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European Journal of Ageing logoLink to European Journal of Ageing
. 2025 Feb 26;22(1):8. doi: 10.1007/s10433-025-00845-1

Older adults know when they have been left out but they respond rationally

Qiuyi Kong 1,2,✉, Nicholas Currie 3, Kangning Du 3, John A Hunter 3, Ted Ruffman 3,✉
PMCID: PMC11865385  PMID: 40009254

Abstract

Previous research reveals that older adults have relatively intact well-being when excluded by others as compared to young adults. This observation can be attributed to two plausible explanations: Either older adults are unaware of their exclusion, thereby shielding their well-being from its impact, or they recognize the exclusion but respond to it rationally. We carried out two studies to compare young and older adults’ awareness of and response to exclusion, and explored its potential mechanisms by assessing the explanatory roles of loneliness, general cognition, and rejection sensitivity. Study 1 measured young and older adults’ loneliness, awareness of exclusion, and needs satisfaction after playing the Cyberball game, and Study 2 further examined other potential correlates including processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity. Over the two studies, older adults were not worse at recognizing exclusion, and sometimes better than young adults. Older adults’ awareness of exclusion predicted their responses to exclusion, whereas the same link was absent in younger adults. Despite older adults’ relatively good performance, there were individual differences in recognizing exclusion; older adults with better general cognition and lower rejection sensitivity were particularly adept. In sum, older adults can be as aware of exclusion as young adults, but rather than reacting in an emotional way that is detached from reality, older adults are more likely to respond to it rationally based on the severity of exclusion they have perceived.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10433-025-00845-1.

Keywords: Age differences, Social exclusion, Ostracism, Cyberball paradigm

Introduction

Social connections are especially beneficial for older adults’ well-being and health (Birditt et al. 2014; Sullivan and Fenelon 2014). However, ostracism, the experience of being excluded, rejected, and disregarded (Williams and Zadro, 2001), is ubiquitous in our everyday life. Conceivably, older adults might be more susceptible to social exclusion due to age stereotypes (Grühn et al. 2011; Kotter-Grühn and Hess 2012), loss of a social network and meaningful societal roles (Hawkley et al. 2011), and other life changes such as retirement and reduced physical functioning (Scharf et al. 2005).

Exclusion from significant others in such situations is understandably a threat to well-being. However, some degree of resilience in the case of exclusion from more peripheral others might be a good thing. For instance, it would be helpful to be resilient when excluded by strangers in an online game, a situation with no additional implications. Yet, it remains unclear how aware young and older adults are of when they have been ostracized, as well as how affected they are in such situations. We carried out two studies to examine potential age differences in awareness of, and response to, such minor ostracism, as well as how loneliness, processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity might relate to exclusion.

Whereas most research has focused on social exclusion in young adults (see Hartgerink et al. 2015), less is known about its effects in older adults. In young adults, a body of studies has shown that social exclusion can cause lower self-esteem, a lowered sense of control, a lowered feeling that one’s existence is meaningful, and a lowered feeling of belonging (for a review see Gerber and Wheeler 2009). Collectively, these four feelings are referred to as needs satisfaction and are measured by the Four Needs questionnaire. Exclusion can also bring negative emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, and hurt feelings; Hawkley et al. 2011), or lead to numb feelings (e.g., DeWall and Baumeister 2006).

As far as we know, there are only five studies directly examining young–old age differences in response to social exclusion. Charles and Carstensen (2008) compared young and older adults’ responses to disparaging comments about themselves after listening to three audio-taped conversations. Older adults were less responsive to negative comments by showing less anger and giving fewer negative verbal reports of their thoughts than young adults. Cheng and Grühn (2015) asked young and older adults to engage in an online interview in which they were either accepted or rejected by a potential social contact. In direct contrast to Charles and Carstensen (2008), older participants showed higher levels of hurt feelings after rejection compared to young adults.

Three other studies (one comprising two separate experiments) used a paradigm developed by Williams et al. (2000) and Williams and Jarvis (2006) with young to middle-aged adults. They compared responses to ostracism using the Cyberball paradigm, a computer ball-tossing game in which participants are asked to toss a ball with other players who are actually computer-programmed confederates. Participants received either a fair number of balls from other players (the inclusion condition) or fewer passes (the exclusion condition). This paradigm was then adapted to compare young and older adults’ responses to exclusion. Hawkley et al. (2011) conducted two separate experiments and found that young adults saw a greater drop in their needs satisfaction in response to exclusion. In addition, there were more negative affective responses (e.g., sadness and anger) in young adults than older adults during exclusion. Löckenhoff et al. (2013) and Liao et al. (2023) also used the Cyberball paradigm to compare young and older adults’ responses to progressive exclusion. Once again, young adults showed greater sensitivity to exclusion in both self-report scales and electrodermal activities, although only when ostracism was relatively subtle. Liao et al. (2023) also found that older adults exhibited an increase in electrodermal activity, followed by a decrease during the Cyberball game, and older adults’ better emotional regulation might account for their intact well-being.

In sum, previous research has yielded mixed findings regarding the pattern of age differences to social exclusion. Some studies suggested a diminished sensitivity to ostracism in older adults compared to young adults (e.g., 18–40 vs. 63–86 years in Charles and Carstensen 2008; 18–25 vs. 51–86 years in Hawkley et al. 2011; 16–28 vs. 55–82 years in Liao et al. 2023; 22–39 vs. 58–89 years in Löckenhoff et al. 2013), whereas one other study reported a stronger emotional response in older adults (18–26 vs. 60–86 years in Cheng and Grühn 2015). The divergence in these findings is one reason for needing more research. Another reason is to explain what variables might relate to awareness of, and sensitivity to exclusion, with two broad possibilities possible. First, older adults might fail to recognize that they have been excluded and therefore show less negative affect. If so, it might be that declining cognition makes older adults less perceptive when they have been excluded. Alternatively, older adults might know they have been excluded but are more resilient to such slights. If so, older adults might show less sensitivity to rejection when given a questionnaire measuring rejection sensitivity.

