Ep. 191: Kipling Williams - The Silent Treatment: A Weapon of Mass Destruction

Sucheta Kamath: Welcome everyone to Full PreFrontal exposing the mysteries of executive function. I'm your host Sucheta Kamath, where we talk about executive functions, self management, self regulation, and how to pursue goals that self has designed for self with the knowledge that we are living in society. And we are living in a collaborative ways we can make lives of other people better as we pursue our own goals. As we have often discussed, executive function skills allow us to manage our thoughts, ideas and emotions to take proper actions, particularly in challenging environments and changing times. And that requires a great amount of emotional bandwidth. And one topic of interest recently, I came about was, you know, this handling stress and handling conflicts, how do we go about it? You know, there's a HBO has a new series called The Gilded Age. And there are two characters who are neighbors, one is all New York money, and one is new New York money. And the old New York money, two sisters are disapproving of this new family that moves into their wealthy neighborhood. And apparently, the wealthy family tries to throw a party and they borrow the butter Butler, from these two sisters. And one of the sisters is so upset that she stops talking to the butler and gives all the instructions to the butler, now through her sister, and the silent treatment continues for a while and and the Butler is clueless as to what did he exactly do and how to have her change her mind. And as I was watching this show, I also kind of what came to my mind was, recently in an article, I read that the hashtag, silent treatment was trending with adults sharing their traumatic experiences of their parents abandoning or going in a silent mode. And that had almost 40 million views on tick tock. So with that in mind, what is this silent treatment all about? You know, so when things don't go our ways, or when we feel a sense of letdown or disappointment. It is our executive function that adapts and helps us readjust our mood effect and actions so that we can resolve conflicts within ourselves and with other people, so that we can stay the course and move ahead with ease and comfort. But when one's own emotional pain is mismanaged, one can inflict pain on other people through withholding of affection, interactions, or reciprocity, leaving the receiver with a profound psychological cost. And that is the topic of our conversation today. The silent treatment can literally damage relationships, or cause irreparable damage to one's psyche. And that's why it's really important that we figure out how to empower people to have or pursue some other ways to resolve conflicts and not to take away other people's agency. So with that, what are the effective and meaningful ways to manage our own disappointments and let downs and hurt by engaging in personal growth and emotional agility you ask? Well, that's what our guest is going to help us understand today. So it's a great pleasure and honor to welcome Dr. Kipling Williams. He is a distinguished professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. He earned his BS from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his PhD from The Ohio State University I went to Oh, you by the way, Dr. Kipling. Prior to coming to Purdue. Dr. Williams was on faculty at Macquaire University and University of New South Wales, University of Toledo and Drake University in Iowa. He is a pioneer and world leading expert on social and psychological dynamics of ostracism, which we will have him defined for us. And one of my favorite works, he has written and published many, many things, but one of my favorite personal books is ostracism CISM the power of silence and he has been an editor of many books. He is also author of many articles, research papers and has developed theories to understand this topic in profound ways. Lastly, he is a highly celebrated researcher. He in 2012, was a Lawrence fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies, and was a co winner of the American Psychological American Association for the Advancement of Science, Social, socio psychological, and AAS and Purdue University's College of Health and Human Sciences Research Achievement Award. So congratulations, and welcome to the podcast, Dr. Williams. Oh, how are you?

Kip Williams: I'm fine. And thank you for the very nice introduction.

Sucheta Kamath: Well, thank you for being here. And I don't know. I mean, there's so many thoughts come to my mind about this topic. But I thought for starters, I would love for you to define ostracism. And more importantly, how did you become interested in this topic?

Kip Williams: So ostracism is the ignoring and excluding of somebody. And a group, we often think of a group ostracizing an individual, and that certainly is one example. But an individual can ostracize another individual. And the silent treatment would be a good example of that. An individual can ostracize a group as well. And groups can ostracize other groups. So it's really just the ignoring and excluding. And I think both components are important. And I'm like, when I study what I what I do, I make sure that people feel both ignored and excluded to qualify as what I'm talking about for being ostracized. A lot of people think that you study what you have experienced yourself. There's a term for that research. That isn't the case for me. I was a graduate student at Ohio State back in the later 70s. And I happened to be watching a documentary on television called the silence. And it was about a cadet at West Point. And who violated the the A in honor principle at the at the at the institute. So he didn't put his pencil down when instructed to do so during an exam. And that's violating the honor policy. So he was basically expected to self expelled himself from West Point for the violation. He chose not to expel himself, which he can do, but then they instituted the unwritten policy of silencing on him. And what that meant was word spread quickly. And when he got back to his dorm room, his roommate had already moved out. When he walked down the hallway, the other cadets would not look at him, or answer anything. He said, they would not talk to him in any particular way at all. When he went and ate in the in the cafeteria, he would take his tray with food to a table that was filled with other cadets. And immediately they would all stand up and move to another table. And this silencing unwritten policy at West Point, we had been used for over 100 years, and was very successful usually in being so unpleasant for the individual that they would leave within a week. So it was their way to basically drum somebody out. The reason this became a documentary is because this Cadet chose to stick it out, despite the unpleasantness, and he was there for another two and a half years. And no one ever talked to him or looked at him in any in any of these settings for that entire time. And he did it. He did graduate and had a lifelong career in the army. But I've heard from other sources that came out to me after this documentary that he endured ostracism, even even after he graduated at all the posts that he took. So he's a life. He's experienced this in his job for his whole life. So I was fascinated by this. I was, it was very powerful. And I kept thinking, you know, they're not doing anything to him. They're not hitting him. They're not derogating him and assaulting him. They're not sabotaging him. It's just a bunch of non behaviors. They're not looking at him. They're not answering him. They're not talking to him. They're not including him. And and so I thought that was amazing how a bunch of non behaviors was so powerful, and I kind of vowed at that particular time and go graduate school to study it at some point. Later on. I was already working on another topic altogether, that was completely different. But I sort of wrote it down in a notebook. And I also kept my eyes and ears open for any information I could gather on ostracism in those intervening years, and it really was almost Well, good 10 years before I thought about it, on how to study it, and it was another, it was 20 years from watching it that I started doing research on it again.

