The FF-TIP lab sends the biggest congratulations to Marina Tagaki-Morris, one of our PhD students, who just defended her Master’s thesis. Marina impressed her committee by presenting her research exploring how ostracism occurs as a response to social withdrawal in settings in which group cooperation is expected.
Marina began by explaining how cooperation is an inherent feature of human nature. Given that working together is such an integral aspect of what being a human is, what happens when someone in a group chooses to not be a part of that interaction? One would think, naturally, that this person would be negatively evaluated. Marina argued that is not the social withdrawal itself that leads to this evaluation, but rather what the behavior represents: is it a norm violation?
She then introduced ostracism, ignoring and excluding others, as the behavioral response following a non-normative appraisal of social withdrawal. In addition, along this process, are anger and disgust as the emotions that transmit the appraisal into the ostracism intentions. However, Marina’s contributions did not stop there, as she also proposed that cultural orientation (individualism and collectivism) could also affect how social withdrawal cues are perceived.
With such a well-done thesis we could not be more proud of Marina! We are so excited to see how she moves on to working on her dissertation. Way to go, Marina!