Previous research has begun to examine these questions. For instance, Hawkley et al. (2011) tested multiple potential covariates of responses to Cyberball exclusion—autonomic nervous system response, computer experience, previous traumatic events, previous social loss, chronic stress, and physical pain. Only one of the covariates affected responses; individuals who were in more physical pain experienced reduced negativity after exclusion. Cheng and Grühn (2015) examined a different covariate, arguing that limited cognitive functioning might diminish older adults’ ability to cope with and regulate negative events, thus causing a stronger detrimental effect during exclusion. Certainly, there is much evidence that general cognition (e.g., processing speed, working memory) tends to decline with age (Salthouse 1996). As postulated by dynamic integration theory, available cognitive resources allow complex and efficient affective processing (Labouvie-Vief et al. 2010), but if older adults experience a reduction in cognitive abilities, Cheng and Grühn (2015) argued they will cope, and process affective information, less efficiently.

Another possibility, however, is that a reduction in cognitive functioning would result in a compromised ability to recognize exclusion, thus reducing the detrimental emotional impact of exclusion. Consistent with this idea, Löckenhoff et al. (2013) found that older adults with poorer cognition had more intact needs satisfaction following exclusion (i.e., were less affected by exclusion).

The contrast in findings for cognitive functioning between Cheng and Grühn (2015) and Löckenhoff et al. (2013) again points to the need for further research. Both sets of researchers used the classic digit symbol substitution task (Wechsler 1981) which requires multiple cognitive components, including visual scanning, attention, motor speed, processing speed, incidental memory, working memory, and fluid ability (Jaeger 2018). Of interest is whether one component is more important than the others. For instance, Salthouse (1996) has detailed the progressive age-related worsening of processing speed and working memory. Therefore, it would be helpful to break down the measure of cognition into components when examining their explanatory roles, and for this reason, we used separate measures of processing speed and working memory in Study 2.

A second possible explanation is that age differences in rejection sensitivity might account for young–old differences in the way people interpret social exclusion. Rejection sensitivity refers to an inclination to have anxious expectations, and to readily perceive and over-react to rejection (Ayduk et al. 2008). People high in rejection sensitivity tend to anticipate rejection from others and are highly concerned about its occurrence (Downey and Feldman 1996), thus having the propensity to show stronger reactions to ostracism.

When rejection sensitivity is measured by questionnaire (rather than in response to some task-induced rejection), it is higher in young adults (18 to 29 years) than those aged 30 to 36 years old (Maiolatesi et al. 2022), and is also higher in young adults than older adults (Löckenhoff et al. 2013). Rejection sensitivity might make young adults particularly vigilant to rejection and particularly likely to have their needs satisfaction negatively affected. Although Löckenhoff et al. (2013) found a correlation between rejection sensitivity and vulnerability to exclusion in Cyberball over all participants, they did not report the correlations separately for each age group. It could be that young adults’ generally higher rejection sensitivity leads them to experience exclusion more acutely, whereas older adults might be aware of having received fewer passes but simply do not mind because they have lower rejection sensitivity. Consistent with this idea, Chappell et al. (2020) found that older adults claim they would be less affected than young adults by imagined disrespect from close others.

Loneliness

One reason why young adults might be more sensitive to rejection, and more affected by exclusion, is that they have a higher level of loneliness than most older adults (Luhmann and Hawkley 2016). If young adults feel lonelier than older adults, that could explain why they are more sensitive to rejection, because they think they are all alone and no one likes them, and fare worse when excluded. Therefore, in the present study we examined whether higher loneliness would make young adults particularly vulnerable to exclusion during Cyberball.

Summary

Hawkley et al. (2011), Löckenhoff et al. (2013), and Liao et al. (2023) used the Cyberball paradigm to compare young and older adults’ responses to progressive exclusion. Hawkley et al. found that young adults showed greater sensitivity to exclusion with lowered well-being on the four needs questions, as did Löckenhoff et al. and Liao et al. when exclusion was subtle. This suggests that older adults’ main problem might be simply noticing when they have been excluded. If they notice, then they might show lowered well-being (e.g., needs satisfaction), whereas if they do not notice they might not show a reduction in well-being. Crucially, previous researchers have used the four needs questions to assess responses to exclusion. However, these questions assess the downstream emotional consequences of receiving fewer passes, but do not directly assess older adults’ recognition that they have been excluded. This means that it is not clear whether older adults fail to notice ostracism, or they notice but are less affected. For this reason, in Study 1 we directly measured participants’ understanding of when they had been excluded in addition to assessing their well-being after exclusion using the four needs questions, whereas in Study 2 we examined factors that might contribute to such understanding.

Present study

We conducted two studies using Cyberball to compare young and older adults’ awareness of and responses to ostracism. Like previous studies, Study 1 examined how participants felt when included or excluded (their well-being as measured by the Four Needs questionnaire). However, our primary interest was in whether older adults could detect when they have been included or excluded. Therefore, unlike previous studies, we also provided an objective measure of exclusion, the how many passes question, examining participants’ understanding of how many passes they had received when included or excluded. The question was whether participants recognized they had received fewer passes during exclusion than inclusion. A third question concerned whether participants thought they had been left out when included or excluded (the left out question). This question either potentially measures how participants felt (e.g., they felt left out) or provides an objective measure of inclusion/exclusion (given that they were objectively included or left out). Fourth, we measured participants’ loneliness in Study 1. Young adults’ tendency toward loneliness might lead to less resilience and account for their larger emotional response to exclusion compared to older adults. Overall, Study 1 aimed to examine (1) whether older adults recognized when they had been excluded and (2) how such recognition was related to their responses to social exclusion in terms of needs satisfaction.

