Fuse and fracture? The janus face of proactive personality in ostracism

Abstract

Despite the well identified personality-related factors that drive ostracism, the dual role that a proactive personality plays in influencing ostracism has received little scholarly attention. Drawing on social exchange and social comparison theories, we develop a social relational model of peers’ reactions to a focal proactive member. Findings reveal that a focal member’s proactive personality not only enhances peers’ cognition-based trust in the focal person, but also triggers peers’ feeling of relative deprivation. The peers’ cognition-based trust, in turn, weakens—whereas the feeling of relative deprivation strengthens—peers’ ostracism of the focal proactive member. The focal member’s prosocial motive and proself motive further moderate these relationships. Specifically, prosocial motive strengthens the negative indirect relationship between a focal person’s proactive personality and peers’ ostracism through peers’ cognition-based trust in the focal person. Moreover, proself motive amplifies the positive indirect relationship between a focal person’s proactive personality and peers’ ostracism through peers’ feeling of relative deprivation.