Sucheta Kamath: Wow, well, first of all, that sounds so traumatic to me. That and what a result so we'll talk a little bit about what it took to withstand that kind of treatment. But you know, your own long standing research, you discovered that one of the most ubiquitous and, and powerful means of social ostracism, ostracized, ostracizing is one of the most ubiquitous and powerful means of social control. So can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by that? And how did you figure out ways to experimentally examine the impact of ostracism?

Kip Williams: Right? So in my reading on why well, first, I found out that ostracism wasn't something that was just a human phenomenon. Ethos ologists. Animal researchers have, who study animals in their natural habitat, have all reported that every social animal that we know of ostracizes members of their groups under certain circumstances. And so lions and chimpanzees, and bison, and you name it, every social animal, even bees, engage in ostracism. And so the anthropologists have argued that it's, if something is so widespread, it must be evolutionarily adaptive to engage in it. And so they concluded that, that ostracism is really one of the the ways in which achieving civility occur, that that making sure that members of the group behave in a way that is beneficial to the group and not dangerous to the group. Such that when a member does behave in those ways, erratic ways, bullying ways or comes up lame and isn't able to contribute, that it is a a, an immediate response, not one that is thought out, it doesn't involve executive function, because basically, it's part of the genetic blueprint for these lower animals, that as soon as that happens, they, they ignore and exclude that member of the group, they won't go near it. If the if that member of the group comes near them, they walk away. And it's it's very powerful to see this with lion cubs or with bonobo chimps and things like this. It's sad to watch. But it's something that it was widespread. So they are anthropologists argued it keeps members in line, it keeps them. If they start to do something that harms the group, then, and they're they're ostracized it one of two things happens, it could mean that they are ousted completely. And often with animals, when they are ostracized in that way, they die within a week, because they no longer have the social support of the group. They can't share in the food and the resources. And they become easy prey for their predators. So it's really a death sentence. Essentially. If it's a behavior that they can alter, that's under their control, then then, ostracizing can get them to change their behavior so that they can be re included. So in either way, the group remains strong, either one member shorter, smaller or not, it's a stronger group. That said, and then that's been applied to humans as well, that being ostracized or seen somebody else ostracized, or just fearing ostracism is enough to keep people you know, behaving in a beneficial way to the group and reduces deviance and destructive behavior and that sort of thing. So it's, it seems that by anthropologists is a valuable response and one of the early building blocks to civilization.

Sucheta Kamath: I love that. As you said, you know, it's ubiquitous to all the whole animal kingdom and which is very powerful and And also I think this is kind of a way to induce cooperation, because if you cooperate, then you're likely to propel the group's goals, collective goals. So one person going rogue needs to be ostracized because they're pursuing their own selfish goals, and not the enlightened self interest goals, I guess.

Kip Williams: Right. And then, but then sometimes also, it's not like a decision or a misbehavior. But like, In one example, the love, the headline of the group of the pride was injured and was lame, and couldn't, couldn't move as fast. And that triggered the response even from her cubs. And so they wouldn't go near her. And then she was left alone. And then she was attacked by other animals and died. And so you know, but it's so it's any type of behavior, whether it's willful or accidental, that will it trigger this, this automatic response of ostracism and lower animals.

Sucheta Kamath: So is it. So as you say that this is not in lower animals, it's not a thoughtful process. But with humans, it's a very strategic, it could be very strategic decision to exclude, one could be to retain the benefits or keep them for yourself, or to punish the member that is veering away from the group, from the group or from even your own expectations, right. So how did you? How did you begin to study this? How, how do you induce us to clinical or in a lab setting?

Kip Williams: So, so I focused and have focused mostly on how it affects the person who's ostracized, so I can manipulate I can cause ostracism in a lab, and I'll tell you how I learned, I figured out how to do that. Because I'm interested in how a person thinks differently because of it, how it makes them feel differently, how it makes their brain react differently, and how it affects other physiological responses. And then finally, how it makes them behave differently. So but to induce ostracism. That's another question is how do you study it in the lab where you can get people to ostracize to see when will they ostracize and, and who is likely to ostracize that is harder. And I'll tell you about that in a little in a little bit. But in terms of the first part, where I focus on the target of ostracism, I don't call them the victim, I call them the target because it's, it's less loaded term. And I call the people who do it sources of ostracism rather than perpetrators. It this was a me search thing I was out in a, I was out in a field in about 1985. With my dog, I was in a park and I was on a blanket, I was reading a book, we were just relaxing on our own business, and a Frisbee rolled up behind me. And I, I looked at saw it and I looked at two guys that were waiting for me to return it. So I got up and I threw it to them. And I was fully intending to go back and sit down with my dog again. And sort of unexpectedly they they started throwing it to me also. So basically, I without words, they included you included me and I started throwing so we were a three person group throwing the Frisbee around, and we never talked during the entire episode. But at some point, after I got the Frisbee, maybe I don't know, five or 10 times they stopped throwing it to me. So sad. And we just started throwing it to each other. And it was very awkward. At first I thought they were sort of teasing me maybe a little bit and thinking that was a bit a little bit funny. But it was then became pretty clear that they just weren't gonna throw it back to me. And so then I had I sort of awkwardly went back to my dog and you know, became reunited with my dog, I use my draw dog to be to form a friendship there again. But because I had this long term interest in ostracism, it immediately occurred to me, Wow, that was so powerful. I don't know these guys, I never thought I'd get to know them. I never thought it would matter in the future, but not not being included. being ignored and excluded from this very simple game was powerful. I mean, it really hurt. And it was it was kind of amazing to me that it seems so trivial on the one hand, and so hurtful on the other. And so, because I was interested in ostracism, immediate The heard to me that, hey, I can, I can do this in the lab. Okay, sounds kind of cruel, but it didn't involve a lot, it was a very simple situation that didn't involve conversation or any kind of setup. And I thought I could I could do something like this in the lab. And so I developed a paradigm that I, when I say paradigm, a common method of studying something that first I called the ball tossing paradigm and what I what I had people, I had people show up for an experiment. And I, they came into a room and, and then another person would come in also, and then another person. So there's total of three people in the room, and I tell them that I'm interested in and how groups interact with each other. And they'll, here's a consent form, please read it. And it's going to take me about five minutes to set up the lab. So if they just sit there quietly, I'll be back in about five minutes. In that room, excuse me, was a box that said, children's play experiment, please leave in room. And there are a bunch of toys in the box. And so one of the people in the room because two of them were actually working for me, we call them confederates. One of them looked in the box, kind of rummaged around, saw ball, picked it up, looked at the other two people and started throwing it now I wasn't really sure whether they would catch it and throw it because you know, I had told them to sit quietly, and wait, but everybody catches it, and everybody throws it, I I've run well over 1000 people in this paradigm, not a single person chose not to catch it or not to throw it once they caught it. That's an invitation to play. Yes, most of them wouldn't talk, but they would throw the ball. And then when the experiment I the experimenter left the room, after I said, sign the forms and sit quietly, I did something on the back of my head, which was actually a signal to the Confederates and said, This person has been randomly assigned to the ostracism condition, or to the inclusion condition. Wow. And so I had used a random assignment table to tell me to do that. And what that meant was that once the ball started getting tossed around, if there if the participant was assigned to the inclusion condition, they would continue to get the ball about a third of the time in that triad for the five minutes. It usually involve eye contact, and they were to continue making eye contact. And if someone said something, they were to respond, but they weren't told to talk. If they're in the austere system condition, after the participant showed that they were willing to catch and throw, then they no longer got the ball thrown to them after about four or five throws. And they were also not looked at any longer. If that person said something, they the other two were told not to respond to it to act as though it hadn't been asked. And they did that for the remaining four minutes. And then I gave people questionnaires afterwards, asking them how they felt. Their sense of belonging, their sense of self esteem, their feelings of control their feelings of meaningful existence, and whether they're angry or sad, among other things, and we found very powerful effects between those two conditions that those who had been assigned to the ostracism condition, reported lower levels of satisfaction of their sense of belonging, self esteem, control, meaningful existence, and they were higher levels of sadness and higher levels of anger. And these were really large effects compared to other social psychology experiments. These effects are extremely large and powerful. And I watched the video Well, at first, I was watching the interaction behind a one way mirror. And I was it was so powerful. I couldn't watch it any longer. It was too uncomfortable. So I've been videotaping it. So I figured I'd watch it after a videotape. And watching the videotapes was very difficult. And what was interesting was a couple things. One, one is that when people were ostracized, they they never said anything. They never said, Hey, how come you're not throwing me the ball? Or, Hey, throw me the ball or what's going on here? I was prepared for that. And I had prepared the Confederates how to behave if that happened. It never happened. As I said, over 1000 people were in this experiment, not a single person ever said something. And then the other thing is that regardless of whether there are men or women or no There's a lot of variability. When you have 1000 people, you have people that are in fraternities, people, in ROTC, you have older people, you have younger people, you have men, women, every all different races and ethnicities. So you have a lot of variety of people, yet the behavior was so similar. For people who were ostracized, they within two or three minutes, they would be slouching in their chairs, looking down at the floor. 