Study 2 again included the how many passes and left out questions, and examined how an awareness of exclusion related to a new set of potential correlates including processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity. In both studies, we used the Cyberball paradigm because: (1) it is easier to administer a standardized version of the task to ensure consistency among young and older adults (e.g., Löckenhoff et al. 2013), (2) it is sensitive enough to demonstrate age differences in responses to ostracism between young and older adults (Hawkley et al. 2011; Löckenhoff et al. 2013), and (3) it allows a range of exclusion levels, varying from minor to severe by manipulating the number of passes participants receive.

Study 1

Method

Participants

There were 76 participants in the present study, with 35 young adults (age range: 19 to 29 years old, M = 25.20 years, SD = 2.61, 18 females and 17 males) and 41 older adults (age range: 60 to 79 years old, M = 66.18 years, SD = 4.83, 20 females and 21 males). Participants were recruited through the online platform Prolific in the UK (https://prolific.ac). The racial/ethnic distribution of the sample was as follows: 82% White, 9% Black, 7% Asian, 1% Māori, and 1% not reported. Sample size was determined based on a power calculation using G*Power (Faul et al. 2007) to have 95% power to detect a medium effect size (f = 0.25, number of groups = 2, number of measurements = 2) at α = 0.05. A total sample size of 54 was required to get a significant effect, although we tested considerably more, making it less vulnerable to the distorting effects of outliers, and tending to yield mean scores that were more representative of the general population (Zhan and Savani 2023). We did not examine the data until data collection was completed.

Measures

Loneliness

We used the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale to measure participants’ subjective feelings of loneliness in their daily life (Russell 1996). There were 20 questions, each rated on a 4-point scale (1 = “never,” 2 = “rarely,” 3 = “sometimes,” and 4 = “often”). Sample questions included “How often do you feel that there is no one you can turn to?” and “How often do you feel part of a group of friends? (reverse-scored).” We deleted one item because its rating was negatively correlated with the full-scale score. The reliability of the final scale was excellent (α = 0.954).

Cyberball

We used an adapted version of the Cyberball program on MediaLab as a measure of responses to being excluded or ignored (see Fig. 1; Jarvis 2004; Williams and Jarvis 2006). The game began with inclusion in which participants played a game consisting of 30 throws, with the ball given to all four players roughly equally and the participant receiving the ball 8 times. After this inclusion phase, we gave participants the 12 questions of the Four Needs scale, prefaced with the following general instruction: “How do you feel right now at this moment even if you have felt differently at other times?.” The four needs included, belonging (e.g., “I feel that the other people here accept me.”), control (e.g., “I feel that I am in control.”), self-esteem (e.g., “I feel inadequate.”), and meaningful existence (e.g., “I feel that in this experiment my contribution is meaningless.”). For each of the four needs, some items were reversed, and a 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much so) response scale was used. Together, the 12 questions were said to measure needs satisfaction. We also gave participants the how many passes question (“In the game that you played earlier how many passes did you get?”) and the left out question (“When I played the game earlier, I felt left out.”), rated on a 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree) scale. Next, participants received the exclusion phase with 30 more trials of Cyberball, but only receiving the ball once. Again, participants were given the four needs, how many passes and left out questions. The reliability for the 12 questions of the Four Needs scale was excellent for both the inclusion phase, α = 0.910, and the exclusion phase, α = 0.906.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Screenshot of the inclusion and exclusion conditions in the Cyberball game. Note: Participants were instructed to click on the cartoon figure representing another player when throwing the ball. In the inclusion condition, they received a number of ball throws approximately equal to that of the other players. However, in the exclusion condition, they received a significantly lower number of ball throws (Williams and Jarvis 2006). The arrowed lines illustrate examples of the ball-tossing paths in two conditions

Design

Tasks were given in the following order: Cyberball inclusion, loneliness, and Cyberball exclusion.

Ethical permission

Ethical permission was given by the University Ethics Committee: 24/0502.

Results

Loneliness

We used an independent-samples t-test to compare young and older adults’ levels of loneliness. As anticipated, young adults (M = 2.41, SD = 0.68) showed significantly higher loneliness than older adults (M = 1.76, SD = 0.59), t(85) = 4.87, p < 0.001, d = 1.04.

Four needs questions

Figure 2 presents the Cyberball responses by age group. We first used a 2 (age group: young, old) × 2 (condition: inclusion, exclusion) mixed analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to examine whether there were age differences in needs satisfaction after controlling for loneliness. Age group was a between-subjects variable, condition was within-subjects, and the dependent variable was level of needs satisfaction. There was a main effect of condition, F(1, 74) = 108.38, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.594, with a significantly higher level of needs satisfaction in inclusion (M = 4.76, SD = 1.10) than exclusion (M = 3.02, SD = 1.30). The main effect of age group was also significant, F(1, 74) = 7.18, p = 0.009, ηp2 = 0.088. This indicated higher overall needs satisfaction among older adults (M = 4.15, SD = 0.86) than young adults (M = 3.58, SD = 0.99). In contrast, the age group × condition interaction was not significant, F(1, 74) = 0.02, p = 0.879, ηp2 = 0.000, indicating that young and older adults responded similarly to inclusion versus exclusion.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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Effects of age group and condition on Cyberball responses in Study 1. Note: Bars are standard errors. a Effects of age group and condition on needs satisfaction. Needs satisfaction was measured on a scale from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree. b Effects of age group and condition on responses for how many passes question. The grey dashed line identifies the actual passes received in the inclusion condition, and the black dashed line identifies the actual passes received in the exclusion condition.c Results of left out questions. Higher scores on the measure reflect better recognition of being left out, 1 = Strongly Disagree, 6 = Strongly Agree

How many passes questions

We then examined age group differences in response to the how many passes question with a 2 (condition) × 2 (age group) ANCOVA. Only the main effect of condition was significant, F(1, 74) = 254.54, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.775, with a greater number of reported passes in inclusion (M = 5.76, SD = 2.20) than exclusion (M = 1.25, SD = 1.56), whereas the age group effect was not significant, F(1, 74) = 1.30, p = 0.258, ηp2 = 0.017, and neither was the age group × condition interaction, F(1, 74) = 0.08, p = 0.777, ηp2 = 0.001.

