“Next to you”—Young children sit closer to a person following vicarious ostracism

Seeking proximity to another person immediately expresses affiliative intentions. These are highly relevant after experiencing social exclusion. Through a novel task, the current study investigated the relation between proximity and observed ostracism during early childhood. A sample of 64 children (Mage = 58 months) first watched priming videos either depicting ostracism or not. Subsequently, children saw four seats of varying distances from an...