To be spurned no more: The affective and behavioral consequences of social and nonsocial rejection

Abstract

Social pain is often associated with social rejection and shares neural correlates with the bothersome aspect of physical pain, which may also indicate an overlap in function. Pain has been described as a motivational signal to respond to the source of the pain in an adaptive way, such as by altering behavior. We tested whether social pain causes similarly adaptive alterations in behavior. Participants played computerized ball-tossing tasks with putative players-one who passed to and one who excluded the participant from play-in both a social and nonsocial version. We assessed the behavioral consequences of social pain by comparing the number of throws to each stimulus (social rejector vs. nonsocial rejector) over the course of the task. Posttask questionnaires assessed subjective feelings of social pain. A decrease in throws to the rejecting stimulus was only observed in the social version, indicating that rejection that is social in nature leads to change in behavior. Moreover, participants reported more negative feelings toward the rejecting stimulus in the social than in the nonsocial version. These subjective feelings of social pain mediated the effect of version of the game (social vs. nonsocial) on changes in behavior, indicating that social pain from social rejection causes changes in behavior.

The crude ostracism detection system: Pupils react to minimal cues of exclusion

“…Bayesian analyses also suggest that there are no effects of player type (see supplementary analyses). Despite using nonhuman stimuli (i.e., abstract images) like Driscoll et al (2017) to represent nonhuman players, participants were no more likely to show a greater exclusion response to human players than to nonhuman players. Further, introducing participants to real-life individuals using confederates did not increase pupil dilation to exclusive human players.…”

“…Zadro, Williams, and Richardson (2004) found that exclusion by computerized players elicited comparable levels of distress as exclusion by human players, suggesting that social pain may not discriminate between social and nonsocial exclusion. In contrast, Driscoll, Barclay, and Fenske (2017) found that exclusion by nonhuman players caused less distress than exclusion by human players. This reduced distress may be a result of Driscoll et al using pipes to represent nonhuman players compared to Zadro et al using human-like avatars for nonhuman players.…”

I don’t need your attention: ostracism can narrow the cone of gaze

“…Wirth, Lynam, & Williams, 2010) than included participants. However, because these studies rarely use non-social control conditions (for exceptions, see Driscoll et al, 2017;Riva et al, 2014), it is possible that the observed effects are partly driven by inclusion. In our study, we compared ostracized and included participants to a control group.…”

“…A second important goal of this study was to investigate if the effects of the Cyberball manipulation on the width of the gaze cone, as well as on affect, are indeed driven by ostracism as proposed in earlier studies, or if social inclusion also has an effect. One limitation of most earlier studies using this manipulation is that they lack a non-social control condition (for exceptions, see Driscoll, Barclay, & Fenske, 2017;Riva, Williams, Torstrick, & Montali, 2014). Excluded participants are typically compared to included participants, and differences between these two groups are interpreted to reflect effects of ostracism.…”

The psychology of partner choice

“…Being excluded can lead individuals to avoid those who are excluding them (e.g. in an extended version of cyberball; Driscoll, Barclay, & Fenske, 2017). In other words, we return a potential partner's rejection with our own rejection.…”