Sucheta Kamath: Oh, poor things. 

Kip Williams: There was a slight difference between men and women in general, that women tended to make eye contact with the other two longer when they were being ostracized and kind of hung in there longer. Smiling, typically, until they stopped and then look down and slouched in their chairs. Men might were slightly more likely to stand up, look in their pocket, find something that kind of said, I don't care about what's going on here, I have something better to do. They walk around, look around. But within a minute, they'd sit back in their chair, and they'd slumped down. So it was just, it was incredibly powerful situation that caused everybody to behave pretty much the same way. And the effects were so strong and five minutes, which didn't seem like much when I planned it seemed like an eternity when I was watching it, that I, I had to figure out a way to kind of tone it down and not and make it shorter and perhaps not so strong. Because one of the other unintended consequences of this ball tossing paradigm was that my Confederates who were really nice guys, and who really cared a lot about participant's well being and wanted to shake their hand afterwards and apologize and everything. Initially, after a couple months of doing this every day, they only enjoy the ostracism conditions, and they were a they were laughing to themselves or their shoulders were shaking. And it was clear that they were on becoming a bit sadistic over time for doing me and over and over again, sort of like the you know, gallows humor of doctors and nurses will the will, to sort of, I think, to deal with the stress of hurting somebody you have, you end up making light of it, or you end up doing changing the way you think to to soften the blow. So I didn't want to have Confederates anymore, either. So I moved from Toledo to Australia and worked at two universities there. And I had these brilliant honors students working with me, Christopher Chung, and Wilma Choi. And we developed together another paradigm called Cyber Ball. And so cyber ball is different from ball tossing in that when participants show up to the lab, they aren't showing up in groups, but rather they're just seated in a cubicle with a computer, they're told that the experiment is interested in mental visualization and how it affects behavior. So for example, if you're a basketball player, and you mentally visualize sinking, free throws, will that make you a better free thrower, that kind of thing. But then I tell them, but not everybody is really good at mental visualization. So we want to make sure everybody kind of practices and get some exercise doing it. So we're going to have you play a virtual ball toss game with two other participants who are in other rooms. And you'll see cartoon characters on the screen and they're animated. And when they throw the ball to you, you'll be the hand at the bottom, then you're you you choose to throw it to the person on the left or the right and and you just keep doing this for a couple of minutes. We don't care who's throwing the ball to whom or how many times you get it, what we care about is that you're mentally visualizing, where are you throwing it? What do they look like? What what's if are you outside? Are you inside? Are you are there? What's the terrain? What's the weather like things like that. So we encourage them to mentally visualize. And we that we did that, because we didn't want them feeling that not getting the ball was somehow feeling the experiment. We wanted them to know that the experiment was all about mental visualization. And it was didn't matter who got it or not. So so. And then in this case, the other two players are actually computer programmed. And so there are no confederates. And the program operates on a random assignment schedule. And so half of the time the participant gets the ball, a third of the throws, and the other half they they get the ball once or twice at the beginning and never again, just for two minutes. So there's a lot of differences between this and Bolthouse. And you're not in the room with the other players. They don't see the other players... 

Sucheta Kamath: No chances of developing sadistic Confederates over time.

