Abstract

Adolescence is a critical period for social development, with social experiences potentially associated with widespread outcomes. Because adolescents are often ostracized at school, we investigated the associations among school ostracism, insomnia, aggression, flourishing, and psychological distress among adolescents. Moreover, we proposed that a shared mechanism of low trust and emotion regulation may underlie the relationships between ostracism and these outcomes. Secondary school students (valid N = 812) reported their school ostracism experiences, trust, emotion regulation, insomnia, aggression, flourishing, and psychological distress. We conducted structural equation modelling and bootstrapping analyses to test our predictions. Our results showed that ostracism was positively associated with insomnia, aggression, and psychological distress and negatively associated with flourishing. Low trust and emotion regulation serially mediated each of these relationships. Our findings offer insights into how adolescents may respond to ostracism and provide practical implications for developing effective interventions to help them cope with ostracism.