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Social Exclusion and Pain Sensitivity: Why Exclusion Sometimes Hurts and
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DOI: 10.1177/0146167211422449 · Source: PubMed

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422449
ein and ClaypoolPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin
PSPXXX10.1177/0146167211422449Bernst

Article
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Social Exclusion and Pain Sensitivity: XX(X) 1­–12

© 2011 by the Society for Personality
and Social Psychology, Inc
Why Exclusion Sometimes Hurts Reprints and permission:
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and Sometimes Numbs

DOI: 10.1177/0146167211422449
http://pspb.sagepub.com

Michael J. Bernstein1 and Heather M. Claypool2

Abstract
Some research indicates that social exclusion leads to increased emotional- and physical-pain sensitivity, whereas other
work indicates that exclusion causes emotional- and physical-pain numbing. This research sought to examine what causes
these opposing outcomes. In Study 1, the paradigm used to instantiate social exclusion was found to moderate the social
exclusion-physical pain relation: Future-life exclusion led to a numbing of physical pain whereas Cyberball exclusion led to
hypersensitivity. Study 2 examined the underlying mechanism, which was hypothesized to be the severity of the “social injury.”
Participants were subjected to either the standard future-life exclusion manipulation (purported to be a highly severe social
injury) or a newly created, less-severe version. Supporting our hypothesis, the standard (highly severe) future-life exclusion
led to physical-pain numbing, whereas the less-severe future-life exclusion resulted in hypersensitivity. Implications of these
results for understanding the exclusion–pain relation and other exclusion effects are discussed.

Keywords
ostracism, exclusion, social rejection, pain sensitivity

Received May 23, 2010; revision accepted November 28, 2011

Pain can be alleviated by morphine but the pain of social
ostracism cannot be taken away.
—Derek Jarman
Among the many experiences and motivations critical to
human existence, the innate drive to affiliate with others is
one of the most fundamental (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
Many characteristics of humans, such as extended develop-
ment, relative physical weakness, and comparatively high
biparental investment in offspring, are indications that the
survival of the human organism requires a stable social infra-
structure (Brewer, 2004). This line of thought is congenial
with evolutionary perspectives, which argue that group liv-
ing is a selected characteristic of human behavior because it
has acted as a solution to a variety of adaptive problems
throughout our history. Specifically, the ability to establish
and maintain social connections has numerous survival and
reproductive benefits: Groups provide social support, access
to survival-relevant resources, and protection from environ-
mental dangers, as well as access to potential mating partners
(see Brewer, 2004). It should come as no surprise, then, that
belonging to social groups is often as motivationally relevant
as obtaining food and water (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
Beyond facilitating basic survival and reproduction,
humans derive more proximal benefits from maintaining
stable social connections. Those with social relationships
tend to experience greater overall well-being (Baumeister,
1991), show better ability to cope with stress (Cohen,
Sherrod, & Clark, 1986; Cohen & Wills, 1985), and engage
in less antisocial and criminal behavior (Sampson & Laub,
1993). Social exclusion and isolation, however, are associ-
ated with a host of negative consequences, including increased
anxiety (Baumeister & Tice, 1990; Mathes, Adams, &
Davies, 1985), lower self-esteem (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, &
Downs, 1995), decrements in immune functioning (Kiecolt-
Glaser et al., 1984), and elevated violence (Leary, Kowalski,
Smith, & Phillips, 2003). Thus, social exclusion poses
numerous immediate threats to physical and mental health
and threats to more long-term, inclusive fitness consider-
ations. Therefore, it seems essential to human survival that
1
Penn State Abington, Abington, PA, USA
2
Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
Michael J. Bernstein, Penn State Abington, Woodland Building, Abington,
PA 19020
Email: mjb70@psu.edu
2 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
individuals are able to adapt their cognitive and behavioral
repertoires to detect and avoid threats of social exclusion and
find ways of adapting and reaffiliating postexclusion.
Given the negative consequences that often ensue follow-
ing exclusion from groups, it may come as no surprise that
both scientists and laypeople have suggested that social
exclusion may be experienced negatively, both psychologi-
cally and physically. The quote at the start of this article,
suggesting that social exclusion causes a pain that cannot
be eliminated, is one of a litany of similar quotations, poems,
novels, musical compositions, and various other artistic
endeavors focusing on the pain experienced with social
exclusion (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). From these anec-
dotal observations, it seems clear that pain and social exclu-
sion are inherently intertwined in humans’ phenomenological
experiences. Supportive of these assertions, there is some
scientific evidence that social exclusion may trigger physical
pain (e.g., Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). Yet
a closer examination of the literature suggests that the rela-
tion between social exclusion and physical pain may be com-
plex, as some work suggests that exclusion triggers not pain,
but numbing (e.g., DeWall & Baumeister, 2006).