Kip Williams: That would seem like it'd be less awkward to be by yourself when this is happening rather than being in the presence of the others. And there was really no promise that they were going to meet the other people or anything so it was I thought it much more Soft, much softer, much less, you know, intense. And yet, the effect sizes that we got were just as large as the ball tossing. They felt just as the threat to their sense of belonging to their sense of self esteem, control, meaningful existence, was just as strong as the ball tossing paradigm. And they felt just as angry. And just as, as sad. So, it, it became clear to me that this is a very, very powerful phenomenon, that doesn't take very much to do at all. In real life. Of course, when you're ostracized by your co workers, or your family, or your spouse, or your children, or your classmates, or whatever, or your or the people in your church, it's devastating. And it can be a day in and day out sort of thing that is incredibly hurtful. But we found even when you make it about as trivial, as you can imagine making it, it was very painful. And so we get very strong effects, for something that in the real world would be even stronger. Because then you're being ostracized by key people that you care about. You have to, you know, be with longer than than a half an hour. So, we've done, I don't know how many studies now, I mean, there have been well over 200 300 studies using cyber ball, not just by me, but by people all over the world, one of the sort of accidental benefits of using cyber ball is that you can use it with six year olds, you can use it with 95 year olds, you can use it with people from every culture all over the world, and everybody gets the same, everybody reacts the same. And so it's an easy, it didn't have to be modified and much, much, taking it, taking it on the road, no to other countries and with with different populations, but we have found that it, it consistently threatens those four needs. And if I could just briefly mentioned what these needs are, again, and maybe elaborate a little bit, we have a need to belong. This was research that was published by Roy Baumeister and, and Mark Leary. And what what makes it a need is that without it without us without a connection with at least one other person, you suffer you suffer psychologically and physically. And so it's not just a want, it's a need, and we have a need to maintain a reasonably high self esteem. And we have a need to feel that we have control over situations to some extent, and we have a need to be acknowledged, and to feel mean that we that we are important enough to be noticed. And so all of these are simultaneously threatened. When you're ostracized, you know, you can think of other unpleasant interactions with people like if they call you names, or if they hit you. But it actually doesn't simultaneously, negatively affect all those things. You, you could be in an argument with somebody, but you're if long as you're arguing, and they're arguing, there's still a sense of belonging, here. So yes, you're still a unit, you still have control, because they say something, you can escalate it or you can de escalate, but by what you say, they obviously are recognizing you, they're acknowledging you, you're enough to maintain the the, the fight with with and, and so

Sucheta Kamath: And they're not diminishing your your existence, like because by participating, You're equal, even if you may be losing, but you're equal human.

Kip Williams: Yeah. And it's clear that you're important enough to be argued with or bullied or whatever it is, now, your self esteem will still probably take a hit, if they're disagreeing with you, or they're calling your names or hurting you. But all four of those things don't get threatened and shaken up once ostracism. And so it seems to me to be excuse me kind of a unique, aversive interpersonal behavior, that it has this ability to do this to people, which causes some really fundamental changes in how their brain reacts and how they feel and how they behave. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm not even allowing you to ask me a question here. I'm just rambling. So if you want me to stop and but I can continue.

Sucheta Kamath: Yes, yes. Well, I do. And it's all about you. I want to hear this. It's just I wanted to share one interesting, quick anecdote. So almost I don't know when, when your two students began to study this, but I was at the SPSP Conference, which is a Society of Personality and Social Psychology conference. And this topic is of deep interest. To me, this is probably more than 10 years, I don't know. But so they were presenting this data, the cyber ball study research. And I mean, our listeners may not get a chance to see this, but you have some videos, but the facial expressions and you know, the EEG, EKG, I mean, all the cycles, physiological, psychosocial changes, it's so painful to watch it. And there was some, maybe I'm not recollecting it correctly. But there were studies about actual pretend to watch a cut being made on a person's hand with a knife. And the part of the brain that was activated with so this was not no, no pain was inflicted on a person, but people were shown two videos, right. One was actual somebody getting inflicted with physical pain of somebody cutting you. And second was this being ostracized, and the part of the brain that was activated was the same region where the pain, physical pain resides, right. Can you talk a little bit about that? And that was so fascinating. To see that we have a, of course, repurpose center in the brain that perceives pain, social pain, same as physical pain.

Kip Williams: Yeah. So we, through through self reports, we have known that it's extremely unpleasant, it makes them angry, it makes them sad. If you ask them how painful it is, it makes it they score high on the pain scale. And non verbally, we didn't really know whether people playing cyber ball would show a lot of emotion because they're by themselves. And sometimes we think of emotions, primarily. A way to communicate. And but but we feel it, but we don't show it so much unless we're trying to communicate. But oh, my gosh, people do show, in some ways are less inhibited. You know, like I said, in the ball toss, and they wouldn't even say anything, when they're by themselves have a what the you know, and they'll swear, and they'll push the mouse away that they're using or push the computer away. One guy that famous now, because we have the video clip, and he's allowed us to use it. And so if we've used it quite a bit, he laughs at first, and then when He clearly doesn't get the ball the ball for a while, he gets angry, and he gives the finger to the screen. And then he looks really upset. And then over time, he looks sad and dejected. And all within two minutes. So clear. And we so we knew when when another case, we got people to dial a dial in indicate how they were feeling. And we got them to do this for 20 minutes prior to play in cyber ball. So they got really good at it. And then we said keep doing it while you're playing cyber ball. And we found that people who are included, it's just basically a flatline, that's around a seven on a 10 point scale. So pretty good, you know, feeling pretty good. If they're ostracized, they start at the seven and then about 20 seconds after they, the ball stops. It just goes way down. And they go down to about a 3.4. And which is a huge drop on a 10 point scale in any social psych experiment. And this, this happens within a minute and a half. So we knew that it was painful. We knew that it was unpleasant. But along comes research with where you use MRIs and I was at a conference in Sydney, with two people from UCLA Naomi Eisenberger and Matt Lieberman, who were just starting to look at emotional responses to stimuli when people were in an fMRI, and I was talking about ostracism, and then suddenly somebody in the audience's what would happen if they were ostracized in the MRI. And we just looked at each other. And you know, it's just one of those moments. And so we started collaborating and we develop they, one of the again, accidental, good things about cyber ball is that you can play the game when you're laying down in an fMRI scanner, because you're not moving. You're just you can just click with your legs. Yes. And so they're the cover story is the same book. The cover story is we're interested in what your brain looks like when you're mentally visualizing. But really what we were interested in was what is their brain look like when they are ostracized? And what we found is similar to what you were describing for the talk that you attended. Is that this same region of the brain that is activated when people experience physical pain when they put their hand in ice cold water, or when they they touch a flame, or when they get a pinprick or when they vise is applied to their finger, the same area of the brain that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which is a region that one of its functions is to detect pain, and kind of alert the system that something's bad here and you need to do something about it. The set that same region was activated when people weren't getting the ball from two strangers in a virtual ball game. And so the, you know, in this kind of put, I think, my research on the map and kind of funny way, because, to me, I'd already known this, but seeing it, seeing these yellow splotches on a brain picture, convinced, convinced everybody. So it's, in other researches, used other methods besides cyber ball and finds that even emotional pain receptors in the brain that have specific feelings of of pain are activated as well. And so, social pain and physical pain, the argument is, is that physical pain in the brain evolved first social pain piggybacked on and use the same architecture. And so the same things that are so when we say someone, it's all in the head, it is all in the head, it's the brain, and that's where we feel pain. And we feel it the same way when for social things loss, bereavement, grief, embarrassment, but ostracism as we do physical pain.

