Out of the dark, into the light: The impact of social exclusion on judgments of darkness and brightness

Acta Psychologica 199 (2019) 102901

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Out of the dark, into the light: The impact of social exclusion on judgments of darkness and brightness☆

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Michaela Pfundmair , Sarah K. Danböck, Maria Agthe LMU-Munich, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802 Munich, Germany

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Social exclusion Darkness Brightness Grounded cognition

Based on theories of grounded cognition, we assumed that the experience of social exclusion is grounded in a concept of darkness. Specifically, we hypothesized that social exclusion causes perceptual judgments of darkness and a preference for brightness as a compensatory response. To investigate these hypotheses, we conducted four studies using different manipulations and measurements. In Studies 1a and 1b, excluded participants judged a picturized room as darker and drew more attention to its brightest part than included participants. In Study 2, excluded participants judged a surface as darker and decided for brighter clothing than included participants. In Study 3, excluded participants judged their lab room as darker and expressed a higher preference for brightness than included participants. Providing consistent support for our hypotheses, these findings confirm the idea that the experience of social exclusion is grounded in multiple ways that share a common representational system.

1. Introduction The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness,” and coupled brightness and darkness with good and bad psychological experiences. Theories of grounded cognition propose that those expressions do not only rely on linguistic habits but indicate how people think and feel. They posit that our cognition is grounded in simulations, bodily states, and situated actions (Barsalou, 2008). The current work aims at investigating whether social exclusion is also grounded in coupled experiences, specifically, those related to darkness.

existence (see Williams, 2007). This reaction to social exclusion seems so deeply anchored that it even occurs when it is not logical, for example, when exclusion is financially beneficial (Van Beest & Williams, 2006), when people are excluded by a despised outgroup (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007), or when a random computer program is the source of exclusion (Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004). After a certain amount of time, however, people usually start recovering from this threat (Hartgerink, van Beest, Wicherts, & Williams, 2015). In a subsequent reflective stage, excluded people try to cope with the social pain which can be reflected in a range of pro- and anti-social behaviors (for an overview, see Wesselmann, Ren, & Williams, 2015).

1.1. The impact of social exclusion

1.2. Grounded cognition

The need to form and maintain social bonds is a fundamental human motivation (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Bowlby, 1969; Maslow, 1968) that was adaptive for our ancestors' survival (Gruter & Masters, 1986). Not being able to fulfil this need reasonably activates an effective alarm system. According to the temporal need-threat model (Williams, 2009), excluded people first enter a reflexive stage in which neural pain reactions similar to physical pain emerge (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003; but see Woo et al., 2014). Even after brief episodes of social exclusion, people report lower satisfaction of fundamental needs, such as belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful

Theories of grounded cognition reject the assumption that knowledge is stored in a semantic memory system which is separate from modal systems for action, perception, and introspection, and that representations of modal systems are transferred into amodal symbols which represent the knowledge. Instead, they assume that simulations, bodily states, and situated actions form the basis of multimodal representations that are acquired while making experiences (Barsalou, 2008). Most approaches are based on the role of simulation, a rerun of motor, perceptual and introspective states during experiencing the world (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Decety & Grèzes, 2006; Goldman, 2006).

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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Corresponding author at: LMU-Munich, Department of Psychology, Leopoldstr. 13, 80802 Munich, Germany. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Pfundmair), [email protected] (S.K. Danböck), [email protected] (M. Agthe).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.102901 Received 3 February 2019; Received in revised form 21 July 2019; Accepted 31 July 2019 0001-6918/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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1.5. The current predictions

That is, when a person has an experience (e.g., enjoying a cup of tea), the brain stores sensations of different modalities within a multimodal representation (e.g., raising the cup to the mouth, the warmth and smell of the tea, introspections of well-being). When knowledge associated with a category (e.g., a cup) is retrieved, multimodal representations are reactivated. Thus, grounded cognition suggests that cognition is grounded in multiple ways.

According to this reasoning, in the current studies, we predicted excluded people to indicate higher levels of darkness when making perceptual judgments compared to included people. We call this hypothesis the darkness hypothesis. Moreover, we predicted excluded participants to indicate a greater desire for brightness in a compensatory reaction. We call this the desire for brightness hypothesis. We investigated these hypotheses in four studies, using different manipulations of social exclusion and different stimuli and measurements for judgments of darkness and desire for brightness. Stimulus materials and data of all studies are provided as Supplementary Information files.

1.3. Evidence for grounded cognition in the experience of social exclusion There is first evidence that the experience of social exclusion is also grounded in multiple ways, reaching from associations with specific sensory perceptions to certain bodily states. Research has shown, for example, that excluded participants experience the temperature of a room as colder (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008) and have lower finger temperatures (IJzerman et al., 2012) than included participants. Correspondingly, excluded participants have a greater desire for warm food and drinks than included participants (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008), and the experience of warmth compensates negative affect induced by exclusion (IJzerman et al., 2012). Other studies have revealed that participants estimate an excluding other as farther away than an including other (Knowles, Green, & Weidel, 2014), and that excluded participants in powerful postures report more negative affect than those in nonpowerful postures (Welker, Oberleitner, Cain, & Carré, 2013).