Left out questions

Last, we examined responses on the left out question using a 2 × 2 ANCOVA after controlling for loneliness. As for the needs questions and how many passes question, there was a significant main effect of condition, F(1, 74) = 97.32, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.568, with participants feeling more left out during exclusion (M = 4.37, SD = 0.95) than inclusion (M = 2.79, SD = 1.27), whereas the age group effect was not significant, F(1, 74) = 0.71, p = 0.403, ηp2 = 0.009, and neither was the age group × condition interaction, F(1, 74) = 0.08, p = 0.777, ηp2 = 0.001.

Correlations and regressions

Table 1 lists the correlations between Cyberball variables and loneliness separately for young and older adults (significant correlations highlighted in bold font). For older adults, higher loneliness was only related to lower needs satisfaction in the inclusion condition, whereas for young adults, higher loneliness correlated with lower needs satisfaction in the inclusion and exclusion conditions, as well as better recognition of being left out in the exclusion condition. Evidently, loneliness was not just higher in young adults, but it was also related to their response when included or left out.

Table 1.

Correlations among main variables for young (above the diagonal) and older adults (below the diagonal) in Study 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Needs satisfaction inclusion – 0.348a 0.282 −0.136 −0.506c −0.342a −0.635c
2. Needs satisfaction exclusion 0.101 – −0.182 0.072 0.072 −0.411a −0.322a
3. How many passes inclusion 0.130 −0.240 – −0.102 −0.447b 0.112 −0.161
4. How many passes exclusion 0.060 0.369a 0.277 – 0.083 −0.044 0.089
5. Left out inclusion −0.710c −0.166 −0.097 −0.070 – 0.094 0.244
6. Left out exclusion −0.220 −0.808c 0.042 −0.469b 0.364a – 0.379a
7. Loneliness −0.560c −0.022 −0.109 −0.008 0.278 0.126 –
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ap < 0.05, bp < 0.01, cp < 0.001. Needs Satisfaction inclusion/exclusion: the reported levels of needs satisfaction in the inclusion or exclusion condition; How many passes inclusion/exclusion: the number of passes participants thought they had received in the inclusion or exclusion condition; Left out inclusion/exclusion: the self-reported feelings of being left out. Significant correlations with loneliness are shown in bold

Given the higher level of loneliness and more consistent pattern of correlations with loneliness for young adults, we ran four separate regressions, each with responses to the how many passes and left out questions as predictors, and loneliness as a covariate (see Table 2). Our interest was in whether the awareness of social exclusion significantly predicted needs satisfaction when included or excluded after controlling for loneliness in young and older adults. When included by other players, needs satisfaction was significantly predicted by the awareness of exclusion in both young and older adults. When excluded by other players, however, only older adults’ needs satisfaction was significantly explained by the awareness of exclusion, ∆R2 = 0.673, Fchange(2, 37) = 38.41, p < 0.001, but the same pattern did not exist in young adults, ∆R2 = . 0.101, Fchange(2, 31) = 2.00, p = 0.153.

Table 2.

Regression statistics predicting needs satisfaction in young and older adults in Study 1

Young adults Older adults
β p ∆R2 β p ∆R2
Model 1
Step 1 405*** 0.291***
Loneliness −0.636  < 0.001 −0.540  < .001
Step 2 0.224*** 0.405***
Loneliness −0.559  < 0.001 −0.331 0.001
How many passes inclusion −0.279 0.034 0.029 0.751
Left out inclusion −0.554  < 0.001 −0.666  < 0.001
Model 2
Step 1 0.114* 0.003
Loneliness −0.338 0.047 −0.058 0.718
Step 2 0.101 0.673***
Loneliness −0.194 0.281 0.132 0.182
How many passes exclusion 0.065 0.688 −0.045 0.678
Left out exclusion −0.352 0.056 −0.863  < 0.001
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Model 1 predicted needs satisfaction inclusion and Model 2 predicted needs satisfaction exclusion. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001. β refers to the standardized regression coefficient. ∆R2 refers to the additional variance accounted for by the variables in each a step

Discussion

Study 1 examined whether older adults notice when they have been excluded. If they failed to notice, this would have resulted in a reduced emotional response to exclusion, or if they noticed, they needed to respond to it properly. Our findings were consistent in indicating that older adults were as aware as young adults when included or excluded. Older adults were as accurate as young adults at recognizing (a) the number of passes they had received when included and excluded, and (b) when they had been left out. The overall accuracy on the how many passes question during exclusion was also near perfect for both young and older adults, stating they had received just one pass. Further, whereas previous research had found that older adults were sometimes less affected by exclusion than young adults, we did not find this; older adults’ emotional response on the four needs questions to inclusion and exclusion was similar to young adults, with both groups having higher needs satisfaction in inclusion than exclusion. Finally, older adults' awareness of exclusion accounted for their responses on the four needs questions, whereas young adults' awareness did not. These findings might indicate that although there was no discernible age difference in the awareness of, or response to social exclusion, only older adults responded to exclusion rationally in that they could correctly link their emotional responses with the levels of exclusion they had perceived.