The aim of this research is to focus on the circumstances
under which pain is heightened or numbed following the
experience of social exclusion. To preview our hypothesis,
we believe that both outcomes are possible and depend on
the severity of the social-exclusionary experience—with a
“severe” social injury triggering numbing to pain and a
“minor” social injury triggering hypersensitivity to pain.
Below, we detail the existent research on the exclusion–pain
relation and explain the rationale of our hypothesis.
Social Exclusion: Its Parallel
Impacts on Social and Physical Pain
In the social-exclusion literature, two types of painful
responses have received empirical and theoretical attention.
The first is social pain, which has been defined as “the dis-
tressing experience arising from actual or potential psycho-
logical distance from close others or from a social group”
(Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2005, p. 112), and the second is
physical pain, or the “unpleasant sensory and emotional
experience associated with actual or potential tissue dam-
age” (International Association for the Study of Pain, 1979,
as cited in Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2005, p. 112). Multiple
researchers have postulated a link between these pain types.
Namely, both pain overlap theory (e.g., Eisenberger &
Lieberman, 2005) and social pain theory (MacDonald,
Kingsbury, & Shaw, 2005; MacDonald & Leary, 2005) sug-
gest that a system capable of detecting and responding to
social pain “piggybacked” onto the preexisting physical-
pain system during evolution (Nelson & Panksepp, 1998).
Because both distance from others (Baumeister & Leary,
1995) and tissue damage pose threats to humans’ well-being
and survival, a system of registering and responding to these
threats is essential. A system for processing physical dam-
age (and its associated pain) is believed to have developed
early in the evolution of the human brain. As human civiliza-
tion advanced and social/group living became more and
more crucial for survival, a parallel system for detecting
social threats (and its associated pain) became necessary,
and rather than developing a separate system, it co-opted
the one already in place for responding to tissue damage
(MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Because of this, pain overlap
and social pain theories propose that both types of pain are
processed with the same neurological hardware (Eisenberger
& Lieberman, 2005; MacDonald et al., 2005).
One implication of both these perspectives, therefore, is
that one’s emotional and physical reactions will coincide.
An experience that triggers physical pain should be accom-
panied by an emotionally painful reaction, whereas physi-
cally numbing experiences should co-occur with emotional
numbness. Therefore, if social exclusion affects one type of
pain, it should trigger a concomitant reaction on the other
type as well.
By definition, experiences of social exclusion, rejection,
and ostracism create real or imagined distance between indi-
viduals. These are the very situations thought to trigger
social pain. And, indeed, individuals report various types of
emotional distress following social exclusion, including
reduced mood (e.g., Williams et al., 2002), a reduced sense
of meaningfulness (Stillman et al., 2009), lowered self-
esteem (e.g., Bernstein, Sacco, Brown, Young, & Claypool,
2010; Leary et al., 1995), and so forth (for a meta-analytic
review, see Gerber & Wheeler, 2009; but see Baumeister,
DeWall, & Vohs, 2009, for a rejoinder). If the social- and
physical-pain systems are linked and social exclusion causes
emotional pain, it too should trigger physical pain.
Supportive of this assertion, recent neuro-imaging studies
show the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), a structure
known to activate during the experience of physical pain
(Price, 2000; Rainville, Duncan, Price, Carrier, & Bushnell,
1997), also activates during an experience of social exclusion
(Eisenberger et al., 2003; Lieberman & Eisenberger, 2005).
For example, in Eisenberger and colleagues’ work, exclusion
was manipulated using Cyberball, an online ball-tossing
game reliably shown to successfully manipulate feelings of
inclusion and exclusion (e.g., Williams et al., 2002).
Participants were placed in an fMRI and led to believe they
would be engaging in a game with two other participants, also
in fMRIs. In reality, no other players were present, and the
game unfolded via preprogrammed responses. During the
course of the game, participants were included, were told
they were unable to receive the ball (implicit exclusion), or
received the ball at the start of the game and were then ostra-
cized for the remainder of the experience (explicit exclusion).
Regardless of exclusion type, dACC activation was height-
ened as compared to the inclusion condition. Moreover,
within the explicit exclusion condition, results indicated that
individuals’ experienced self-reported distress was positively
Bernstein and Claypool 3
correlated with dACC activation (self-reported distress was
not measured in the implicit exclusion condition).
These results were interpreted by Eisenberger and col-
leagues as suggesting that the experiences of social pain and
physical pain may share a neurological basis and that social
exclusion can cause both. More recent evidence further cor-
roborates this assertion; individuals taking acetaminophen
(a common physical-pain suppressant) showed reduced
dACC activity in response to social-exclusion experiences
(DeWall et al., 2010). In other words, ingestion of a medication
to quash physical pain attenuated a neurological reaction to a
social threat.
