Who gets ostracized? A personality perspective on risk and protective factors of ostracism

Ostracism, excluding and ignoring others, results from a variety of factors. Here, we investigate the effect of personality on the likelihood of becoming a target of ostracism. Theorizing that individuals low in conscientiousness or agreeableness are at risk of getting ostracized, we tested our hypotheses within five pre-registered studies: Four experiments investigating participants' willingness to ostracize targets characterized by different personality traits and a reverse correlation face modelling study where we determined and subsequently validated the stereotypical face of an ostracized person. A survey study within a representative German data panel further corroborated our findings. In line with our hypotheses, persons low in conscientiousness or agreeableness provoke more ostracism intentions (Studies 1, 2, and 4), are more likely to be actually ostracized by others (Study 3), represent the stereotype of an "ostracizable" person (Study 5), and report experiencing more ostracism (Study 6). Effects remained stable even after controlling for likeability of the target (Study 2 and 4). Moreover, being described as negative on one personality dimension could not be compensated by being described as positive on the other (Study 4). In exploratory analyses, we further investigated the effects of openness to experience, neuroticism and extraversion. In sum, we find evidence that personality affects the likelihood of becoming a target of ostracism, and that especially low agreeableness and conscientiousness represent risk factors.