2. Studies 1a and 1b Studies 1a and 1b were a first test to determine whether social exclusion influences judgments of darkness and the desire for brightness. We manipulated inclusionary status by the widely used online balltossing game Cyberball (Hartgerink et al., 2015; Williams & Jarvis, 2006) before letting participants judge the picture of a room regarding their perceived darkness level (Study 1a) and regarding their self-reported focus on brightness (Study 1b). We predicted excluded participants to judge the room as darker (i.e., the darkness hypothesis) and to focus more on bright parts of the room (i.e., the desire for brightness hypothesis) than included participants.

1.4. Social exclusion, judgments of darkness, and the desire for brightness

2.1. Method

Social exclusion may also be represented in terms of darkness. Studies have proven evidence for a causal relationship between negative experiences per se and darkness: In one study, for example, participants judged negative words as darker than positive words (Meier, Robinson, Crawford, & Ahlvers, 2007). Whereas negative experiences seem to be related to darkness, brightness seems to be a desired compensation for such unfavorable situations. For example, participants who felt hopeless judged their environment as darker and also expressed a greater desire for brightness (Dong, Huang, & Zhong, 2015). Similarly, participants who recalled a time when they performed an unethical deed perceived their surroundings to be darker which led to a greater preference for light-producing objects (Banerjee, Chatterjee, & Sinha, 2012). The assumption that particularly social exclusion and darkness are coupled and that brightness serves a compensatory strategy is also supported by more direct indicators. On the one hand, it can be derived from incidents over lifetime. In early childhood, parents couple darkness with social exclusion on a regular basis by putting their children to bed at a determined time and ignore them systematically until the next morning (Mindell, 1999). During adolescence and adulthood, a coupling of darkness and social exclusion occurs seasonal: The rather dark and cold months of winter and spring are associated with the highest degrees of feeling lonely (Wenz, 1977). Also older people face challenges in maintaining their social life in winter as bad winter conditions increase their odds for loneliness (Rantakokko et al., 2014). On the other hand, support for a coupling between social exclusion and darkness might be derived from the emergence of depression, a disorder often called a disease of loneliness (e.g., Mushtaq, Shoib, Shah, & Mushtaq, 2014). In winter, a seasonal peak of depressive symptoms can be observed in healthy individuals (Spoont, Depue, & Krauss, 1991). Reduced daylight in winter can even increase the likelihood of clinically relevant depressive symptoms (Molin, Mellerup, Bolwig, Scheike, & Dam, 1996) and cause a so-called “winter depression” (Rosenthal et al., 1984). Whereas darkness aggravates its symptoms, brightness can bring cure since winter depression can be treated by light therapy (Golden et al., 2005). All in all, previous work indicates that social exclusion is likely to be linked with darkness. Brightness, on the other hand, seems to be a desired remedy.

2.1.1. Participants and design In Study 1a, 189 students and co-workers from a German university (142 female, 46 male; mean age = 25.11, SD = 9.66) participated online for research credit. We conducted an a priori power analysis to test the adequacy of our sample size to detect a difference between two independent means using G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). We specified an alpha level of 0.05, a 1-β error probability of 0.80, and an effect size d of 0.35 (for a small to medium effect). The results of the analysis suggested a total recommended sample size of 204. Participants in Study 1b were 314 people (190 female, 121 male, 3 did not specify sex; mean age = 35.51, SD = 12.16) from the United States who completed the online short study through Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk for $0.15. We conducted an a priori power analysis to test the adequacy of our sample size to detect an effect in contingency tables with numerator degrees of freedom of 4. We specified an alpha level of 0.05, a 1-β error probability of 0.80, and an effect size w of 0.20 (for a small to medium effect). The results of the analysis suggested a total recommended sample size of 299. Participants were randomly assigned to an exclusion (Study 1a: N = 92; Study 1b: N = 168) or inclusion condition (Study 1a: N = 97; Study 1b: N = 146). 2.1.2. Procedure and materials After informed consent was obtained, participants were informed that the study would investigate how people feel and behave in social interactions. Introducing the manipulation, they were told that they would play a ball-tossing game called Cyberball with two other participants on an Internet platform. Unbeknownst to the participants, the two other participants were completely computerized and threw the ball to the participant only twice at the beginning of the game (exclusion condition) or one third of the time (inclusion condition) for a total of 30 throws (Williams & Jarvis, 2006). After playing Cyberball, the main measure was presented: In Study 1a, participants responded to a judgment of darkness measure; in Study 1b, participants responded to a desire for brightness measure. A debriefing followed the manipulation check in both studies. 2

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processes, which supports the desire for brightness hypothesis.