In addition to this neurological evidence, other findings
elucidate a correspondence between physical and emo-
tional responses to social events. For example, in one study
(Eisenberger, Jarcho, Lieberman, & Naliboff, 2006), partici-
pants’ baseline unpleasantness thresholds for cutaneous heat
were assessed at the start of the study. Participants then
engaged in a similar online ball-tossing task as described
previously (Williams et al., 2002), during which participants
were either included or excluded (exclusion was once again
either explicit or implicit, as in Eisenberger et al., 2003).
Following the last portion of the Cyberball game, pain
threshold measures were taken again, and self-reported
social distress was assessed. Results revealed that individu-
als whose baseline sensitivity to physical pain was high
experienced greater social distress in response to social
exclusion, compared to those low in physical-pain sensitiv-
ity. Furthermore, as reported social distress in response to
the ball-tossing game increased, so too did postgame physi-
cal pain. Thus, these studies suggest that social distress and
physical pain are intimately connected—greater distress in
one domain seems to predict greater distress in the other.
If, indeed, social exclusion triggers social pain, then, as
the just-described studies suggest, a parallel impact on phys-
ical pain should arise. But some have argued that social
exclusion may trigger the opposing reactions, both emo-
tional and physical numbness. MacDonald and colleagues
(2005) propose that “both social and physical pain lead to
reactions that prepare an organism for quick reaction to . . .
danger” (p. 79). When responding to a physical threat, the
body typically undergoes changes to ready an appropriate
reaction. One such change is the release of analgesics that
numb the body, which might aid one in fleeing while injured
and still under attack (MacDonald et al., 2005). If, as both
pain overlap and social pain theories assert, the physical- and
social-pain systems are linked, then social threats might trig-
ger the same numbing reaction, both emotionally and physi-
cally (MacDonald et al., 2005).
Consistent with this notion, Twenge, Catanese, and
Baumeister (2003) found that social exclusion puts individu-
als into what they termed a “deconstructed state.” This
involves a lack of emotion, lethargy, time distortion, and a
desire to escape self-awareness, all pointing to a state of
“inner numbness” (p. 409). Further evidence for emotional
numbing postexclusion comes from a recent meta-analysis
conducted by Blackhart, Nelson, Knowles, and Baumeister
(2009). Based on an examination of the literature, they con-
cluded that emotional reactions to social exclusion tend to be
minimal, suggesting it is not uncommon following experi-
mentally induced social exclusion for there to be no changes
in mood at all. These researchers have asserted this is pre-
cisely because exclusionary experiences elicit an emotional
numbness, which, as other findings suggest, appears to
accompany a state of physical numbness.
Namely, in a series of studies conducted by DeWall and
Baumeister (2006), participants’ pain tolerance (how much
pain they could stand) and threshold (the point at which they
first experienced a sensation as painful) were measured
using a pressure algometer. Following these baseline mea-
sures, participants responded to a bogus personality test.
They were then given false feedback, allegedly based on
their answers, about their future lives (future-life paradigm),
being told they would have lives full of long-lasting relation-
ships (inclusion condition), lives alone (exclusion condi-
tion), lives full of physical mishaps (misfortune/control
condition), or no information at all (no feedback/control con-
dition). Pain tolerance and threshold measures were then
measured again. Across four studies, the same basic find-
ing occurred: Social exclusion led to physical insensitivity
(numbing) to pain in comparison to the other conditions.
They also found a similar pattern for participants’ emotional
reactions. Specifically, excluded individuals were less
extreme in their affective forecasting in response to possible
positive and negative events (Study 3) and less able to empa-
thize with others (Studies 4 and 5) than were those in the
included and control conditions. The overall conclusion
drawn by these researchers was that social exclusion leads to
a numbing of both the physical- and social-pain systems.
Thus, the social-exclusion literature to date is quite con-
sistent in showing that exclusion produces an effect on phys-
ical pain with a concomitant reaction on emotional pain.
This is compelling evidence that the social- and physical-
pain systems are connected. What is less clear, however, is
whether the impact of social exclusion itself is one of hyper-
sensitivity or numbness. Some evidence suggests that social
exclusion makes victims hurt, both emotionally and physi-
cally (e.g., Eisenberger et al., 2003), whereas other evidence
suggests that social exclusion leads to simultaneous emo-
tional and physical numbness (e.g., DeWall & Baumeister,
2006). In the remainder of this article, we argue that both
responses are possible and dependent, in part, on a crucial
moderator—the severity of the social-exclusionary injury.
Injury Severity and Pain
If the social- and physical-pain systems overlap, then fac-
tors known to moderate one type of painful reaction should
similarly moderate the other type. In the domain of physical
pain, one’s reactions vary based on experienced injury
4 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
severity, or the extent of tissue damage done. In fact, the
body’s reaction to physical injury is not linear. Stubbing
one’s toe is a fairly minor injury that hurts less than break-
ing a finger, a comparably more severe injury. Generally
speaking, as physical injuries increase in severity, so too
does the associated pain. That is, as the event causes more
tissue damage, the victim experiences more distress.
