Leave one to sink : ostracism decreases eudaimonia /

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Student Theses

2021

Jiang, Yufei

Hong Kong : The Education University of Hong Kong

Thesis

Beyond lower-order needs such as safety, food, pleasure, and material achievements, people pursue a good life through a higher-order need, eudaimonia, which emphasizes the pursuit of meaning and self-actualization. In this thesis, I investigated the effect of ostracism, a ubiquitous daily interpersonal experience, on eudaimonia. Ostracism deprives people of access to belongingness, thwarts their basic needs (i.e., safety, belonging, and esteem), and motivates them to allocate available resources to restore those threatened basic needs. After distributing available resources to the pursuit of pressing basic needs, ostracized people may lack sufficient resources to pursue less pressing, higher-order needs such as eudaimonia. Using a multimethod approach, I investigated the effects of ostracism on three categories of eudaimonia—motivation, behavior, and well-being—across six studies, including a cross-sectional study, three experiments, a 7-day daily diary study, and a 3-wave longitudinal study. The results showed that ostracism lowers eudaimonic motivation (Studies 1–6). In addition, future time perspective moderated the effect of ostracism on eudaimonic motivation, such that the effect was only observed among people with a lower future time perspective (Study 1). Depleted psychosocial resources mediated the negative effect of ostracism on eudaimonic motivation (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, decreases in eudaimonic motivation after ostracism had implications on eudaimonic behavior and wellbeing, leading to decreased publicly invisible benevolence (i.e., inconspicuous benevolence; Study 4) and lower eudaimonic well-being (Studies 5 and 6). Whereas past research has mainly focused on the effects of ostracism on basic motivations such as safety, belonging, and esteem, I found that ostracism lowers eudaimonic motivation, thereby decreasing inconspicuous benevolence and impairing eudaimonic well-being. I also illustrated the protective disposition (i.e., future time perspective) and underlying mechanisms (i.e., psychosocial resources) of the relationship between ostracism and eudaimonic motivation. My research contributes to the theoretical models of ostracism and eudaimonia and sheds light on ways to cope with ostracism and enhance eudaimonic motivation, behavior, and well-being

LG51.H43 Dr 2021eb Jiangy

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/vxXTf0E7