2.1.2.1. Judgment of darkness. In Study 1a, participants were presented a picture of a room in shades of grey which featured a dark grey floor, a light grey ceiling, black walls, and a bright window on the left side. They were asked to respond to the following question on a 1 = bright to 6 = dark response scale: “How bright/dark do you assess this room?”

3. Study 2 Study 1a provided evidence for the hypothesis that excluded people indicate higher levels of darkness in their perceptual judgments, and Study 1b showed that they also seem to desire brightness in a compensatory reaction. In Study 2, we aimed to replicate these findings within one and, to investigate the effects' generalizability, different design. After manipulating inclusionary status by a future-life task (Pfundmair, Aydin, & Frey, 2017; Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, & Stucke, 2001), we measured darkness evaluations by judging a black-and-white surface and investigated the desire for brightness in a more applied context, by rating preferences for dark to bright clothing. We predicted excluded participants to judge the surface as darker than included participants (i.e., the darkness hypothesis), and to prefer bright clothes more than included participants (i.e., the desire for brightness hypothesis).

2.1.2.2. Desire for brightness. In Study 1b, participants were presented the same picture of the room. To assess their desire for light, participants were asked to indicate where they focused most of their attention on in this room using the following options: to the left side, to the right side, to the middle, to the floor, to the ceiling. As described before, the directions corresponded to different shades of grey and, thus, different brightness levels. 2.1.2.3. Manipulation check. Social exclusion threatens specific fundamental needs (Williams, 2007, 2009). Therefore, participants responded to a 4-item needs satisfaction short scale to indicate how they felt during the Cyberball game (e.g., “invisible-recognized”; Rudert & Greifeneder, 2016) using 5-point semantic differentials. All items were combined to an overall needs satisfaction scale (Study 1a: α = 0.86; Study 1b: α = 0.93).

3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants and design A total of 92 students and co-workers from a German university (mean age = 32.51, SD = 13.17) participated in this online study voluntarily. Due to the design of the study (i.e., the task of choosing female clothing), only female participants were included. With relatively strong effect sizes in Studies 1a and 1b, sample size determination in Study 2 was oriented toward the recommended cell size of 30 for 0.80 power given a medium to large effect (VanVoorhis & Morgan, 2007). Participants were randomly assigned to an exclusion (N = 44) or inclusion condition (N = 48).

2.2. Results 2.2.1. Manipulation check To check the impact of the inclusionary status manipulation, a t-test was conducted on the manipulation check in each study. In Study 1a, excluded participants reported significantly less needs satisfaction (M = 1.90, SD = 0.67) than included participants (M = 2.82, SD = 0.76), t(187) = 8.90, p < .001, d = 1.30, 95%CI = [0.98, 1.61]. In Study 1b, excluded participants also indicated significantly less needs satisfaction (M = 2.08, SD = 0.97) than included participants (M = 3.03, SD = 1.10), t(312) = 8.16, p < .001, d = 0.92, 95%CI = [0.69, 1.16].

3.1.2. Procedure and materials After informed consent was obtained, participants were informed that the study would investigate how personality traits interact with product decisions. First, they were asked to fill out a personality questionnaire including six items of an extraversion scale (Körner et al., 2008) and four additional items about the future to bolster the cover story. Based on procedures by Twenge et al. (2001), false feedback on the personality test was presented in the following. To gain credibility, the computer first gave an accurate assessment of the participant's real extraversion score in form of a “personality type” description. Whereas participants with future-alone feedback were then told that they would end up alone later in life (exclusion condition), participants with futurebelonging feedback were told that they would have rewarding relationships throughout life (inclusion condition). Next, participants were presented a judgment of darkness and a desire for brightness measure in line with the cover story evaluating products. Then, they responded to a manipulation check. In the end, they were thoroughly debriefed.

2.2.2. Judgment of darkness To investigate the hypothesis that excluded participants make darker perceptual judgments than included participants, we conducted a t-test on the judgment of darkness measure of Study 1a. As hypothesized, excluded participants judged the picturized room as significantly darker (M = 3.50, SD = 1.04) than included participants (M = 3.19, SD = 1.08), t(187) = −2.03, p = .044, d = 0.30, 95%CI = [0.01, 0.58]. 2.2.3. Desire for brightness To explore the hypothesis that excluded participants express a greater desire for brightness than included participants, we conducted a chi-square test of independence between inclusionary status and the participants' self-reported attentional focus assessed in Study 1b. Inclusionary status was significantly associated with attentional focus, χ2(4) = 9.67, p = .046, V = 0.18: Whereas focussing on the right side (exclusion: 7; inclusion, 8), on the middle (exclusion: 37; inclusion; 35), and on the ceiling (exclusion: 4; inclusion: 1) revealed similar frequencies in both conditions, excluded participants focused more on the brightest part of the room, the left side (exclusion: 110; inclusion: 80), and included participants focused more on the floor, a rather dark part of the room (exclusion: 10; inclusion: 22).