However, at some point, an injury can become so severe
that the body does not experience a heightened sense of
pain but instead experiences a numbing. When painful
stimulation is too great or occurs for too long, the body
enters a state of shock in which pain and emotional responses
are dulled (see Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000, for a
review). We can imagine the victim of a gunshot or a car
crash and how the experienced feeling of the pain is not
always commensurate with the severity of the injury. This
serves to protect the body from wasting resources because of
the hyperactivity of the many systems involved in pain
detection that would be forced to continue if the pain were
not dulled (Kandel et al., 2000).
Given that the social pain system “co-opted” the physical
pain system (see Eisenberger & Leiberman, 2005;
MacDonald & Leary, 2005), perhaps it is possible that the
body might react in a similar manner to an extremely severe
social injury as it would an extremely severe physical one.
That is, an experience that causes major amounts of “social
damage”—by instantiating psychological distance between
the self and others of great magnitude or duration—may trig-
ger numbing, rather than hypersensitivity. Physical injuries
lead to nociceptive pain when the nerves responsible for
detecting such pain (nociceptive nerves) are stimulated.
These nerves can be overstimulated, however, and elicit
physical numbness (Kandel et al., 2000). Perhaps, similarly,
the “nerves” that detect social injuries (e.g., self-esteem, as
in the sociometer theory; Leary et al., 1995) might also
become over stimulated if the social injury is “extreme” or
“severe” enough, leading to a physical-pain numbing.
We believe the differing outcomes in the literature on the
emotional and physical reactions to social exclusion (hyper-
sensitivity vs. numbness) may be explained by our severity
hypothesis. This hypothesis asserts that “minor” social inju-
ries should trigger painful (hypersensitive) reactions,
whereas “major” social injuries should result in numbing
(insensitive) responses. In the current work, we focus exclu-
sively on physical reactions, though our severity hypothesis
would make identical predictions for emotional reactions.
Researchers who have shown numbing in response to social
exclusion may have been subjecting participants to quite
severe or major social injuries, whereas researchers report-
ing hypersensitivity may have used more mild forms.
Consistent with this speculation, there does appear to be a
confounding in the literature between social-exclusion para-
digm and type of pain response. Broadly, studies showing
physical pain numbness have tended to utilize the future-life
manipulation, whereas those showing hypersensitivity have
tended to utilize the Cyberball paradigm.1 On its face, not
being thrown a virtual ball during a trivial computer game,
though perhaps upsetting, does not seem nearly as devastat-
ing as being told that one’s future life will be spent alone.
Indeed, given that the need to belong is fundamental
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995), it is difficult to imagine a worse
prognosis. Thus, the perceived severity of the “social injury”
may vary between these paradigms and ultimately may trig-
ger different pain reactions.
Overview
To examine our severity hypothesis, we first assessed indi-
viduals’ perceptions of the severity of two different exclu-
sion experiences. We then randomly assigned participants to
be excluded or included in one of them. The paradigm par-
ticipants reported as being most severe should result in
physical-pain numbing, whereas the one rated as mildly
severe should result in hypersensitivity. In a second experi-
ment, we manipulated the severity of the exclusion experi-
ence within one of the paradigms itself to further examine
whether high-severity social exclusions result in numbing,
whereas low-severity ones result in hypersensitivity.
Pilot Study 1
In an initial pilot study, we asked participants to judge the
perceived severity of social exclusionary and inclusionary
experiences in the Cyberball and future-life paradigms. We
examined these two paradigms specifically because they are
the ones most commonly used in investigations of exclu-
sion’s impact on physical-pain sensitivity and, because, as
noted, they intuitively appear to vary in their perceived
severity. In this pilot study, 36 students (23 females) partici-
pated for course credit. Students were randomly assigned to
one condition of a 2 (Paradigm: Cyberball vs. future-life) ×
2 (Inclusionary Status: exclusion vs. inclusion) between-
subjects design. Participants were seated in front of comput-
ers and told they would be performing a task involving how
they perceive different situations. All students were told
they would read about a situation and would then rate it on
several dimensions. Depending on condition, participants
then read a brief description of a typical Cyberball study or
a future-life study. Those in the Cyberball conditions were
told to imagine playing a virtual ball-tossing game with two
other people on a computer. Those in the inclusion condition
were further asked to imagine that they were thrown the ball
about one third of the time. Those in the exclusion condition
were asked to imagine being thrown the ball twice near the
beginning of the game, but then never again. Those in the
future-life conditions were asked to imagine taking a person-
ality test, having that test analyzed by a computer, and then
receiving feedback about the results. Those in the exclusion
condition read the future-alone feedback that forecasts a
future devoid of meaningful social relationships (taken from
Bernstein and Claypool 5
Twenge, Baumeister, Tice, & Stucke, 2001) and were asked
to imagine that this is the feedback they received. Those in
the inclusion condition did the same but read the future-
belonging feedback that forecasts a future filled with mean-
ingful relationships. After reading about and imagining one
of these situations, participants rated them on a variety of
dimensions, with the key one concerning how severely
positive or negative they found the situation to be (rated on
a scale of –4 = very negative to +4 = very positive).
