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Part 2 - Ostracism, social rejection and psychological torture
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Ostracism is, therefore, in its modern sense, a blanket term to accommodate several forms of social rejection. These may be classified as active or passive. Active forms of social rejection may include teasing, bullying or ridiculing. Passive forms of social rejection include ignoring a person, denial of communication, social isolation. Shunning is a deliberate form of passive social rejection perpetrated by a group or an individual upon an individual or a group of individuals as a form of sanction, expressed through extensive denial of association and communication with the target(s) of such disciplinary measure. When a tight group perceives one of its members as a dissident, or otherwise a threat, it reacts by more or less formally rejecting association with said member, and that action spreads to the entire community as a form of solidarity. The purpose is to socially isolate the dissenting member from the rest of the community.
Researcher Kipling D. Williams noted, in his work The Pain of Exclusion (2011):
“Psychologists Roy Baumeister of Florida State University and Mark Leary of Duke University have argued in a 1995 article that belonging to a group is a need - not a desire or preference - and, when thwarted, leads to psychological and physical illness. Ostracism uniquely threatens all these needs … Social rejection also deals a uniquely harsh blow to self-esteem, because it implies wrongdoing. Worse, the imposed silence forces us to ruminate, generating self-deprecating thoughts in our search for an explanation. The forced isolation also makes us feel helpless… Ostracism makes our very existence feel less meaningful because this type of rejection makes us feel invisible and unimportant. In fact, the emotional fallout is so poignant that the brain registers it as physical pain.”
Almerindo E. Ojeda, from the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas University of California at Davis, in his essay What is Psychological Torture? (2006) postulated that social isolation must be understood as a form of psychological torture.
The United Nations’ Convention Against Torture (1987), defines ‘torture’ as:
“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity”.
It becomes common sense, then, that shunning, as a deliberated act of social isolation perpetrated by a group upon a dissenting member as means of punishment decreed by a person acting in an official capacity within that group, designed to inflict mental suffering, is indeed a form of psychological torture.
The goals ascribed to the practice of shunning may include:
a) The attempt to modify the behavior of the shunned individual;
b) Removing or limiting the influence of said member or formal member from the group;
c) To act as a deterrent to dissention from the group, either by imparting the fear of exclusion directly onto on the individual, or motivating group members to apply peer pressure upon the individual to discourage dissenting behavior.
d) To isolate a member of the group or the entire group from social or intellectual interaction with external influences deemed threatening to the group.
The practice of shunning is known to have devastating effects on the shunned individual’s life, as shunning usually is applied regardless of any existing relationship ties, such as family, friends, professional and recreational ties, etc. In the most extreme cases, shunning may result in breaking families apart, destroying marriages and separating children and their parents. It has also a detrimental effect on the shunned member’s closest familial, spousal, social, emotional and economic bonds. Therefore, the effect of shunning extends far beyond the mere punishment of the shunned individual through psychological suffering, but such psychological suffering pervades as well the lives of those who deliberately cut ties with the shunned member, thus causing the perpetrators of shunning to become its victims also. The depth of such traumatic emotional bruises accomplished by means of this relational aggression cannot be overstated.
For the above reasons, extreme forms of shunning have become at odds with civil rights.
Eden