Sucheta Kamath: So, you know, one interesting thing, and since I know I watched a lot of videos, and also read about that, how you describe it one very interesting emotion that emerges first, particularly in the context of silent treatment, or first time when you encounter exclusion, or that ignoring is bewilderment, this a small surprise, because you're almost expecting it to turn around. So there is anticipation that this can be serious. But then also fear that is it like am I making this up? Right? You were even when you were excluded during the Frisbee throw? Can you talk a little bit about this bewilderment, emotion, and also, like, this feeling puzzle followed by this pain? I mean, you describe this two minute window, and you go this tank so fast? I feel like it takes so long to recover from such subjective negligence and ignoring and pain that somebody inflicts. Right. So, I mean, oh, my God, what a power people, all of us hold to include or exclude in the club of human humanity. Right?

Kip Williams: Yeah, it is powerful. And so let's see, let me let's go back and forth, I guess. Okay. So yeah, there is this interesting transition period. And we really haven't, I would say, we haven't really studied this particular period, we've observed it, but we haven't kind of unpacked it too much. But it, I think there's a violation of expectation, you know, in a game of ball toss, the expectation is to be equal as to throw it make, you don't have to always throw it to the same person, but to roughly have an equal number of exchanges. And so as soon as you see yourself not getting it, you're startled. And a lot of people smile, they laugh, they think it's kind of funny. So like, they're being teased. And, you know, I think if we stop the experiment, right at that moment, when they're laughing, they might even like the people more, because, you know, there's research saying that seen as a way to increase bonding between between people and things like that. But then there's this sort of realization of this is their teasing to, they're not going to ever throw it to me again. And that's when you just see this dramatic shift in people's facial expressions, and how they feel. And and it's, it's very abrupt, and it's difficult to watch. I just see that transition in people's faces. It's, it's painful, and, and in fact, we know that watching ostracism causes pain to so I mean, it's not just the person that's having it done to them. 

Sucheta Kamath: The vicarious pain, yes, yeah. 

Kip Williams: So so it's bewildering because it's unexpected. I think when you're in a social situation in real life when it's happening, it's also extraordinarily awkward. Because you you're standing there and do you want to reveal your pain to other people, or do you want to act like it's no big deal and so then you kind cover up your expression as much as possible, and you're feeling it all inside. But it's, it's something that that powerfully and negatively affects people. And we know that it affects them not only in terms of their reported emotions and their brain, it actually makes them physically colder. So when we have people play cyber ball, we put a thermometer on the end of their fingers on their non preferred hand, when that's not using the mouse. And over a two minute period, they actually get significantly colder. If they've been ostracized, if they're included, it's pretty much a flat or slightly ascending line. So slightly warmer. So you know, we have words, right? We say free somebody else, or giving somebody the cold shoulder? Yes, where do these words come from and you actually feel colder. So we know that when you're threatened, the blood goes from your periphery to your core as a protective reaction. I guess what we didn't know is not getting a ball in a stupid two minute game was sufficient to cause this kind of coldness. It can increase. Other it causes heart rate disfluencies to so that the heart starts to beat at at different patterns, that that's not consistent with the normal heart rate. You see, cortisol levels increasing. So there's a lot of...

Sucheta Kamath: So it's irregular, but not faster.

Kip Williams: Right now. Yeah. Goes irregular, not necessarily faster. Wow.

Sucheta Kamath: Because when you're afraid it's faster. But when you're excluded, oh, wow, wow,

Kip Williams: Something a little bit different. And you see cortisol levels increasing. So there's all these physiological responses. And then we have behavioral responses. So when people are ostracized for just two minutes, what do they do afterwards? How do they cope with it? So my research model says that there's the initial reaction, which is pain, and a threat to the four needs, and almost everybody shows this everywhere we've studied all over the world. So I call those reflexive responses because they're kind of invariant, then it's making sense of it and coping with it. And that's where you see a lot of variability. And depending on the person's personality, and depending on the person's...

Sucheta Kamath: The soldier at West Point kind of said, I'm going to stick it out out, right.

Kip Williams: Whereas most people would leave. Yes, yes. And he's not the only one to stick it out there. General. Oh, famous general, who came out of West Point, was ostracized immediately. The moment he was silenced the moment he arrived, Benjamin, oh, Davis back in, oh, wow. Back in the 30s. He didn't do anything wrong. He was black. And they didn't want they didn't want him. And so they They silenced him immediately. He also stuck it out for four years. Not only that, but he became a general so he Wow, really successful. person. So there have been a few who have responded in that way. In our experiments, what we find are three typical types of behavioral reactions are that can be put into three different categories. One is to do something that's going to make you more likeable, to do something that's going to get others to have you be in their group. And so people are more likely to conform to others, even when it's clear, the others are wrong. 

Sucheta Kamath: Wow. 

Kip Williams: So you know, the Ash studies with the line? Yes, yes, yes, of course. We even when they're with a unanimous majority, who's saying or when they're when many who's saying clearly something that is incorrect, they are more likely to agree with them. If they've been ostracized for two minutes by a different group, not even that group, but by different groups, they're more likely to be compliant. So if someone's fundraising and comes up to him and asks for money, they're more likely to give money and to give more money than if they've were in the included condition. They're more likely to obey a command that to do something unpleasant. If they've been just ostracized than if they've been included. They're more likely to non consciously mimic somebody, we mimic somebody we lean forward, if they're leaning forward, if they're scratching their face, we we don't realize we're doing this but we scratch our face. And research shows that when you do these things, you're like more. And so at some level of consciousness, we know that Doing these things gets us into better graces of another person. If you've been ostracized for two minutes, you're more likely to non consciously mimic whatever that person other person is doing in an interview. So you're more likely to work in a collective task where you're combining your efforts with other people. And it's not even clear who's contributing what usually, you take that opportunity to loath to put less in when when that happens. But when you've been ostracized, you actually put more in than if you've been included, wow. Or even more than you would do if you're working on it alone.

