exclusion, but also other social adversities have been demonstrated to be associated with psychotic disorders
States of chronic defeat, such as repeated and reoccuring social exclusion lead to the formation of negative beliefs that are considered to be demotivating. In the long run, these beliefs could serve to avoid further adverse experiences by reducing one’s motivation to engage in social interactions and may therefore play an important role in the maintenance of negative symptoms.
Reduced motivation, anticipatory anhedonia and demotivating beliefs can be understood as motivational and cognitive consequences of social exclusion.
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