Study 2

Our primary interest in this research was in whether older adults were aware of when they had been excluded. Study 1 provided the first evidence for the link between the awareness of and responses to exclusion in older adults, yet it did not examine what might contribute to a better awareness. Therefore, Study 2 re-examined the performance of young and older adults on the how many passes and left out questions with a new sample of participants. Because the needs satisfaction questions—regarding participants’ self-esteem, meaningful existence, belonging and control—measure the downstream effect of exclusion rather than directly tapping an understanding that one has been excluded, we no longer included the four needs questions in Study 2. Specifically, need satisfaction assessed how one might feel when excluded but did not determine whether they knew when they had been excluded. That is, people might feel fine following exclusion either because they did not notice they were excluded or because they noticed but did not mind. In Study 2, we focused more on questions that directly addressed older adults' awareness of the number of passes they had received. These questions enabled us to: (1) replicate the findings from Study 1 and (2) further examine the factors that might contribute to a better awareness of exclusion in older adults.

Our first aim was to examine whether declining cognition might account for older adults’ awareness of exclusion. This is especially important given the contradictory findings for how cognition might relate to exclusion. Recall that Cheng and Grühn (2015) found that worse cognitive functioning was associated with older adults having an exaggerated response to exclusion (with lower needs satisfaction), whereas Löckenhoff et al. (2013) found that worse cognitive functioning was associated with a reduced response to exclusion (with better needs satisfaction). This conflict in findings suggests the need for more research. In addition, although Löckenhoff et al. (2013) argued that worse cognition meant that older adults failed to detect exclusion, they did not directly measure exclusion detection. Instead, they measured needs satisfaction, which is the emotional response to exclusion. Therefore, in Study 2, we examined whether older adults’ cognition is related to detection of exclusion using the how many passes question. Cognition was examined with separate measures of processing speed and working memory, two of the main cognitive abilities identified by Salthouse (1996) as declining with age.

Our second aim was to examine a psychological factor that might be related to detection of exclusion: rejection sensitivity. As defined by Ayduk et al. (2008), rejection sensitivity is a psychological construct related to the tendency to anticipate rejection by others and exhibit heightened emotional responses to such ostracism. Löckenhoff et al. (2013) found a significant correlation (r = 0.23) between questionnaire-measured rejection sensitivity and needs satisfaction following Cyberball exclusion. Nevertheless, this correlation was obtained across both young and older adults, and rejection sensitivity did not account for the age group difference in needs satisfaction to exclusion. Therefore, these prior studies indicate that rejection sensitivity might be an important factor in understanding the effect of exclusion, although our interest in Study 2 was in the detection of exclusion rather than the emotional response to exclusion. We reasoned that young adults’ generally higher rejection sensitivity might lead them to experience exclusion more acutely or to imagine exclusion when it does not exist. If so, young adults might claim they have been excluded even when they have not. In contrast, the lower rejection sensitivity of older adults might mean that they more accurately identify exclusion. These arguments suggest that rejection sensitivity might account for age differences in recognition of exclusion.

Finally, our third aim was to create a subtler version of exclusion in an attempt to provide a more sensitive measure to detect age differences. In Study 2, the Cyberball task involved progressive exclusion over the course of the game. Löckenhoff et al. (2013) have suggested that progressive exclusion tends to be harder to detect so that it might help us to demonstrate age differences in awareness of exclusion.

Method

Participants

The participants were 47 young adults (undergraduates) and 40 older adults. We excluded one older participant due to her relatively low score (24) on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) measuring cognitive impairment (Folstein et al. 1975). In the final data set, there were 47 young adults (37 females) ranging from 18 to 29 years old (M = 19.62 years, SD = 1.68) and 39 older adults (28 females) ranging from 54 to 92 years old (M = 66.97 years, SD = 8.66). The mean score on the MMSE was 27.97 (out of 30, SD = 1.66), with scores ranging from 25 to 30. Upon completion, all participants received travel money as they were tested in the lab in a small city in New Zealand. Identical to Study 1, an a priori test suggested a sample size of 54 to detect a significant effect using repeated measures ANOVA (see Study 1). Nevertheless, again we tested considerably more (without looking at the data until data collection was completed), making the study less vulnerable to the distorting effects of outliers, and tending to yield mean scores that are more representative of the general population (Zhan and Savani 2023).

Measures

Education

Education was measured on a 1 to 6 scale: (1) less than high school, (2) high school diploma, (3) bachelor’s degree, graduate certificates, and diploma, (4) postgraduate and bachelor honors degree, (5) master’s degree, and (6) doctorate. Older adults’ mean educational score was 3.18, SD = 1.32, while young adults were all studying for a bachelor’s degree.

Rejection sensitivity

We used the Rejection Sensitivity questionnaire (A-RSQ; Berenson et al. 2013) to measure participants’ sensitivity to actual and perceived rejection. Participants were asked to imagine they were in nine different situations (e.g., asking for a favor, sending invitations, etc.) and to indicate their concerns and expectations on 6-point Likert scales. This measure includes nine items, each with two questions that are rated by the participant on a 6-point Likert scale. We created a composite measure for the two questions for each of the nine items, with higher scores indicating greater sensitivity to rejection. The reliability over the nine items was good, α = 0.777.

Processing speed

We used an adapted version of a finger-tapping test from the Halstead–Reitan Battery (Lezak et al. 2004) as a measure of processing speed. Participants were asked to make mouse clicks with the index finger of their dominant hand as rapidly as possible during 5- and 20-s trials. We recorded the average number of clicks they made per second across the two trials.

Working memory

We used the Backwards Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) (Wechsler 2008) to measure participants’ working memory. Participants were asked to verbally recall the numbers in the reverse order they heard them. There were eight trials, consisting of two three-digit trials (e.g., 6-2-9), two four-digit trials, two five-digit trials, and two six-digit trials. On each trial, the experimenter stated the numbers at a rate of one number per second and participants were allowed to hear the set of numbers twice before giving their answer. Correct performance required the participant to repeat all digits in the correct (reversed) order.

Cyberball

In Study 2, inclusion consisted of 32 total throws, with the ball given to all four players (including the participant) an equal number of times (25% = 8 times each), and exclusion consisted of three consecutive phases of 16 throws (48 in total). In the first phase, participants received the ball four times in the first game (fair: 25% of the time), only two times in the second game (unfair: 12.5% of the time), and zero times in the third game (unfair). After completion of both the inclusion and exclusion phases, participants answered the how many passes and left out questions (which were identical to Study 1).