Sucheta Kamath: All that you're doing, even when you're feeling terrible.

Kip Williams: Yeah, yeah. But presumably, it's a way to end the ostracism, and maybe not in the ostracism of that group that ostracize you, but to be included in a new group that will have you and want you and like you. And so I think this is the dominant response for this, which is why it's ubiquitous because one of the other responses is to become aggressive, or provocative.

Sucheta Kamath: The first one was to do something likeable. And the second is to become aggressive.

Kip Williams: Yeah. And you know, clearly, if everybody always became aggressive and violent when they're being ostracized, then you wouldn't see it being a universal tactic used on people because it would backfire. Right? Yeah. But there are situations and we think it's situations in which it appears as though re inclusion is not possible. We're used to aren't your there's no option available to. And so when, when you can't increase your sense of belonging and self esteem, which I think is the dominant type of need satisfaction, repair that you're trying to do, then you will try to gain control and enforce people to recognize your existence and ways to gain control and to force recognition is to be provocative. And so in several studies, we find that, under certain circumstances, people are more likely to shock somebody else, not even the people that ostracize them necessarily, are more likely to give them loud, excuse me, blasts of noise derogate their performance on a task.

Sucheta Kamath: Almost like a revenge.

Kip Williams: Yeah, yeah. But sometimes it's not even a revenge to the people who did it. It's just anger outward, to protest to new people, to people that didn't have anything to do with it. And so, so and, you know, I have slides when I give a talk, that in real life, we have these, unfortunately, way too many examples of this, where we have people who are feel ignored and unimportant and are included. And they apparently feel like there's no opportunity for that. And so they ended up you know, like the Columbine shooters, yes. Or like in cell shooters, or like any number of school shooters, or mall shooters, or today, we had what a subway shooting in New York as we speak. Yeah, we're and in many of these instances, there's been an analysis of the people who have done these things have just had prior to the event, been excluded, and rejected, then ignored, felt felt unimportant and unworthy of attention. Now, I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not showing sympathy to them. I'm saying that this can be a trigger, I don't think it's the only trigger because we all experience ostracism, all the time, even mild forms, can have an effect on us. But we all experience ostracism on a daily basis, where someone appears to be ignoring us or excluding us. But I think chronic ostracism, combined with probably some mental disorders

Sucheta Kamath: Adjustment disorder, even.

Kip Williams: Kind of adjustment disorders, and combined with the access to weapons that that that forms a lethal cocktail. And so I don't think it's a typical response to ostracism, but for certain individuals who are don't seem to have a way out and feel completely invisible to other people, and they they have disorders of some sort, and they have a way to to enact the revenge. That's what we end up seeing. So a third way to react is self isolation, where you, you prevent yourself from any further opportunity to be ostracized by being by yourself by being alone by not allowing the possibility for rejection, exclusion ostracism, and this also allows The person to regain some of the needs that have been threatened, it gives them control, sort of like you can't fire me, I quit. And so you end up taking control of the situation and preventing ostracism by not allowing it to even happen in the first place. We know that some people become what we call rejection sensitive, and they experience rejection and exclusion early in their life. And then they expect it when to happen all the time. And so they were always on the lookout. And then they prevent themselves from getting in a situation where they could be rejected. And they see it when it's not happening and all sorts of things like that. So obviously, self isolating and being aggressive, our need, while both of them fulfill a sense of some of the or fortify some of the needs, neither one of them lead to re inclusion, the first one, becoming socially susceptible and going along to get along. That's obviously one way to end the ostracism. But it's not necessarily a good way because you become a bit spineless and you lose your sense of values and character, and you just become what other people want. But the other two, kind of almost perpetuate more ostracism. Because we know that bullies are ostracized, we know that people that self isolate are ostracized, and so it's a downward spiral for them. So, yeah, now. So I've talked about two stages, the reflexive stage, the second stage, where we have a variety of ways to deal with and cope with and with with ostracism, and which can also affect how long it kind of stays with you. That's called the reflective stage where you're reflecting upon what happened and try to cope with it. The third stage doesn't occur for everybody. But there are people who experience chronic ostracism, or long term ostracism, where it happens for a long period of time, days, weeks, months, years, decades. And so, and this can happen, when we talk to people and do interviews, we see this mostly being a family dynamic, or you're ostracized from your family, your kids, your parents, your sisters, your brothers, for for long periods of time, it can happen in romantic relationships, as well. It can happen in one's workplace and in church, as well. So we have a lot of examples of this long term ostracism. We, the one woman that you mentioned, she did something that made her husband anger when she was about 25. And he stopped talking to her. And he didn't talk to her again for 40 years. Oh, my goodness, and then he died. And then of course, you know, when you're interviewing somebody, and they're telling you this, you're sort of like, Oh, my God, how could anybody put up with that? Or why would anybody stay in a relationship where they were not looked at, or talked to, or responded to, and they didn't eat with her either? For 40 years, and she said, at least I had a roof over my head. And what what this chronic stage, this fourth, third stages I call the resignation stage, is you no longer seem to be trying to fortify the threat needs. But instead, you know, a loss of belonging turns into alienation, a loss of self esteem, turns into a depression. And loss of control also leads to depression as well. And then

Sucheta Kamath: So one quick clarification here. Who is experiencing this? The husband who actually alienated his wife, or the wife who was subjected to this ostracism, the wife, but then what's happening psychologically to the husband who's inflicting this kind of pain?

