Physiostracism: A case for non-invasive measures of arousal in ostracism research

Ostracism research relies increasingly on physiological measures. In the current chapter, we provide a short overview showing that the ostracism experience is more physiologically stressful than the inclusion experience. We also argue that physiological measurement differ in invasiveness. Most physiological measurements rely on direct contact and/or restrict the movement of the participant. We argue that this may lead participants to attribute arousal to the measurement and therefore make (a) the assessment of physiological measures less reliable, and (b) difficult to assess the relation between arousal and coping. Crucially, new measurement techniques such as eye-tracking and thermography are relatively less invasive for participants. We provide two studies as an example and a call to use these measurements more often.
Keywords: ostracism, exclusion, thermography, pupillometry