Design

Participants were given the tasks in the following order: Cyberball inclusion, processing speed, rejection sensitivity, working memory, and Cyberball exclusion.

Ethical permission

Ethical permission was given by the University Ethics Committee: 24/0502.

Results

How many passes questions

Figure 3a presents the mean responses for the how many passes question for Cyberball by age group. We used a 2 (age group) × 2 (condition) ANOVA to examine whether there were age differences in response to this question. Age group was a between-subjects variable, condition was within-subjects, and the dependent variable was number of reported passes. There was a main effect of condition, F(1, 84) = 4.11, p = 0.046, ηp2 = 0.046, indicating judgments of more passes during inclusion (M = 8.69, SD = 3.70) than exclusion (M = 8.10, SD = 2.56). There was also a main effect of age group, F(1, 84) = 51.00, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.378, indicating older adults thought they had received more passes overall (M = 10.10, SD = 2.46) compared to young adults (M = 6.98, SD = 2.30). In addition, there was a significant age group × condition interaction, F(1, 84) = 23.08, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.216.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

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Effects of age group and condition on Cyberball responses in Study 2. Note: Bars are standard errors. a Effects of age group and condition on the number of passes participants thought they had received. The grey dashed line identifies the actual passes received in the inclusion condition, and the black dashed line identifies the actual passes received in the exclusion condition. b Effects of age group and condition on the recognition of being left out. Higher scores on the measure reflect greater feelings of being left out, 1 = Strongly Disagree, 6 = Strongly Agree

The age group × condition interaction was explored with two paired-samples t-tests (one for each age group), with condition as the within-subjects variable. Young adults mistakenly claimed that they received fewer passes in inclusion (M = 6.47, SD = 2.19) than exclusion (M = 7.49, SD = 2.29), t(46) = 2.19, p = 0.034, d = 0.32. In contrast, older adults correctly recognized that they had received more passes in inclusion (M = 11.36, SD = 3.37) than exclusion (M = 8.85, SD = 2.70), t(38) = 4.34, p < 0.001, d = 0.694. Somewhat surprisingly, then, older adults showed the correct pattern in stating they received more passes during inclusion than exclusion, whereas young adults showed the incorrect pattern.

Left out questions

Figure 3b includes participants’ responses on the left out question. These data were analyzed with a 2 (age group) × 2 (condition) ANOVA. The main effect for condition was significant, F(1, 84) = 179.84, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.682, with participants feeling more left out during exclusion (M = 4.30, SD = 1.42) compared to inclusion (M = 2.19, SD = 1.20). The main effect for age group was not significant, F(1, 84) = 1.45, p = 0.232, ηp2 = 0.017, and neither was the interaction, F(1, 84) = 1.56, p = 0.216, ηp2 = 0.018.

Processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity

We then used independent-samples t-tests to examine the age differences in the main variables. As expected, young adults had better processing speed than older adults, t = 9.11, p < 0.001, d = 0.718 (young M = 6.27 clicks, SD = 0.62; older M = 4.86 clicks, SD = 0.82), and better working memory than older adults, t = 2.16, p = 0.033, d = 0.468 (young M = 6.23, SD = 1.77; older M = 5.44, SD = 1.62), but a higher rejection sensitivity, t = 3.05, p = 0.003, d = 0.661 (young M = 9.58, SD = 4.05; older M = 6.95, SD = 3.90).

Correlations

Table 3 lists the correlations between rejection sensitivity, working memory, and the Cyberball variables in young and older adults. Significant correlations with processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity are shown in bold. For older adults (below the diagonal), (a) better working memory correlated with a reduced tendency to over-estimate passes when excluded, and a better realization that they had been left out when excluded, (b) faster processing speed correlated with a better realization of having received passes when included, and (c) greater rejection sensitivity correlated with older adults over-estimating how many passes they received when excluded. For young adults, there was only one correlation, between higher rejection sensitivity and a tendency to underestimate the passes received when included.

Table 3.

Correlations between main variables for young adults (above the diagonal) and older adults (below the diagonal) in Study 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. How many passes inclusion – −0.021 0.055 0.239 0.018 0.140 −0.335a
2. How many passes exclusion 0.304 – −0.039 −0.062 0.041 0.057 −0.178
3. Left out inclusion −0.242 −0.050 – 0.383b 0.262 −0.110 −0.127
4. Left out exclusion −0.154 −0.581c 0.377a – 0.106 0.093 −0.130
5. Processing speed −0.324a −0.022 0.164 0.168 – 0.208 0.245
6. Working memory −0.184 −0.333a 0.020 0.386a 0.232 – 0.073
7. Rejection sensitivity 0.075 0.383a 0.037 −0.242 −0.120 0.048 –
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ap < 0.05, bp < 0.01, cp < 0.001. How many passes inclusion/exclusion: “In the game that you played earlier how many passes did you get?”; Left out inclusion/exclusion: “When I played the game earlier, I felt left out”. Significant correlations with processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity are shown in bold

Regression

Working memory and rejection sensitivity were significant correlates of older adults’ judgements of how many passes they had received and their accuracy in the exclusion condition, whereas these correlations were not significant for young adults. Therefore, we used linear regression to examine whether these two correlates predicted unique variance in older adults’ performance (see Table 4). Age group (dummy-coded as 0 or 1), working memory, and rejection sensitivity were centered and entered into a regression along with the age group × working memory and age group × rejection sensitivity interactions (ensuring the residuals were normally distributed). There were two unique predictors of the how many passes response in the exclusion condition: the age group × rejection sensitivity and age group × working memory interactions. The interaction with rejection sensitivity is graphed in Fig. 4a, and that with working memory is graphed in Fig. 4b. For older adults (but less so for young adults), higher rejection sensitivity and lower working memory were associated with a larger over-estimation of passes received when excluded.

