Chronic stress moderates the impact of social exclusion on pain tolerance: an experimental investigation

Pieritz, Karoline; Schäfer, Sarina J.; Strahler, Jana; Rief, Winfried; Euteneuer, Frank

doi:10.2147/jpr.s129872

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…However, the pain response observed in our study followed a different pattern. People with secure self-esteem with and without comorbid experiences of chronic social pain reacted according to assumptions about the hyperalgesic effect of stimuli related to social threat [63]. This finding was consistent with the concept of social pain [3,6,10,12].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

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Pain of Threatened Self: Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem, Cortisol Responses to a Social Threat and Pain Perception

Wojtyna,

Hyla,

Hachuła

2024

JCM

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Background: Rejection, injustice, and exclusion from meaningful interpersonal relationships are often extremely painful and stress-generating experiences. This study aimed to define the role of explicit and implicit self-esteem in pain perception as a component of the physiological–psychological system that regulates the body’s response to stress associated with the threat of social rejection. Methods: In total, 360 individuals participated in this study. The measurement of cortisol in saliva, the assessment of pain thresholds using thermal stimuli, the IAT to assess implicit self-esteem, and a questionnaire on global self-esteem and social pain were used. The study included three measurements: baseline and 15 and 45 min after the application of a laboratory socially threatening stimulus (the Trier Social Stress Test). Results: People experiencing chronic social pain (CSP) are more likely to have fragile self-esteem, higher pain thresholds, and tend to experience reduced pain tolerance in situations of acute social threat than people without CSP experience. In people with CSP and fragile self-esteem, after the introduction of a social threat, an increase in pain tolerance was observed along with a longer-lasting increase in cortisol levels. Conclusions: Fragile self-esteem, along with feelings of chronic exclusion, injustice, and rejection, may prolong stress reactions and produce a hypoalgesic effect.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…This measurement depends on several factors that are difficult to control. Perhaps extending the research to measure cortisol in hair samples [63], enabling the assessment of cortisol levels over the last three months, would provide additional value in analyzing the relationships between stress, pain, and social threat.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pain of Threatened Self: Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem, Cortisol Responses to a Social Threat and Pain Perception

Wojtyna,

Hyla,

Hachuła

2024

JCM

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“…As a consequence of the reliable exclusion effects and their large effect size that could be retrieved with this easy to implement paradigm, cyberball emerged as the gold standard in experimental research on the effects of social exclusion. Correspondingly, the paradigm has been used beyond the field of Social Psychology, for instance in Clinical Psychology ( Renneberg et al, 2012 ; Engel et al, 2016 ; Fung and Alden, 2017 ), Developmental Psychology ( Pharo et al, 2011 ; Will et al, 2013 ; Wolfer and Scheithauer, 2013 ), or Health Psychology ( Stock et al, 2013 ; Pieritz et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Violated Expectations in the Cyberball Paradigm: Testing the Expectancy Account of Social Participation With ERP

2018

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Previous social exclusion experiments identified two factors affecting the participants’ evaluation of participation in a virtual ball tossing game (cyberball): ball reception probability and vertical position of the participant’s avatar on the screen. The P3 component in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) indicated that both factors moderate subjective expectancies on social participation. The present research builds on an expectancy model explaining these effects and tests whether its predictions – established in a within-participant design – also hold in a between-participant design more common in behavioral cyberball studies. Participants were randomly assigned to four conditions which differed in ball reception probability (16% vs. 26%) and the avatar’s vertical position (inferior vs. superior). To track the state of expectancy of involvement online, we recorded the ERP response evoked by ball receptions of the participant. Retrospectively, social involvement and social need threat were rated in a questionnaire. As hypothesized, low ball reception probability elicited enlarged P3 amplitudes in the ERPs, increased negative mood, and threatened social needs. For participants at inferior position, ERP and questionnaire effects were less expressed. This effect of verticality can be traced back to an adjustment in the expected involvement as signaled by a differential adaptation of the P3 amplitude within an experimental run. These results confirm that the predictions of an expectancy model also apply to cyberball studies using a between-participant design. However, the comparison with the results of previous within-participant design studies suggests that the sensitivity of the adjustment processes critically depends on the choice of the experimental design.

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“…For example, chronic stress is associated with suicide risk via alterations in neuroendocrine, inflammatory and serotonergic pathways inter alia [4]. These pathways are also involved in social pain responses [31,34,77], and there is evidence that chronic stress influences the relationship between social and physical pain [78]. Likewise, impulsivity, which is an important endophenotype for suicidal behaviour, has been found to interact with social pain in complex ways.…”

Section: Social Pain and Other Risk Factors For Suicidementioning

confidence: 99%

Pharmacotherapy for the Secondary Prevention of Suicide: Leads from the Social Pain Hypothesis

Rajkumar¹

2022

Preprint

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Suicidal behaviour is a public health problem whose magnitude is both substantial and increasing. Since many individuals seek medical treatment following a suicide attempt, strategies aimed at reducing further attempts in this population are a valid and feasible secondary prevention approach. An evaluation of the available evidence suggests that existing treatment approaches have limited efficacy in this setting, highlighting the need for innovative approaches to suicide prevention. Existing research on the neurobiology of social pain has highlighted the importance of this phenomenon as a risk factor for suicide, and has also yielded several attractive targets for pharmacological preventive strategies. In this paper, the available evidence related to these targets is synthesized and critically evaluated. The way in which social pain is related to the “anti-suicidal” properties of recently approved treatments, such as ketamine and psilocybin, is also examined. Such strategies may be effective for the short-term reduction of suicidal ideation and behaviour in individuals who have made a suicide attempt suicide prevention, particularly in cases where social pain is identified as a contributory factor. These pharmacological approaches may be effective regardless of the presence or absence of a specific psychiatric diagnosis.

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Chronic stress moderates the impact of social exclusion on pain tolerance: an experimental investigation

Cited by 9 publications

References 71 publications

Pain of Threatened Self: Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem, Cortisol Responses to a Social Threat and Pain Perception

Pain of Threatened Self: Explicit and Implicit Self-Esteem, Cortisol Responses to a Social Threat and Pain Perception

Violated Expectations in the Cyberball Paradigm: Testing the Expectancy Account of Social Participation With ERP

Pharmacotherapy for the Secondary Prevention of Suicide: Leads from the Social Pain Hypothesis

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