The Scarlet Letter Study: Five Days of Social Ostracism

Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors’ offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of their academic building. Each morning, the name of that day's ostracized individual was drawn, and a scarlet letter “O” was placed above that individual's office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the “Os” by not...