Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Study design: Clinical Trial
Abstract: Social ostracism is linked to adverse psychological outcomes, including increased suicide risk among college students. This study examined a manipulation targeting emotion malleability beliefs and its effect on psychological outcomes after a lab-induced social ostracism task (Cyberball). Psychache, a well-established predictor for suicide risk, was examined as a potential moderator variable. College students (N = 243) were randomly assigned to either an experimental condition, which presented information stating that emotions are malleable, or a neutral control condition. Participants in the experimental condition reported a greater increase in beliefs about emotional malleability, greater use of cognitive reappraisal, and less perceived burdensomeness in response to social ostracism than those in the control condition; however, the effect sizes were small. In addition, the level of psychache moderated the impact of the manipulation on post-ostracism psychological adjustment. More specifically, among individuals with low psychache levels, positive affect was marginally higher in the experimental condition than in the control condition, whereas among individuals with high levels of psychache, no difference in positive affect was observed. While these data suggest that this manipulation has the potential to enhance psychological functioning, the observed impact was limited, and there was no evidence of a differential benefit for individuals with elevated suicide risk. Future research is needed on tailored approaches to improve the effectiveness of emotion malleability interventions.
Author: Tong, Bingjie
Institution: University of South Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7113374126