3.1.2.1. Judgment of darkness. Participants were presented a surface showing an abstract pattern in shades of grey. They were asked to assess the surface on a 1 = dark to 10 = bright response scale. 3.1.2.2. Desire for brightness. Participants were shown four female clothing articles in random order (jeans, shirt, shorts, and top). Each clothing article was presented in four levels of brightness, from 1 = dark to 4 = bright. The lightness value (V) ranged around 10% for the first, 35% for the second, 70% for the third, and 95% for the forth clothing article, so brightness changed in approximately equal amounts. After each garment, participants were asked which one they would choose at the moment (α = 0.63).

2.3. Discussion Excluded participants in Study 1a judged the picturized room as darker than included participants, providing support for the darkness hypothesis. Moreover, excluded compared to included participants in Study 1b revealed a stronger self-reported focus on the bright side of a relatively dark picturized room. Thus, when excluded, our participants seemed to be guided by glimpses of light in their voluntary attentional

3.1.2.3. Manipulation check. Participants responded to 20 items measuring fundamental needs satisfaction (e.g., “I felt powerful”; based on Jamieson, Harkins, & Williams, 2010) on 1 = not at all to 3

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desire for brightness. To experience both social exclusion and levels of darkness and brightness first hand, we went to the lab. We manipulated inclusionary status by simulating a web conference (Goodacre & Zadro, 2010; Pfundmair, 2018), and measured darkness evaluations and brightness preferences by judging the lab room. We expected excluded participants to judge the lab room as darker than included participants (i.e., the darkness hypothesis). Moreover, we hypothesized excluded participants to prefer a brighter lab room than included participants (i.e., the desire for brightness hypothesis). Previous studies have revealed a consistent link between darkness and negative assessments (e.g., Adams & Osgood, 1973; Frank & Gilovich, 1988). However, we did not expect negative mood to represent the underlying mechanism for the effect of social exclusion on judgments of darkness but, instead, considered a more direct coupling. To test this consideration, we additionally investigated mood. Moreover, to check whether the effect was confounded by demand characteristics, we investigated the participants' assumptions about the study's goal.

5 = very much response scales (α = 0.92). As the future-life paradigm is known for its insensitivity toward the need-threat scale (Bernstein & Claypool, 2012), we moreover analyzed the underlying subscales: belonging (α = 0.76), self-esteem (α = 0.81), control (α = 0.75), and meaningful existence (α = 0.79). 3.2. Results 3.2.1. Manipulation check To check the impact of the inclusionary status manipulation, t-tests were conducted on the overall need satisfaction scale and its four subscales. Neither the overall scale, t(90) = 0.99, p = .326, d = 0.21, 95%CI = [−0.20, 0.62], nor the belonging, t(90) = 0.47, p = .641, d = 0.10, 95%CI = [−0.31, 0.51], self-esteem, t(90) = 0.63, p = .530, d = 0.11, 95%CI = [−0.30, 0.52], and meaningful existence subscales, t(90) = 0.44, p = .665, d = 0.09, 95%CI = [−0.32, 0.50], revealed significant effects. For the control subscale, however, a marginally significant effect emerged, t(90) = 1.98, p = .051, d = 0.41, 95%CI = [−0.002, 0.82]: Excluded participants indicated a lower sense of control (M = 3.15, SD = 0.68) than included participants (M = 3.43, SD = 0.65).

4.1. Method 4.1.1. Participants and design Sixty students from a German university (46 female, 14 male; mean age = 21.70, SD = 3.63) participated in this lab study in single sessions, and received research credit for volunteering. As in Study 2, sample size determination was oriented toward the recommended cell size of 30 for 0.80 power given a medium to large effect. Participants were randomly assigned to an exclusion (N = 30) or inclusion condition (N = 30).

3.2.2. Judgment of darkness A t-test revealed that excluded participants judged the surface as significantly darker (M = 3.39, SD = 1.24) than included participants (M = 4.04, SD = 1.62), t(90) = 2.16, p = .034, d = 0.45, 95%CI = [0.04, 0.86]. 3.2.3. Desire for brightness Another t-test showed that participants in the exclusion condition preferred brighter clothing (M = 3.20, SD = 0.84) than participants in the inclusion condition (M = 2.71, SD = 0.96), t(90) = −2.63, p = .010, d = 0.55, 95%CI = [0.16, 0.96]. Since we hypothesized that an increased desire for brightness is a compensatory reaction for higher judgments of darkness, we investigated whether the participants' judgments of darkness were related to their desire for brightness using a Pearson's correlation. No significant correlation emerged, r(90) = −0.15, p = .155, r2 = 0.02, however, the negative coefficient indicated a tendency for the proposed relationship: The darker participants judged the surface, the higher was their preference for bright clothing.

