The relationships between ostracism, rumination, insomnia, and subjective well-being

Sleep is an important biological need while belongingness is a basic psychological need. However, relatively little empirical research has examined the associations between interpersonal relationships and sleep quality and underlying psychological mechanisms. The current research aims to fill this knowledge gap by testing whether ostracism, defined as being ignored or excluded (Williams, 2007), is positively associated with insomnia. It also tests whether the ostracism-insomnia link is mediated by rumination and has implications on subjective well-being. Ostracism blocks people from attaining the goal of belongingness and results in psychological distresses (Baumeister et al., 2005; Williams, 2007). As people respond to unresolved goals and psychological distresses with rumination (Watkins, 2008), ostracized people evince increased rumination. Rumination prolongs physiological activation and evades the quality of sleep (Waldeck et al., 2020). Therefore, we proposed rumination mediates the ostracism-insomnia link. Moreover, research shows that worse sleep quality lowers people’s levels of subjective well-being (Weinberg et al., 2016). Therefore, we also examined whether the relationship between ostracism and subjective well-being is serially mediated by rumination and insomnia. Participants completed a series of well-validated measures to assess their dispositional ostracism, rumination, insomnia, and subjective well-being. The results revealed ostracism was positively associated with insomnia and rumination mediates such an association. In addition, the ostracism–rumination– insomnia link was associated with reduced subjective wellbeing. These findings have implications for advancing current theories about negative outcomes of ostracism and identifying the underlying psychological mechanisms. They also emphasize the significant role that interpersonal relationships play in easing insomnia and enhancing subjective well-being. Copyright © 2021 Asian Association of Social Psychology.