Kip Williams: Right? Right. Right. So if you feel a sense of worthlessness, and it's hard to crawl back out of that, then that's what the big question is, how do you get out of the resignation stage and I think therapy is or having supportive networks is the only way that to get out of that but how it affects him of course, we didn't know right, because he's done but but we have talked to people who do use it a lot or have used it a long time on people. And you end up with a kind of a different batches of people that there are some one woman said, My husband is an attorney. He is excellent at arguing he wins every argument we ever have. But when I started giving him the silent treatment, he would grovel back to me and apologize even if he didn't know what he would did wrong. And and I took control. She's She said it's the best thing since sliced bread. I mean, so seemed like and then she found it particularly powerful and effective in her search. weighed in with her husband. Other people have recognized that it has ruined their relationships. They started using the silent treatment and they had a difficult time stop using it, stopping to use it. As you said, how your father might have been thinking is I have this one father write this incredibly eloquent analysis where his son said something that was so disturbing and upsetting to the Father, that he just was speechless. And then he kind of continued thinking about how awful the student was at a sunset and he wouldn't talk to a Son. He that turned into the daily silent treatment, he wouldn't, he would make dinner for everybody else, but not his son. He wouldn't he they wouldn't eat together. And he wouldn't answer anything his son said, and he wouldn't say anything to the sun at all. And he said he'd noticed over time, that on the one hand, he knew his son was turning into, in his words a spineless jellyfish. And, and it was really damaging his psyche. On the other hand, he says I kept, it was such an out of character thing for me to do that I kept having to tell myself why I was doing it. So I kept having to relive that initial thing that made me so angry, and then I get angry again. And that would kind of allow me to continue giving him the silent treatment. And also to start talking would be sort of an admission that I had been behaving childishly, or, or inappropriately, and so sort of giving in, so pride kept him from breaking from breaking the silence. And I think through discussions with his wife on how damaging they were seeing how it was affecting their son, he finally forced himself little by little, by giving, he'd say, Please, or Thank you, or excuse me, to maybe some mild monosyllabic sentences to finally talking, and the son just, you know, came back. And it was it but you know, and then some people have said, they, they're there, they used to be a confront her. But then they got married to somebody that gave them the silent treatment all the time. And the only and they tried to confront but as you said, there's nothing you can do or say it was, it's like talking to a wall. And so then you end up responding with the silent treatment. And so we're noticing in our interviews, that a lot of people even who are confronting us initially, if they're with somebody that gives the silent treatment all the time, they then became someone that gave the silent treatment all the time. 

Sucheta Kamath: And so complicated. 

Kip Williams: And to quote, Paul Simon silence, like a cancer grows from the sounds of silence, so you know, we, it. There's other examples, some one that comes to mind that sounds like what you endured is that this one woman's father kind of would go through a cycle, he would get angry, he would, things would be fine for a little bit. And then she'd do something that would make him mad and blow up and get really mad at her. And then he would give her the silent treatment. And this would just be a cycle all the time, she'd be 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And this is what he did all time. And his silent treatment episodes lasted six months. 

Sucheta Kamath: Oh, my goodness. 

Kip Williams: And then finally, they'd get something would happen that they'd start talking again, but then it would happen again. And then just over and over again. And she said to when she was in her mid 20s, her father had a was in the hospital and was dying. And it was in the middle of one of these silent treatment episodes, and she thought I need to go see him anyway. And so she knocked on the hospital door. And, and he looked over, and she goes, Daddy, don't leave me. And he looked away. And he still wouldn't respond to her. And you know, these interviews are heart wrenching.

Sucheta Kamath: You're doing such painful work.

Kip Williams: I know. We had tissues in the interview room for both the interviewer and the interviewee. They're just extraordinarily difficult. This is like war stories. It's so painful. And just to balance it out a little bit. There are times where there be somebody in the interview, who is so I mean, so obnoxious, and so entitled, and so self absorbed, that you kind of in the back of your head are thinking, Oh, I know why you're being ostracized. So it's not always yes, yes, no, a victim. I mean, and indeed, there's research that so shows that people who are chronically disagreeable and chronically low in conscientiousness are more likely to be ostracized. But people get ostracized a lot. Sometimes not because of those reasons, and most of us experience it, not because we're low on agreeableness, or conscientiousness, it's because of some factors, some characteristics of the of the other person, as well. But yeah, these, these, it, it's, it's we're really interested in how the silent treatment in particular, which is like a dyadic form of of ostracism, how that emerges, why it emerges and how it affects the relationship. And it's, you know, and there's even therapy therapists that'll say, and when you're really angry, you should separate, you should not talk for a while, because you might say something that does permanent damage that you would really regret saying, and you might physically do something that you would regret doing. And so separate, and I don't disagree with that. I mean, I think having a physical separation is probably a good idea when things get explosive, when when things are really bad. But so two thoughts there. One is that physically separating is different than emotionally and socially separating where you're in the same room and not responding and not looking. And one of my students, Lisa Zadro, she comes from an Italian family where it was used a lot in her family and, and she called it the noisy silent treatment. So not only are they giving you the silent treatment, but they're stomping around the room and slamming the doors and slamming the cupboards. 

Sucheta Kamath: It reminds me of my mother who used to go from one room to the other, she would never do this directly. But she says, God, what have I done to deserve these children? And she would just walk up and but never addressed us never talked to us. And it was very Yeah, I love that noisy silent treatment.

Kip Williams: Yeah, yeah. So So I do think that sometimes, a period of silence is a good thing. But this is what I think is difficult. I think when you don't preface it, or frame it with it and give it a time constraint, I think it has that capability of perpetuating and being hard to stop using if you're the one that's doing it. So what I think is important is to say, I am so angry right now that I'm afraid of what I'm going to say or do or however you want to put it and say I need some time not to talk, I you know, you can leave or you can just stay in the same house. But you say, let's, let's agree not to talk for, you know, an hour or a day or whatever. But given it an end, you get to a point where now, okay, now we can talk again, if you don't say that if you don't, if you just go into the silent treatment without any kind of explanation, it's really hard for them to know what's going on and how to respond. And it's really hard for you to start talking again. And so if you can recognize that you're going to go into to the silent treatment, then then allow yourself a way to get back in by giving a time's up kind of a thing and say, Okay, let's let's, let's talk again, tonight at five, or whatever. And I think that that possibly could be a helpful thing. But typically, the silent treatment is not given with those kinds of instructions and is not even you're not even sure why it's happening. You come home, your partner's not talking to you you go What's wrong, they might say nothing, you know, in that kind of way, or they might not answer, and then you're left trying to guess what you did wrong. And you might generate all the bad things you've done in the last couple of days, which drives your self esteem down as well. And you don't even know what it is. And that that makes it even all the worse. If you knew exactly what it was. You did. You could apologize. You could you could at least constrain the course. Yeah. Thinking about to that that thing that you did, but often the silent treatment unlike an argument or a physical altercation, it's not clear what the causes.