Though the exclusion experiences would likely seem
more negative than the inclusionary experiences, we pre-
dicted that this effect would be moderated by the manipula-
tion of paradigm. Specifically, we expected future-alone to
be perceived as more severely negative than Cyberball
exclusion and future-belonging to be perceived as more posi-
tive than Cyberball inclusion. A 2 (Paradigm: Cyberball vs.
future life) × 2 (Inclusionary Status: exclusion vs. inclusion)
between-subjects ANOVA revealed a significant main effect
of Inclusionary Status, F(1, 32) = 98.19, p < .001, η2 = .75.
Exclusion experiences, overall (M = –2.73, SD = 1.66), were
perceived as more negative than were inclusion experiences
(M = 2.29, SD = 1.61). This main effect, however, was quali-
fied by the predicted interaction, F(1, 32) = 10.80, p < .01,
η2 = .25. Imagined receipt of the life-alone feedback (M = –3.36,
SD = 1.27) was perceived as significantly more negative than
was imagined exclusion in the Cyberball game (M = –1.88,
SD = 1.81, p = .036). In addition, imagined receipt of the
future-belonging feedback (M = 3.11, SD = 1.17) was per-
ceived as significantly more positive than was imagined inclu-
sion in the Cyberball game (M = 1.38, SD = 1.60, p = .020).
Thus, it seems clear that people do indeed perceive exclu-
sion as more negative than inclusion, not surprisingly. But,
more importantly, future-alone exclusion was perceived
as more severely negative and future-belonging inclusion as
more severely positive than was Cyberball exclusion and
inclusion. Therefore, if our severity hypothesis is correct in
postulating that severe social injuries should result in numb-
ing and mild social injuries should result in hypersensitivity,
exclusion in the future-life paradigm should lead to numb-
ing, whereas exclusion in the Cyberball paradigm should
lead to hypersensitivity.
Interestingly, this hypothesis and the initial pilot data are
quite consistent with the work of DeWall et al. (in press).
In their study, participants received either future-alone or
future-belonging feedback (actual experience) or were asked
to imagine they were to receive such feedback (imagined
experience). Participants then rated their mood (actual expe-
rience) or how they thought they would feel (imagined expe-
rience) following the feedback. Among those who imagined
the experience, expected mood was reported to be much
lower in the future-alone than in the future-belonging condi-
tion. However, for actual experience, there was no difference
between the two conditions with respect to mood. Thus, just
as we speculate, future-alone exclusion is perceived quite
negatively and severely but, when experienced, may lead to
numbing.
Study 1
Having shown that these manipulations of exclusion do dif-
fer in their perceived severity, we next examined if these
manipulations affected participants’ physical pain sensitivi-
ties differently. In Study 1, participants’ initial pain threshold/
tolerance levels were assessed shortly after arrival at the
lab. Following this, they engaged in either Cyberball or the
future-life paradigm and, within each, were either excluded
or included. Following this activity, their pain threshold/
tolerance levels were measured again. Because Cyberball
exclusion may be akin to a “mild” social injury, we hypoth-
esized that it (a less-severe social injury than is future-alone)
should decrease pain threshold and tolerance (make indi-
viduals more sensitive to pain), whereas future-life exclu-
sion (a more-severe social injury) should actually increase
pain threshold and tolerance (make individuals less sensitive
to pain). We predicted no differences between the inclusion-
ary conditions or changes from baseline, as these conditions
should be relatively akin to a control group. Indeed, in
DeWall and Baumeister (2006), there was no reliable or
consistent change in pain tolerance and threshold between
baseline and postmanipulation for those who were included.
Moreover, the theories in the literature to date have argued
specifically that exclusion should activate the pain system
but are agnostic about the impact of inclusion on that same
system.
Method
Participants and design. For course credit, 52 (29 female)
undergraduates from the psychology participant pool partici-
pated. Participants were instructed not to ingest any foods,
alcohol, or pain medicine for at least 4 hours prior to partici-
pating in the experiment (Kanarek & Carrington, 2004;
Mercer & Holder, 1997). Moreover, selected participants
were nonsmokers and were right handed. These are similar
participant requirements and a priori exclusion criteria used
by DeWall and Baumeister (2006), except they told partici-
pants not to eat sugary foods 8 hours in advance, whereas we
asked participants not to eat anything for only 4 hours in
advance. All participants were randomly assigned to one
condition of a 2 Inclusionary Status (exclusion vs. inclu-
sion) × 2 Paradigm (Cyberball vs. future life) between-subjects
design.