Table 4.

Linear regression predicting participants’ responses on the how many passes question in the exclusion condition in Study 2

B Beta t p ΔR2
Age group 2.02 0.395 0.96 0.342 0.009
Rejection sensitivity −0.10 −0.169 −1.21 0.231 0.014
Working memory 0.09 0.062 0.46 0.645 0.002
Age group × rejection sensitivity 0.36 0.608 2.75 0.007 0.075
Age group × working memory −0.62 −0.706 −2.01 0.047 0.040
All variables: total R2 0.208
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B, Beta, t and p: values shown while all variables are entered into the prediction equation. ΔR2: proportion of independent variance accounted for by each variable

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

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Moderation effects of rejection sensitivity and working memory on age group in judgements of how many passes received in Study 2

We also re-examined our data after excluding older adults under the age of 60 (leaving 34 older adults). The re-analysis confirmed consistent patterns in our findings: significant age differences across all variables, substantial correlations of interest, and the persistent predictive role of age group × working memory and age group × rejection sensitivity interactions in the regression model. Further details on results excluding adults under 60 are available in Supplementary Materials.

Discussion

As in Study 1, older adults had an understanding of inclusion/exclusion that was as good as, or better than, young adults. This was shown in (a) young and older adults being equal at recognizing they had been left out in the exclusion condition and (b) young adults mistakenly claiming that they received fewer passes in inclusion than exclusion, whereas older adults showing the correct pattern. Despite older adults generally being as good or better as young adults at recognizing inclusion/exclusion, those with better general cognition tended to have an even better recognition. Recall that Löckenhoff et al. (2013) found that the needs satisfaction of older adults with poorer cognition was not as affected by exclusion, and hence, speculated that older adults had failed to recognize the exclusion. However, Löckenhoff et al. (2013) measured the emotional response to exclusion rather than awareness of exclusion itself. In contrast, our how many passes question measured awareness of inclusion and exclusion, and with processing speed and working memory each correlating with one measure of awareness to this question, we can say more definitively that older adults with worse general cognition do find exclusion harder to detect.

Finally, rejection sensitivity was also a significant correlate of older adults’ awareness of exclusion. Specifically, unlike young adults, there was a clear trend among older adults for those with worse rejection sensitivity to over-estimate the number of passes they received when excluded. Thus, when we consider all young and older adults as two distinct groups, older adults were never worse at detecting exclusion and were sometimes better than young adults. Nevertheless, there were individual differences within the older adult group such that both general cognition and rejection sensitivity affected their understanding of exclusion.

General discussion

Previous research found that older adults had relatively intact well-being (their needs satisfaction) when excluded compared to young adults. Two possibilities are that older adults’ well-being is unaffected because they do not know when they have been excluded, or because they know that they have been excluded but respond to it rationally. We carried out two studies with the aim of examining whether older adults detected when they were excluded. Over the two studies, we also explored potential mechanisms underlying exclusion recognition by measuring loneliness, processing speed, working memory, and rejection sensitivity.

Older adults’ awareness of and responses to exclusion

In Study 1, like previous researchers, we measured participants’ needs satisfaction when included and excluded using the Four Needs scale. This measures their well-being—a downstream emotional consequence of inclusion or exclusion. We also more directly measured participants’ understanding of exclusion by asking them how many passes they had received when included or excluded, and whether they had been left out. In addition, we examined their loneliness, thinking that higher loneliness in young adults might accentuate the reduction in their well-being when excluded. We found that young and older adults had an equivalent response to inclusion and exclusion in that (a) their well-being was equally affected by inclusion/exclusion on the four needs questions, (b) they had similar awareness of how many passes they had received, and (c) they had similar awareness of when they had been left out. As anticipated, young adults had higher loneliness, and their loneliness was associated with worse needs satisfaction when included and excluded, as well as a greater feeling of being left when excluded. In addition, in older adults, loneliness related to worse needs satisfaction when included.

More importantly, older adults’ awareness of exclusion explained their responses to the four needs questions, whereas the awareness of young adults did not exhibit a similar explanatory power. In other words, older adults but not young adults could correctly link their emotional responses with an awareness that they had received fewer passes. One possible reason for this finding was that older adults, due to their better emotional regulation abilities (Livingstone and Isaacowitz 2021), were able to respond in a rational manner that was in line with their understanding, whereas young adults, with worse emotional regulation, would tend to react in ways that were detached from the perceived severity of exclusion. These findings are consistent with the selection–optimization–compensation theory (Freund and Baltes 2002), suggesting that older adults are better at selecting goals that are important for their health and well-being. Compared to younger adults, they can better optimize relevant skills—such as emotion regulation—to cope with social exclusion and compensate for age-related declines. Indeed, Liao et al. (2023) found that after a brief emotion recognition training, young adults could mimic the overall response pattern of older adults in the Cyberball game.

Besides, these findings are in line with the pilot work by Charles and Carstensen (2008) revealing that older adults were less interested in the opinions of strangers compared to that of known and loved others. According to the socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults are more likely to invest in sure things and cultivate deep, close, and lasting relationships with loved ones rather than seeking new connections (Carstensen et al. 2003). Given the age-related social network decrement (Bhattacharya et al. 2016; Wrzus et al. 2013), older adults may focus more on the closest social partners (e.g., family members and friends) and care less about casual others in an online game. In sum, despite the absence of a notable age difference in the awareness or responses to social exclusion, older adults were more likely to respond to exclusion rationally based on the severity of exclusion than young adults.

