| Social ostracism could threaten the basic needs of individuals such as the need to belong,it brings negative effects on individuals,and often leads to aggressive behavior.With the development of science and technology,the Internet represents an increasingly convenient opportunity for interaction,it has fast become a popular mode of communication,especially among undergraduate students,the usage rate of college students’ network social software is significantly higher than that of netizens in China.Studies have shown that being subjected to cyberostracism led individuals to have painful feelings,have a negative impact on individuals.The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between cyberostracism and aggressive behavior,as well as the role of parent-child attachment security and experimentally primed attachment security,and to propose effective ways to reduce college students’ aggressive behavior.We explore reactions to being ostracized over the Internet through questionnaires and simulating the real-life internet communication in laboratory experiments.Study 1 examined the association between cyberostracism and college students’ aggression as well as the mediating effect of parent-child attachment and the moderating role of gender.The survey research method was administered in which the Inventory of Parent ad Peer Attachment,Inventory of Cyber-ostracism Scale,BussPerry Aggression Questionnaire were conducted on 361 undergraduates.The results showed that cyberostracism could predict aggressive behavior,and parent-child attachment played a mediating role between cyberostracism and aggression,and gender played a moderating role on this mediating role.The mediating role of parentchild attachment was significant for both males and females,but stronger for males.This result indicates that network rejection can not only predict aggression directly,but also indirectly predict aggression through the mediating effect of parent-child attachment,which is influenced by gender.In study 2,we investigated the relationship between cyberostracism and aggressive behavior via chat room paradigm.Participants were 100 undergraduate students.The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire(BPAQ)was used to measure the baseline aggression before the chat room paradigm.Then participants were randomly assigned to the ostracism condition and the inclusion condition.Participants were told that they could choose one of the given topics and then chat with two other confederates in the WeChat group about the selected topic.Finally,aggressive behavior of the two condition was measured via the hot sauce paradigm.The results showed that chat room paradigm elicits feelings of ostracism,and ostracism in chat room predicts aggressive behavior.Study 3 examined the moderating role of attachment security priming between cyber ostracism and aggression.On the basis of study 2,study 3 added the attachment security priming paradigm.100 undergraduate students participated in this study,they were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: inclusion-security priming condition,inclusion-neutral priming condition,ostracism-security priming condition and ostracism-neutral priming condition.The results showed that the participants in attachment security priming condition exhibited less aggressive behavior after cyberostracim.This suggests that attachment security priming played a moderating role in the relationship between cyberostracism and aggression.Based on the above results,this study proved that cyberostracism can increase undergraduate students’ aggressive behavior.This study also found that cyber ostracism can not only directly predict aggression,but also indirectly predict aggression through the mediating effect of parent-child attachment,which was stronger for male.In addition,experimentally primed attachment security can reduce the aggressive behavior caused by cyberostracism.From the perspective of attachment security,this study might provide effective strategies for reduction of aggression after cyberostracism. |