Procedure. Participants were run one at a time in the labo-
ratory. After arriving at the lab and completing a thorough
written and verbal informed consent process, participants’
baseline measures of pain threshold and tolerance were
recorded. Single measures of both threshold and tolerance
were taken at 90-second intervals to prevent habituation
(DeWall & Baumeister, 2006; Orbach, Mikulincer, King,
Cohen, & Stein, 1997). Pain threshold and tolerance were
measured using a pressure algometer (Wagner FPIX 50).
This device assesses the amount of pressure applied to a
bone or muscle and has been used as one method of
6 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
assessing pain sensitivity in medicine and other research
fields, including those in the rejection literature (e.g., DeWall
& Baumeister, 2006; Pauli, Wiedemann, & Nickola, 1999).
Following the method of the aforementioned studies, the
algometer was applied perpendicularly to the skin. All pain
measurements were taken at the first dorsal interosseous
muscle (i.e., behind the first knuckle of the index finger) of
the participant’s right hand. Pressure was applied steadily at
an average rate of 5 kPa per second. For pain threshold, par-
ticipants were verbally instructed to say “now” when they
first experienced pain because of the pressure increase. For
pain tolerance, they were instructed to say “stop” when the
pain became too uncomfortable to continue. When the par-
ticipant acknowledged the sensation of pain (threshold) or
requested the pressure to cease (tolerance), the algometer
was immediately stopped, which automatically recorded the
amount of pressure applied prior to its cessation.2 As in
DeWall and Baumeister (2006), the order of measurement
for threshold and tolerance was counterbalanced. Participants
had their threshold or tolerance measured first, took a 90-second
break, and then continued with the other measure. This
counterbalancing factor had no effect on the outcomes of the
study.
Next, participants began either the Cyberball game or the
future-life paradigm. For those in the future-life condition,
they were asked to complete a personality test used in previ-
ous studies (DeWall & Baumeister, 2006). After completing
the personality test, the computer allegedly analyzed their
responses. Participants first received accurate feedback
based on their responses to the personality assessment con-
cerning their levels of introversion or extroversion. This was
done to bolster the believability of the bogus, randomly
assigned “future-lives” feedback that they received next.
This manipulation has been used previously (Baumeister,
DeWall, Ciarocco, & Twenge, 2005; Baumeister, Twenge,
& Nuss, 2002; DeWall & Baumeister, 2006; Twenge et al.,
2001) and constituted the manipulation of inclusionary sta-
tus. Participants in the inclusion (future belonging) condition
were told,
You’re the type who has rewarding relationships
throughout life. You’re likely to have a long and stable
marriage and have friendships that will last into your
later years. The odds are that you’ll always have
friends and people who care about you.
Participants in the exclusion (future alone) condition were told,
You’re the type who will end up alone later in life.
You may have friends and relationships now, but
by your mid 20’s most of these will have drifted away.
You may even marry or have several marriages, but
these are likely to be short-lived and not continue into
your 30’s. Relationships don’t last, and when you’re
past the age where people are constantly forming new
relationships, the odds are you’ll end up being alone
more and more.
These feedback descriptions were taken directly from Twenge
and colleagues’ (2001) work.
The other half of participants engaged in the online ball-
tossing game called Cyberball (Williams et al., 2002).
Participants in this condition were told they were playing
with two other students from around campus who were also
involved in similar studies. In reality, no other participants
were involved, and the computer controlled the two agents
involved in the game. Nonetheless, to facilitate this cover
story, the experimenter placed two fake phone calls suppos-
edly to one of the other laboratories involved in this study.
Both calls were placed in the room with the actual partici-
pant, and in both calls the experimenter pretended to ask
whether the other participants were ready, made a comment
about it being good that everyone arrived on time, and stated
that, should there be any problems, they should call back
at the experimenter’s number. Participants were informed
that they would be represented by an animated hand at the
bottom of the screen whereas the two other players would
be represented by animated figures located above and to the
right and left of the participant’s figure. Participants were
instructed to click on one of the two figures to throw them
the ball throughout the task. For those in the inclusion condi-
tion, participants were thrown the ball roughly one third
of the time by the other “players.” For those in the exclusion
condition, they were thrown the ball twice at the beginning
of the game and then not again for an additional 45 throws.
Immediately following both manipulations of social
inclusionary status, two additional measures of pain thresh-
old and tolerance were taken, using the same procedure from
the beginning of the study.
Following this task, participants were given a thorough
debriefing. Participants were told the exact nature of the
study and how each aspect was related to the others.