4.1.2. Procedure and materials Participants were led into a windowless room with middle ambient lightning which was kept at a constant level. After indicating their consent, the inclusionary status manipulation, the O-Cam paradigm (Goodacre & Zadro, 2010), was delivered. Participants were informed that the study would investigate knowledge acquisition in web conferences. Therefore, they were asked to prepare a short self-presentation which should be hold in front of a webcam with two other participants watching from another room. Unbeknownst to the participants, the two other participants were actually actors whose actions were prerecorded. They listened to the participant's speech for 15 s, and then turned to each other, began having a conversation for the following 75 s and ignored the participant (exclusion condition), or they appeared to listen to the participant throughout his or her speech (inclusion condition). Immediately after this, participants were presented a judgment of darkness and a desire for brightness measure as part of the cover story evaluating the conditions of the web conference. Embedded in a series of pseudo tasks and questions on the web conference, they responded to a manipulation check and a mood measure. Before debriefing, participants were asked to indicate their assumptions about the study's goal.

3.3. Discussion Excluded participants in Study 2 judged a surface as darker than included participants. This provides support for the darkness hypothesis. We also observed a greater desire for bright clothing in excluded compared to included participants. Interestingly, excluded persons did not want to hide away by choosing inconspicuous dark clothes (i.e., protective mimicry), but chose bright clothing instead. Thus, the desire for brightness effect also emerged in a more applied context. The assumption that darker perceptual judgments are directly related to a wish for brighter circumstances was supported in tendencies. However, the manipulation check was only successful in one of its subscales. Despite the limitations following this failure, this seems plausible considering the paradigm's known insensitivity toward the measurement of basic needs (Bernstein & Claypool, 2012). Moreover, the brightness measure was associated with some limitations: The differences between the scale points were not exactly equal and its reliability was rather low.

4.1.2.1. Judgment of darkness. Participants answered the question “How do you rate the lab room?” on a 1 = dark to 7 = bright response scale. 4.1.2.2. Desire for brightness. They responded to the item “How would you design the lab room?” on a 1 = significantly darker than at the moment to 5 = significantly brighter than at the moment response scale. 4.1.2.3. Manipulation check. As in the previous study, participants responded to the 20-items needs satisfaction measure on 1 = not at all to 5 = very much response scales (α = 0.89; based on Jamieson et al., 2010).

4. Study 3 Due to the shortcoming of the used paradigm of the latter study, we aimed to conduct another and potentially more powerful test to determine whether social exclusion influences judgments of darkness and

4.1.2.4. Mood. Mood was assessed using four bipolar items (bad-good, 4

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between judgments of darkness and a desire for brightness was highly significant which supported the assumption of preference for brightness being a compensatory reaction. Experiencing both social exclusion and the room which had to be judged first hand, the expected effects could be observed in a most sensible context. Notably, mood was not affected by social exclusion. This is consistent with previous research finding only small mood effects and rather neutral emotional states after exclusion (Blackhart, Nelson, Knowles, & Baumeister, 2009). Importantly, however, this indicates that negative mood is not a necessary precondition for the effect of social exclusion on judgments of darkness and a desire for brightness. It should be noted that a stronger test for this assumption (and a worthwhile modification for future studies) would be to use a paradigm which affects mood in excluded participants and to investigate whether mood accounts for the darkness effect or not. Moreover, none of the participants guessed the study's exact goal. Therefore, demand characteristics were unlikely to confound the findings.

happy-sad, tense-relaxed, easygoing-stressed) to be rated on 5-point scales (α = 0.81; IJzerman et al., 2012). 4.1.2.5. Assumptions about study. Participants were asked to speculate about the study's goal in an open text field. We assigned their answers to one of five categories: impact of inclusionary status on judgments of darkness and brightness; impact of the room's characteristics on inclusionary status; impact of inclusionary status on attentional or perceptual processes; impact of inclusionary status on anything else; other. 4.2. Results 4.2.1. Manipulation check To check the impact of the inclusionary status manipulation, a t-test was conducted on the manipulation check. Excluded participants reported significantly less needs satisfaction (M = 2.12, SD = 0.61) than included participants (M = 2.97, SD = 0.39), t(58) = 6.49, p < .001, d = 1.67, 95%CI = [1.08, 2.26].

5. Overall effects

4.2.2. Judgment of darkness Another t-test revealed that excluded participants tended to judge the lab room as darker (M = 2.83, SD = 1.12) than included participants (M = 3.43, SD = 1.36), t(58) = 1.87, p = .066, d = 0.48, 95%CI = [−0.03, 0.99].

