Abstract
The current research aimed to investigate the relationship between ostracism and insomnia and whether the relationship is mediated by rumination and has implications on subjective well-being. A cross-sectional design was adopted. A sample of 219 undergraduate students from a public university in Hong Kong participated in this study. Participants completed a series of well-validated measures to assess their dispositional ostracism, rumination, insomnia, and subjective well-being. As predicted, the results revealed that ostracism was positively associated with rumination and insomnia and negatively associated with subjective well-being. Moreover, the relationship between ostracism and insomnia was mediated by increased rumination, and such an ostracism–rumination–insomnia link was associated with reduced subjective well-being. These findings have implications for advancing current theories about negative outcomes of ostracism and the underlying psychological mechanisms. They also emphasize the significant role that interpersonal relationships play in easing insomnia and enhancing subjective well-being.
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Notes
We conducted preliminary analyses to compare gender differences on all variables. The results revealed that men reported significantly higher levels of ostracism than women reported, t(217) = 2.75, p = .006, but not on rumination, insomnia, and subjective well-being, ps > .30. Gender did not interact with ostracism in predicting all outcome variables, ps > .28. Because the current research did not focus on gender differences, all the analyses in the main text were conducted based on the pooled sample.
Gender entering the mediation analyses as a covariate did not substantially influence the observed results. After controlling for gender, the relationship between ostracism and insomnia was still mediated by rumination, 95% CI [0.023, 0.092], and the relationship between ostracism and subjective well-being was still serially mediated by rumination and insomnia, 95% CI [− 0.009, − 0.001].
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Data Availability Statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
Funding
This research was supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Early Career Scheme (28603715) and the Education University of Hong Kong’s Internal Research Grant (RG 85/2018-2019R).
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Jiang, Y., Poon, KT. Stuck in companionless days, end up in sleepless nights: relationships between ostracism, rumination, insomnia, and subjective well-being. Curr Psychol 42, 571–578 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01474-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01474-4