Ostracism - Publications - Faculty & Research

2022
Working Paper

Feeling Seen: Leader Eye Gaze Promotes Psychological Safety, Participation, and Voice

By: Nicole Abi-Esber, Alison Wood Brooks and Ethan Burris

Psychological safety is a hallmark of effective team functioning. Although prior work shows that characteristics of the leader influence employee judgments of psychological safety (and subsequent decisions to speak up), we know very little about “the specific behaviors... View Details

Keywords: Eye Gaze; Psychological Safety; Voice; Participation; Nonverbal Behavior; Verbal Behavior; Ostracism; Conversation; Groups; Groups and Teams; Social Psychology; Safety; Leadership; Behavior

Citation

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12 Oct 2022
Blog Post

11 Stories from HBS PRIDE for National Coming Out Day

to one’s gender identity. Yet growing up at the intersection of multiple identities as a Black, disabled, genderfluid child of Ghanaian immigrants, it was hard for me to stand proud in my queer identity. I felt that my gender identity and sexuality were added layers... View Details

06 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Technology Re-Emergence: Creating New Value for Old Innovations

proposed the idea of a low-cost quartz design that would compete in the market not on precision, but on fashion. SMH pursued the risky idea, but the project's young engineers, Elmar Mock and Jacque Muller, found themselves ostracized by... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Apparel & Accessories; Technology; Consumer Products

30 Jun 2023
Blog Post

Finding Pride

club that dared not speak its name and that constituted the center of my world.” It wasn’t easy to be gay in the 1970s—not that it ever was. Anita Bryant was spewing vitriol, Harvey Milk was murdered in November 1978, and six months later I was View Details

07 Oct 2020
Blog Post

7 Coming Out Stories from the HBS PRIDE Club

My journey started in middle school, when a group of kids decided to bully me by saying I was gay and ostracizing me. I didn’t know what being gay meant, but I remember how terrified I was that something must be ‘wrong’ with me. It wasn’t... View Details

30 May 2023
News

Finding PRIDE

constituted the center of my world.” It wasn’t easy to be gay in the 1970s—not that it ever was. Anita Bryant was spewing vitriol, Harvey Milk was murdered in November 1978, and six months later I was ostracized and driven out of my... View Details

Keywords: Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

01 Mar 2004
News

Reforming Company Boards

are ostracized by directors enjoying the status quo, so there’s a social aspect inhibiting progress. That said, the culture will change. If directors do not raise self-standards of performance, shareholders, regulators, and the courts... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Services

Profile

Brett Lindsay Laffel

Growing up as the daughter of transplanted New Yorkers deep in the heart of Red Sox Nation proved formative for Brett Lindsay Laffel. "I was raised as a Yankees fan in enemy territory," Brett says. "In order to wear my Yankees caps to school and risk... View Details

04 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

Don’t Lose Money With Customers

terminate an unprofitable relationship for fear of being ostracized for their actions), relationship-specific factors (competitive grandstanding, for instance, can lead to a decision by vendors to persist in unprofitable relationships).... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs

01 Jun 2009
News

Insights from the Post-Macho Workplace

— is the first condition. Second, you need to cultivate an atmosphere of psychological safety, where people are assured that behaving in ways that aren’t stereotypically masculine won’t result in ostracism or punishment. And third,... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Oil and Gas Extraction; Mining

19 Jun 2017
News

How Women's Basketball Conquered Europe

where they take it out on her. They don't give her good housing, or they just ostracize her. I want there to be, more than anything else, a harmonious relationship between team management and the player. And so I'll go to a certain point.... View Details

21 May 2019
Blog Post

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month at HBS

gras. As I spent my formative adolescent years in New York, I became aware of the Asian stereotype and my minority status. At the time, I battled ostracization by attempting to fit in through sports—soccer, tennis, fencing. At Brown... View Details

Publications