Importantly, participants in all conditions were told that the
exclusion/inclusion feedback they received (future-life para-
digm) or the exclusion/inclusion episode they experienced
(Cyberball) was completely bogus and randomly assigned.
After the debriefing, participants were thanked and encour-
aged to asked questions before leaving.
Results
We hypothesized that exclusion in Cyberball would increase
pain sensitivity (i.e., reduce pain tolerance and threshold) but
that exclusion in the future-life paradigm would decrease
pain sensitivity (i.e., increase pain tolerance and threshold).
To test these predictions, we first standardized each partici-
pant’s baseline pain tolerance and pain threshold measures.
Once standardized, these measures were averaged to form an
overall measure of baseline pain sensitivity (with lower num-
bers indicating more sensitivity). The same procedure was
Bernstein and Claypool 7
Figure 1. The effects of exclusion and inclusion on pain
sensitivity as a function of paradigm
Lower numbers indicate more sensitivity to pain (i.e., a lower combined
pain threshold and tolerance).
performed for participants’ postmanipulation pain threshold/
tolerance measures. We next conducted a 2 (Inclusionary
Status: exclusion, inclusion) × 2 (Paradigm: Cyberball, future
life) between-subjects ANCOVA on the postmanipulation
averaged scores with the premanipulation averaged scores as
a covariate (as per DeWall & Baumeister, 2006).3 The results
revealed the predicted interaction, F(1, 47) = 16.44, p < .001,
η2 = .26 (see Figure 1). Simple effects analyses showed that
though the future belonging (M = 0.098, SD = 0.71) and
Cyberball inclusion (M = –0.024, SD = 0.96) conditions did
not differ in terms of pain sensitivity, F(1, 23) < 1, p > .81,
exclusion via Cyberball (M = –0.42, SD = 0.91) and exclu-
sion via future alone (M = 0.29, SD = 1.02) were different
from each other, F(1, 23) = 20.12, p < .001.
Moreover, not only did future alone and Cyberball exclu-
sions differ from each other, but both resulted in changes
from baseline in the hypothesized directions. Using one-
sample t tests, we compared the change in pain sensitivity in
each of the four conditions to zero (i.e., a difference score of
zero would indicate no change from Time 1 to Time 2, a
negative change score would indicate hypersensitivity, and a
positive change score would indicate numbing; see DeWall
& Baumeister, 2006, for similar procedures). Although
acceptance via Cyberball did not lead to any change in pain
sensitivity from Time 1 to Time 2, t(12) = 0.59, p > .50,
Cyberball exclusion did, in fact, lead to a hypersensitivity to
pain relative to baseline, t(11) = –4.27, p = .001. On the other
hand, receiving future-belonging feedback did not lead to
any change in pain sensitivity from baseline, t(12) = 0.094,
p > .90, but receiving future-alone feedback led to a signifi-
cant decrease in pain sensitivity, t(13) = 2.68, p = .019.
To our knowledge, this study is one of the only studies to
directly compare these two very different manipulations of
social exclusion experimentally. Consistent with the meta-
analytic evidence that exclusion manipulations are not inter-
changeable and can produce effects that differ in magnitude
(e.g., on self-esteem; Gerber & Wheeler, 2009), these results
show, in a single study, that social exclusion can both
increase and decrease pain tolerance/threshold and that the
directional impact depends on the nature of the exclusionary
experience. As predicted, Cyberball exclusion causes hyper-
sensitivity to pain, whereas future-alone exclusion causes
numbness to pain. Thus, our hypothesis was unambiguously
supported.
Discussion
We hypothesized that an important determinant of exclu-
sion’s influence on pain responses is the severity of the
exclusionary experience itself. Our pilot data indicated that
Cyberball exclusion is perceived as a “mild” social injury,
whereas future-alone exclusion is perceived as a “severe”
one. Accordingly, our severity hypothesis predicted that
exclusion in the Cyberball paradigm should decrease pain
threshold/tolerance (i.e., increase pain sensitivity) but that
exclusion in the future-life paradigm should increase pain
threshold/tolerance (i.e., decrease pain sensitivity). Indeed,
this is exactly what this first study found. These results are
important not only because they support the primary hypoth-
esis set forth in this article but also because they represent
experimental evidence showing that these two common
manipulations of social exclusion lead to different effects.
Though Study 1 was successful in showing that Cyberball
exclusion increases pain sensitivity and that future-life
exclusion decreases it, there are, of course, limitations. Of
primary concern is that there are numerous other factors,
besides social-injury severity, that differ across these two
paradigms. For example, they differ in temporality; Cyberball
occurs in the present whereas future-life is in the future.
Also, they differ in attributional ambiguity; the cause of the
exclusion in Cyberball may be less clear, whereas in future-
life it is levied directly on the participants’ personality. Thus,
although our pilot data suggest that these two exclusion para-
digms differ in perceived severity, the presence of these
other confounding variables makes it difficult to definitively
conclude that is it severity, and not one of the other factors,
that produced hypersensitivity versus numbing across exclu-
sion conditions.
