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Publication
Facing ostracism: Micro-coding facial expressions in the Cyberball social exclusion paradigm
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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Background Social exclusion is often measured with the Cyberball paradigm, a computerized ball-tossing game.
Most Cyberball studies, however, used self-report questionnaires, leaving the data vulnerable to reporter bias, and
associations with individual characteristics have been inconsistent.
Methods In this large-scale observational study, we video-recorded 4,813 10-year-old children during Cyberball and
developed a real-time micro-coding method measuring facial expressions of anger, sadness and contempt, in a multiethnic
population-based sample. We estimated associations between facial expressions and self-reported negative
feelings, explored associations of child characteristics such as sex and parental national origin with observed and selfreported
feelings during social exclusion, and tested associations of observed and self-reported feelings during social
exclusion with behavior problems at age 14.
Results Facial expressions of sadness and anger were associated with self-reported negative feelings during the
game, but not with such feelings after the game. Further, girls reported to have had less negative feelings during the
game than boys, but no such sex-differences were found in total observed emotions. Likewise, children with parents
of Moroccan origin reported less negative feelings during the game than Dutch children, but their facial expressions
did not indicate that they were differently affected. Last, observed emotions related negatively to later internalizing
problems, whereas self-report on negative feelings during the game related positively to later internalizing and externalizing
problems.
Conclusions We show that facial expressions are associated with self-reported negative feelings during social
exclusion, discuss that reporter-bias might be minimized using facial expressions, and find divergent associations of
observed facial expressions and self-reported negative feelings with later internalizing problems.
Description
Keywords
Social exclusion Facial expressions Observational study Cyberball Epidemiology
Citation
Mulder, R. H., Tiemeier, H., Veenstra, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2023). Facing ostracism: micro-coding facial expressions in the Cyberball social exclusion paradigm. BMC Psychology, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-023-01219-x
Publisher
BioMed Central Ltd.