The roles of general cognition and rejection sensitivity

Study 2 again included the how many passes and left out questions. In this study, older adults’ responses on the left out questions were similar to young adults, and their responses on the how many passes questions indicated an even better understanding of when they had been included or excluded compared to young adults. We also examined whether general cognition (working memory, processing speed) and rejection sensitivity were related to awareness of inclusion/exclusion. General cognition was related to older adults’ understanding, and sensitivity to rejection was related to both young and older adults’ understanding. When young and older adults’ cognition and rejection sensitivity were directly compared, older participants with higher rejection sensitivity and worse working memory were more prone to over-estimating the number of passes they received when excluded. Thus, despite older adults’ generally very good understanding of inclusion/exclusion, there were individual differences that were related to general cognition and rejection sensitivity.

Comparison to previous research

Previous studies have examined the emotional response to exclusion and have been somewhat inconsistent in their findings. Recall that five studies found a diminished emotional response in older adults (Charles and Carstensen 2008; Hawkley et al. 2011, Studies 1 and 2; Liao et al. 2023; Löckenhoff et al. 2013), whereas one study reported stronger feelings after exclusion in older adults (Cheng and Grühn 2015). The four needs questions of Study 1 are most relevant when compared to previous studies and our finding of no difference in needs satisfaction between young and older adults adds to the inconsistency in findings on this measure.

One possible reason for the mixed findings is the variation in the method of social exclusion (i.e., negative comments about themselves, rejection as a potential friend, or exclusion in an online Cyberball game). For instance, Cheng and Grühn (2015) had participants engage in an online interview in which they were either accepted or rejected for future friendship by an unknown interviewer. This scenario might be more threatening for older adults’ well-being because the interviewer had gotten to know the participant to some extent through the interview, yet still rejected them. In contrast, in Cyberball, the rejection takes place without the participant revealing anything about themselves, which means it is harder to take personally. It is possible that in this context, older adults have relatively good resilience which makes their well-being either less affected by exclusion (Hawkley et al. 2011; Löckenhoff et al. 2013) or equally affected compared to young adults (our Study 1).

There are also potential differences in the subtlety of exclusion in Cyberball that could affect exclusion detection and emotional response. Nevertheless, we note that in Study 2 we used progressive exclusion because Löckenhoff et al. (2013) suggested that it tends to be more subtle and harder to detect, yet we did not find older adults were worse in detecting exclusion. What our findings seem to indicate is that there will likely be many contexts in which young and older adults will not differ in terms of their awareness of exclusion. Future studies could continue to examine these questions by considering the context and severity of exclusion more carefully, or varying the relationship between the excluder and the excluded (e.g., from very close friends to complete strangers).

There is also another possible reason for the inconsistent findings in studies. In Study 2, we found that cognitive decline and rejection sensitivity were related to older adults’ ability to detect when they had been included or excluded. Again, despite their generally very good performance in detecting exclusion, there is clearly a subgroup of older adults who might struggle to do so, and if a study happens to include a larger proportion of such individuals, that could result in less ability to detect exclusion, and consequently, less of an emotional response when excluded.

For instance, in Study 2 there was a subgroup of older adults with high rejection sensitivity who tended to over-estimate the number of passes they received when excluded. Note that the larger effect in older adults is in direct contrast to our initial hypothesis. We reasoned that young adults’ generally higher rejection sensitivity might lead them to experience exclusion more acutely and consequently mistake the passes received. This phenomenon could be potentially due to youngism (i.e., ageism toward young adults; Francioli and North 2021) or it might be linked to the developmental stage in life when social networks are at their peak (Bhattacharya et al. 2016). Additional evidence is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. In our findings, young adults did have higher rejection sensitivity, but the clearest relation to pass inaccuracy was in older adults not young adults. In young adults, rejection sensitivity is known to lead to attentional avoidance of threatening social stimuli such as slower reading of cards with rejection-associated words, or when presented with threatening faces (Berenson et al. 2009, see also Mangels et al. 2018). Our findings are consistent with a similar effect in older adults, whereby those with higher rejection sensitivity might avoid attending to the biased passing to other players, and therefore over-estimate passes to themselves.

Lastly, there were indicators measured in previous studies that were not examined in the present study, such as older adults’ computer experience, previous traumatic events, social loss, and physical pain. We did not include these factors because (1) the present study focused more on the awareness of exclusion rather than the response to it and (2) only one of these factors was suggested to be influential in the previous studies (i.e., physical pain; Hawkley et al. 2011). Future studies could examine other potential contributors—such as life experience or wisdom in older adults—to further explore the robustness of age differences and their underlying mechanisms.

Conclusion

We conducted two studies to examine young and older adults’ response to ostracism using the Cyberball paradigm. Across two samples of participants and five outcome measures (one study with needs satisfaction measuring well-being, two studies with the how many passes question, and two studies with the left out question), older adults were never worse at detecting exclusion, and were better on one such measure. Also, as compared to young adults, older adults responded to exclusion more rationally based on their understanding of the specific exclusion situations. Our studies indicate that older adults will often not be worse than young adults at knowing when they have been included or excluded, although there is a subgroup of older adults with worse general cognition and higher rejection sensitivity who might find it more difficult. In essence, they know they have been left out, but do not mind. Whereas exclusion by known and loved others clearly warrants feelings of unhappiness, a muted reaction to exclusion by strangers in a ball-tossing game with no negative consequences is better seen as a sign of older adults’ greater resilience (Lim and Yu 2015).

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1 (45KB, docx)

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of our participants for their involvement.

Author contributions

Q.K., N.C., and K.D. collected the data. Q.K., J.H., and T.R. analyzed the data and wrote the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Data availability

Data are available from the Open Science website: https://osf.io/6ck4t/.

Declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing of interests.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Qiuyi Kong, Email: qiuyi.kong@bnu.edu.cn.

Ted Ruffman, Email: ted.ruffman@otago.ac.nz.

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Supplementary Materials

Supplementary Material 1 (45KB, docx)

Data Availability Statement

Data are available from the Open Science website: https://osf.io/6ck4t/.

Articles from European Journal of Ageing are provided here courtesy of Springer

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