To assess the overall effect of social exclusion on judgments of darkness and a desire for brightness, we conducted a mini meta-analysis by summing up all studies (as similarly done in Aydin, Agthe, Pfundmair, Frey, & DeWall, 2017). We performed a 2 (inclusionary status: exclusion vs. inclusion) × 3 (study: Study 1a vs. Study 2 vs. Study 3) ANOVA on the standardized judgment of darkness score; values were recoded so that a lower score indicated higher levels of darkness and a higher score higher levels of brightness. A significant main effect of inclusionary status emerged, F (1,335) = 11.41, p = .001, ηp2 = 0.03, 95%CI = [0.01, 0.08]: Excluded participants judged all issues presented to them as significantly darker (M = −0.19, SD = 0.92) than included participants (M = 0.18, SD = 1.04). Neither a main effect of study, F (2,335) = 0.002, p = 1.00, ηp2 < 0.001, 95%CI = [0.00, 0.00], nor an interaction effect emerged, F(2,335) = 0.29, p = .752, ηp2 = 0.002, 95%CI = [0.00, 0.02]. Moreover, a 2 (inclusionary status: exclusion vs. inclusion) × 2 (study: Study 2 vs. Study 3) ANOVA on the standardized desire for brightness score was conducted; as the score of Study 1b was not interval-scaled, it could not be integrated. A significant main effect of inclusionary status emerged, F(1,148) = 13.12, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.08, 95%CI = [0.02, 0.17]: Excluded participants indicated a greater desire for brightness with regard to all issues presented to them (M = 0.29, SD = 0.93) than included participants (M = −0.28, SD = 0.99). Neither a main effect of study, F(1,148) = 0.01, p = .943, ηp2 < 0.001, 95%CI = [0.00, 0.00], nor an interaction effect emerged, F (1,148) = 0.09, p = .763, ηp2 = 0.001, 95%CI = [0.00, 0.03]. All in all, the small meta-analysis revealed consistent effects across different samples and measures. The darkness effect revealed to be small to medium (d = 0.35), whereas the desire for brightness effect was medium to large (d = 0.59). Importantly, study as a factor and, thus, kind of measurement did not affect the pattern of results at all, pointing to a generalizability of the effects.

4.2.3. Desire for brightness A third t-test showed that participants in the exclusion condition indicated that they would prefer the lab room to be significantly brighter (M = 4.23, SD = 0.63) than participants in the inclusion condition (M = 3.83, SD = 0.59), t(58) = −2.54, p = .014, d = 0.66, 95%CI = [0.17, 1.17]. To test the relationship between the participants' judgments of darkness and their desire for brightness, a Pearson's correlation was conducted. It revealed a significant effect, r(58) = −0.45, p < .001, r2 = 0.20: The darker participants judged the lab room, the higher was their preference for brightness. 4.2.4. Additional variables To address our additional research questions apart from the main hypotheses, we examined the impact of inclusionary status on mood. A t-test showed that excluded participants did not significantly differ in their mood (M = 3.02, SD = 0.94) from included participants (M = 3.18, SD = 0.69), t(58) = 0.79, p = .434, d = 0.20, 95%CI = [−0.31, 0.71]. Second, we explored the participants' assumptions about the study's goal. None of the participants considered the study to investigate the influence of exclusion vs. inclusion on judgments of darkness and brightness. Three participants thought that the study investigated how characteristics of the room affected feelings of exclusion and inclusion. Three participants speculated that the study explored the influence of inclusionary status on perceptual or attentional processes. Thirteen participants considered the study to investigate the influence of exclusion vs. inclusion on something else. A total of 41 participants indicated another goal, neither related to exclusion nor to judgments of darkness and brightness.

6. General discussion

4.3. Discussion

The present studies provided evidence that excluded people 1) indicate higher levels of darkness in perceptual judgments and 2) desire more brightness in a compensatory response. Whereas the former effect revealed to be a rather small one, the latter was rather large. Specifically, Studies 1a and 1b revealed that excluded participants judged a picturized room as darker and drew more attention to the brightest part of the room than included participants. Supporting the effects in another context, Study 2 showed that excluded participants judged a mere surface as darker and decided for brighter clothing than included participants. Ultimately, excluded participants in Study 3

In line with the previous studies, participants in the exclusion condition judged the lab room as darker than participants in the inclusion condition, which supports the darkness hypothesis. Although the p-value did not reveal a conventionally significant difference, the effect size indicated a medium effect for this finding – the strongest one compared to that of the other studies. Moreover, participants faced with social exclusion expressed a higher preference for brightness, providing evidence for the desire for brightness hypothesis. The relationship 5

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more visible. As the typically deprived needs after social exclusion are linked to desired re-inclusion, particularly the inclusionary cluster (Williams, 2009), and also map the fear of being invisible, particularly the power-provocation cluster (Williams, 2009), we conducted analyses with the fundamental needs as mediators for the relationship between social exclusion and desire for brightness to test this possibility. No mediation effects occurred.2 This also points to a more direct coupling between judgments of darkness and the desire of brightness.

