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Category: Project

Description: From the perspective of the bystander, this study explored the impact of cyber-ostracism on helping behavior and the moderating role of rejection sensitivity through two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants' rejection sensitivity was measured firstly. Cyber-ostracism was then manipulated using a social interaction scenario within a WeChat Moments-like context, followed by measuring participants' helping behavior towards both the included and excluded targets. Experiment 2 employed a modified Cyberball paradigm to manipulate cyber-ostracism and measured helping behavior through participants' resource allocation decisions (i.e., distributing tokens). The results revealed that witnessing cyber ostracism significantly promoted bystanders' helping behavior. This facilitative effect was more pronounced among bystanders with high rejection sensitivity. These findings shed light on the psychological mechanisms underlying bystanders' helping responses in the context of cyber-ostracism and provide a new perspective for understanding interpersonal interactions in digital environments.