Sucheta Kamath: You know, as long as I'm listening to you, I was you kind of have summed up nice solutions here. But basically, people need skills to handle conflict, stress and disagreements, you know, resorting to silent treatment is using the power to withhold one's own role in causing the disharmony or even addressing the disharmony and showing no agency to move forward. So and you're you're saying that people just need I mean, it is, in fact, you know, activating your prefrontal cortex like how can I have different outcomes or now that I'm in the middle of a chaos or disharmony? You know, something needs to change and silent treatment is really postponing taking of action.

Kip Williams: I mean, it could be a couple of different reasons. One is that you're so hurt, that you that you're, you don't want it you just disengaged in the person, you just you the most, you're so emotionally upset that you shut down, and you don't. And that net, then you're so in that sense, you're not controlling your emotions or how to respond, and you're just letting them kind of completely overpower you. But the other one is that I am so angry, I'm going to use this method to shut them down. And it's not in you know, it's powerful, you know, it's hurtful. But at the same time, the silent treatment, unlike an argument where you can say some really mean things, or a physical argument where you could hurt somebody and get into something physically damaging, is it's deniable, except I never said anything bad. I never did, you're making this up, you know, you're imagining it. You know, it one reason, you know, like, I'm going off on a tangent here, but with whistleblowers at companies, there's a whole book on how the companies react to whistleblowers. And they did terrible things that employees have killed their dogs, they've they sent them to another organization, they sent him down the to a windowless room, they've demoted them on all these things, many of which are now against the law. But at the preface of the book, the author said, everybody is ostracized, they don't even bother. This was before my work, they didn't even bother talking, you know, going into that, because that was the common response for everybody there was, was there ostracized, and there reason, you know, the rest of this have demoed and all those things are against the law now. But it's not against the law to not talk to somebody or to not answer them, or to not include them on things. And so,

Sucheta Kamath: And it's also private and invisible. Yeah, it's just treatment is not aggressive. So you're not sending bad emails, you're just not, you're excluding them, ignoring them.

Kip Williams: You're basically, you're being able to get away with something that you couldn't get away with doing it in another way. And like you say, You're angry with your spouse, and you go out to dinner with four couples at a dinner table, you could, if you obviously, if you physically assault your spouse, everybody's going to know it. If you are mean to your spouse and say mean things to them, everybody's going to know it. And then you're going to pay the pay the price of being the bad guy. If you don't talk to your spouse, and you're very gregarious with everybody else, they won't even know you're giving your partner the silent treatment, she will know or he will know that you're giving them the silent treatment, but you can get away with it in that setting, and no one will even know it. So it, it could be used very strategically, as I guess, is what I'm saying. And that maybe is if part of the executive control, you know, I mean, you could be thoughtfully doing it, because it's a way to punish without paying the price of punishing. And I think that's one of the dangers of it. And it makes my work harder. Because when I get people when I give talks on this, I am generally wanting people to be less likely to give people a silent treatment, I would like people to include other people. But I do get the occasional personal write me and say, Wow, I didn't realize how powerful it is. And now I'm using it on my kid, and I just shake my head. So you know it.

Sucheta Kamath: You said no, no, no, that's not what it is.

Kip Williams: In general, people become more aware of what they're doing and are less likely to ostracize after they know about it. But there is a form of cruelty ultimately, in our few people who just go the wrong direction with it. Yeah,

Sucheta Kamath: it is cruelty. Well, this has been so much fun. And I know I can talk easily for another hour. But I'm being very mindful of your time. So as we close, I was curious if you have some recommendations of any books that you have found interesting and useful and very meaningful, and particularly amongst all the writing you have done, what book would you recommend of your own work? That it will be valuable for people, those who are interested to explore this topic further.

Kip Williams: Okay, well, thank you for for allowing me to talk about my book. I do have a book, as you mentioned, the Ostracism: The Power of Silence, and this was written back in 2000. But it covers a lot of what I've talked about today and a lot of interviews with people who have been ostracized for a long time or who have ostracized others have been Truly, as well as all the experiments that I've done, we've certainly done a lot of work since then. But I haven't written another book. As a as an author. I've edited many books that that have to do with more recent discoveries in ostracism, which are chat, we have chapters by other researchers from all over the world contributing to this topic, it's become pretty popular topic for researchers to look at. I continue, I've talked with some clinical colleagues about writing a book that has more to do with what to do and how to deal with it and, you know, healthy ways to respond to it in healthy ways to avoid using it. haven't written the book yet. I'm going to probably waiting to save that for my retirement. As far as I don't read, you know, that when I read I read fiction, because otherwise, all I'm reading all the time is researching. So I don't really go out and read like self help books and things like that. I am reading a book right now called the, the, the let's see The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and that attracted me, because people feel invisible when they're ostracized. We've actually had participants in the lab pinch themselves. There, there's another study that says that people would like, prefer to shock themselves. Yes. So So just to remind themselves, that they exist, they'll, they'll do these sorts of things. And then the book that I'm reading right now, people forget her within 10 minutes of when she leaves, they don't remember. And so she's her whole life. And her life is longer than a typical lifespan because of other aspects of the book. But she is basically invisible to people. And I love reading literature, where feelings of invisibility and feelings that one is not worthy of other people's attention, is the focus of the book. And you get a real insight. I think, you know, a lot of times I think fiction writers have a really good handle on on things that researchers obfuscate with, with their writing. So I'm enjoying that book right now.

Sucheta Kamath: Well, fantastic. Thank you so much. All right. That's all the time we have today. Thank you again, Dr. Williams, for being my guest. As listeners you can see, these are important conversations we are having with world renowned experts. incredible knowledge and passion. That helps us think a little differently. And I hope you belong to those categories of people who will pause and reflect and definitely not engage in silent treatment and, and save somebody from deep suffering that comes with it. So as we close, here are a few things you can do. If you love what you're listening and hearing. Please share this episode with your colleagues, friends and family. And definitely if you have time, leave us a review that way people can find us more easily. Once again, thank you so much for joining me today. And I look forward to seeing you again. Right here. Next time on Full PreFrontal.