judged their lab room as darker and expressed a higher preference for brightness in their room than included participants, providing evidence for the effects in a highly sensible context. 6.1. The results in the context of earlier research These findings confirm the idea that the experience of social exclusion is grounded in multiple ways, in our case, associations with darkness. In human biographies, instances of social exclusion may be coupled with perceptions of darkness – why memories of darkness may be reactivated when exclusion is experienced (see Barsalou, 2008). This reasoning complies with previous research showing an association between social exclusion and sensory perceptions (e.g., coldness; IJzerman et al., 2012; Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008) as well as bodily states (e.g., interpersonal distance; Knowles et al., 2014; Pitts, Wilson, & Hugenberg, 2014). That social exclusion might be directly coupled with darkness and is not an indirect consequence of anything negative taking place received support from Study 3. To run another test for the assumption that the coupling between social exclusion and darkness is a direct one, we conducted mediation analyses with the typically deprived needs after social exclusion which were actually used as manipulation checks in the current studies. No mediation effects occurred.1 Thus, we could also rule out the possibility that the increased darkness judgments were an indirect consequence of deprived needs. As brightness has the potential to attenuate feelings of danger and threat (Okken, van Rompay, & Pruyn, 2013; Schaller, Park, & Mueller, 2003), reacting to an experienced threat with a preference for brightness seems very common and might even be adaptive. From an evolutionary perspective, the desire for brightness is meaningful for the avoidance of incalculable threats and insecurity linked to darkness (e.g., the heightened threat of falling prey to a predator). Consistent with the adaptive preference for brightness in case of a threat, participants in previous research who felt hopeless (Dong et al., 2015) or recalled a time when they performed an unethical deed (Banerjee et al., 2012) showed a similar desire for brightness. Our results comply with these findings and support the assumption of brightness being a desired compensation in unfavorable situations, in our case, social exclusion. Particularly Study 3 suggested a relationship between judgments of darkness and a desire for brightness, why we assume brightness to be a remedy for the darkness associated with exclusion. However, instead of being a direct perceptual consequence, it could also be argued that brightness is a reminder of social inclusion or represents the wish to be

6.2. Implications of the current findings In providing evidence for the idea that the experience of social exclusion is grounded in a concept of darkness, the current findings support theories of grounded cognition. Thus, a diverse collection of simulation mechanisms seems to support the spectrum of cognitive activities, many of them automatically (Barsalou, 2008). Incorporating these insights into theories of social exclusion, associations with specific sensory perceptions like coldness (IJzerman et al., 2012; Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008) and darkness (this study) which seem to occur as direct and unmediated responses to social exclusion should be conceptually added to the temporal need-threat model's reflexive stage (Williams, 2009). Since research has revealed that there is potential for moderation in the reflexive stage (Hartgerink et al., 2015), this might entail interesting practical implications. Avoiding a dark environment in settings in which people easily feel excluded could potentially help to suppress the immediate social pain. Besides deepening our understanding of grounded cognition and social exclusion, the current studies also provide first experimental evidence for a causal link between loneliness and darkness. This adds to previous field studies (e.g. Rantakokko et al., 2014; Wenz, 1977), epidemiological studies (e.g., Molin et al., 1996; Spoont et al., 1991) and clinical trials (Golden et al., 2005) which have indicated that increased darkness or reduced brightness levels may cause loneliness and depression. Altogether, this might point to a vicious circle in which experiencing darkness enhances loneliness and depressive symptoms which, in turn, intensify judgments of darkness. The idea of such harmful amplificatory effects stresses the potential relevance of avoiding darkness in areas where people are at risk or suffer from feelings of loneliness (e.g. retirement homes, hospitals). 6.3. Limitations and future research It should be noted that some of our effects were based on marginal significance levels and that especially the lab study was low in power. However, all in all, our studies revealed a consistent pattern why we feel confident that also these effects added to the overall picture.

1

To investigate whether judgments of darkness after social exclusion were driven by the participants' deprived fundamental needs, we conducted mediation analyses using the Process tool by Hayes (2013; model 4, 5000 bootstrap samples) in Studies 1a, 2 and 3. We entered inclusionary status (dummy coded as −1 = social exclusion and +1 = social inclusion) as independent variable, the overall needs satisfaction scale as well as the inclusionary (mean value of belonging, self-esteem) and power-provocation needs satisfaction cluster (mean value of control, meaningful existence) as mediators, and judgment of darkness as dependent variable. In Study 1a, the indirect effect of inclusionary status on judgment of darkness via overall needs satisfaction, b = 0.02, SE = 0.05, 95%CI = [−0.08, 0.13], inclusionary needs satisfaction, b = −0.01, SE = 0.05, 95%CI = [−0.10, 0.08], or power-provocation needs satisfaction, b = 0.05, SE = 0.05, 95%CI = [−0.06, 0.15], was not statistically different from zero as evidenced by bootstrap confidence intervals that contained zero. Similarly, in Study 2, the indirect effect of inclusionary status on judgment of darkness via overall needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.03, 95%CI = [−0.03, 0.08], inclusionary needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.02, 95%CI = [−0.02, 0.10], or power-provocation needs satisfaction, b = 0.001, SE = 0.03, 95%CI = [−0.05, 0.06], was not statistically different from zero. Also in Study 3, the indirect effect of inclusionary status on judgment of darkness via overall needs satisfaction, b = −0.13, SE = 0.12, 95%CI = [−0.42, 0.07], inclusionary needs satisfaction, b = 0.003, SE = 0.09, 95%CI = [−0.19, 0.16], or power-provocation needs satisfaction, b = −0.23, SE = 0.15, 95%CI = [−0.60, 0.01], did not reach significance.

2 To investigate whether desire for brightness in response to social exclusion was driven by the participants' deprived fundamental needs, we conducted mediation analyses using the Process tool by Hayes (2013; model 4, 5000 bootstrap samples) in Studies 2 and 3. We entered inclusionary status (dummy coded as −1 = social exclusion and +1 = social inclusion) as independent variable, the overall needs satisfaction scale as well as the inclusionary (mean value of belonging, self-esteem) and power-provocation needs satisfaction cluster (mean value of control, meaningful existence) as mediators, and desire for brightness as dependent variable. In Study 2, the indirect effect of inclusionary status on desire for brightness via overall needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.02, 95%CI = [−0.01, 0.08], inclusionary needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.01, 95%CI = [−0.01, 0.06], or power-provocation needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.02, 95%CI = [−0.01, 0.08], was not statistically different from zero as evidenced by bootstrap confidence intervals that contained zero. Similarly, in Study 3, the indirect effect of inclusionary status on desire for brightness via overall needs satisfaction, b = 0.03, SE = 0.07, 95%CI = [−0.12, 0.18], inclusionary needs satisfaction, b = 0.03, SE = 0.05, 95%CI = [−0.08, 0.13], or power-provocation needs satisfaction, b = 0.01, SE = 0.07, 95%CI = [−0.14, 0.16], was not statistically different from zero.

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psychological consequences to seemingly detached perceptual judgments which, however, share a common representational system. Desiring light despite of darkness, as Desmond Tutu stated, in fact seems to be a natural reaction to social exclusion and might also be a way to cope with the pain of social exclusion.

In our set of studies, we used social inclusion as control condition as research has argued that we are usually surrounded by people who accept us (Leary, 1999) and previous studies did not find differences between inclusion and (neutral) control conditions (e.g., Dvir, Kelly, & Williams, 2019), supporting the idea of inclusion being a default. This pattern did not only occur for affective constructs like needs satisfaction and mood (Dvir et al., 2019), but also for cognitive (e.g., word generation; Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003) and behavioral ones (e.g., taking creative pictures; Riva, Williams, Torstrick, & Montali, 2014). Thus, inclusion as default seems to be valid across various contexts. Nevertheless, differences between inclusion and (neutral) control conditions in perceptual judgments (e.g. of darkness, coldness, or distance) have not been investigated so far why we do not know whether or not they may operate differently from other constructs. Thus, we cannot ultimately differentiate whether exclusion makes people to judge their environment as darker or whether inclusion causes people to judge their environment as brighter. Although Study 1b gained some support for exclusion being the critical condition for the current effects, an additional control condition in future research would be able to address this question more clearly. Recently, the assumption that perception is influenced by top-down processes, such as beliefs, motivations or emotions, was challenged (Firestone & Scholl, 2016; but see, for example, Clore & Proffitt, 2016; De Haas, Schwarzkopf, & Rees, 2016). It was argued that studies with evidence for top-down effects on perception fall prey to several pitfalls: a confirmatory research strategy, an unclear distinction between perception and judgment, contaminations by demand characteristics, lowlevel differences when manipulating perceptual stimuli, a focus on subtle or peripheral attentional effects, and muddling perception with memory or recognition. Whereas the latter three pitfalls do not apply to the design of the current studies, the former three might do. However, it should be very clear that this work did not investigate perception but perceptual judgments. Moreover, as indicated by Study 3, demand characteristics did not seem to play a role. Yet, to explore the darkness and desire for brightness effects in different operationalizations, no disconfirmatory research strategy was chosen. Thus, one of the six pitfalls applies to the current studies. To overcome this, future research should implement such a strategy, for example, by using a scale of grayscale patches to rate a room's darkness level after social exclusion which should cancel the effect out (Firestone & Scholl, 2014). In light of recent failures to replicate the relationship between negative experiences and perceptual judgments (Brandt, IJzerman, & Blanken, 2014), more evidence for the current effect seems highly recommended anyway. Though our studies provided evidence about changed perceptual judgments and desires after being exposed to social exclusion, so far, little is known about how an actual fulfilling of this desire interacts with people's well-being. Future research could investigate if external manipulation of lighting enhances or diminishes emerging distress after social exclusion similar to induced warmth (IJzerman et al., 2012). This approach would be close to the principle of light therapy with patients suffering from the so-called winter depression (Golden et al., 2005). Moreover, future studies could attend to the question whether social exclusion might not only be potentially mitigated by light in terms of humans' sense of vision (e.g., by sunlight or daylight lamps), but also by other senses like acuesthesia (e.g., by music or voices that are acoustically light). If social exclusion is grounded in multiple ways, an interesting question for future research would also be which other perceptual judgments might be coupled with being excluded, such as a taste of bitterness, a higher sensitivity for (aversive) noises or voices, or the perception of hills, slopes or stairs as being more steep and exhaustive (see Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci, & Proffitt, 2008).

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