To produce more compelling evidence for our severity
hypothesis, therefore, we directly manipulated the severity
(i.e., the extent of the “social damage”) of an exclusionary
experience within one of these paradigms in Study 2 while
keeping all other variables constant. Using this approach, if
we again find that a severe social injury triggers numbing
and a mild social injury causes hypersensitivity, we will
have greater confidence in our hypothesized interpretation.
Study 2
In this study, we manipulated the perceived severity of a
social-exclusion experience directly while keeping all other
aspects of the manipulation constant. We did this by creating
8 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
a “high-severity” version of the standard future-alone feed-
back and a similarly worded, but less severe companion. We
expected that individuals in the “high-severity” exclusion
experience should show the same pattern of pain sensitivity
as individuals excluded in the future-life paradigm of Study 1
(i.e., they should experience numbing), whereas those
exposed to a “low-severity” exclusion should experience a
pattern of sensitivity equivalent to those participants exposed
to Cyberball exclusion in Study 1 (i.e., a hypersensitivity to
pain). If these predictions are confirmed, this would lend
much support to the hypothesis that the severity of the
social-exclusion experience drives subsequent reactions on
physical pain and is at the heart of the opposing findings in
the literature concerning the relation social exclusion shares
with pain sensitivity. We began with a pilot study to assess
whether our manipulation of severity was valid.
Pilot Study 2
Pilot tests of the severity manipulation were conducted using
the same procedure as in the pilot for Study 1. In this study,
16 participants (11 females) participated for course credit.
They were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (high
severity vs. low severity) in a between-subjects design. Just
as in Study 1, participants were told they would be perform-
ing a task involving how they perceive different situations.
All students were told they would read about a situation and
would then rate it on several dimensions.
All participants read about an exclusion experience, but
the severity of that experience varied. Participants in the
“high-severity” condition were asked to imagine being told a
very similar version of the original future-alone feedback:
Your score indicates that you are the type who will end
up almost completely alone later in life. You may have
friends and relationships now, but by your mid-20s
most if not all of these will have drifted away. All of
your relationships you intend to be “long-term,” both
the ones you have now and the ones you may make, are
going to be short-lived and not continue into your 30s.
All people change as they get older, but people who
respond to our survey in the combination of ways that
you did tend to have changes that don’t fit with those
relationships they tend to currently have. Your relation-
ships don’t last, and when you’re past the age where
people are constantly forming new relationships, the
odds are you’ll end up being alone more and more.
Participants in the “less severe” condition were asked to
imagine being told,
Your score indicates that you are the type who will
end up with fewer relationships later in life than you
probably expected. You may have friends and rela-
tionships now, but by your mid-20s at least 71% (on
average) of these will have drifted away. Most (about
75%) of the relationships you intend to be “long-term,”
including the ones you have now and the ones you
may make, are going to be short-lived and not con-
tinue into your 30s. All people change as they get
older, but people who respond to our survey in the
combination of ways that you did tend to have changes
that don’t fit with those relationships they tend to cur-
rently have. Your relationships don’t last, and when
you’re past the age where people are constantly form-
ing new relationships, you’ll find you have fewer
relationships than you would like to have and about
75% fewer relationships than the average individual.
After reading about and imagining one of these situations,
participants rated them on how severely positive or negative
they found the situation to be (rated on a scale of –4 = very
negative to +4 = very positive), just as in Study 1.
We predicted that the high-severity future-alone condi-
tion would be perceived as more severely negative than the
low-severity future-alone condition. An independent-samples
t test confirmed this to be true, t(14) = –2.29, p = .038; indi-
viduals asked to rate the high-severity feedback (M = –2.25,
SD = 2.31) found it to be more negative than did those asked
to imagine receiving the low-severity feedback (M = –0.13,
SD = 1.25). It thus seems clear that our manipulation of
severity did indeed differ in the way we predicted. With the
manipulation pretested, we next conducted Study 2.
Method
Participants and design. For course credit, 24 (17 female)
undergraduates from the psychology participant pool partici-
pated. As in Study 1, participants were instructed not to
ingest any foods, alcohol, or pain medicine for at least
4 hours prior to participating in the experiment. They were
all nonsmokers and were right handed. All participants were
randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In both, partici-
pants suffered an experience of social exclusion, but some
experienced a highly severe social injury whereas others
experienced a less-severe social injury.
Procedure. Participants were run one at a time in the labo-
ratory. After completing a thorough written and verbal
informed consent procedure, participants’ baseline measures
of pain threshold and tolerance were recorded. This proce-
dure was identical to Study 1. Next, all participants were
asked to complete the same bogus personality test used in
Study 1. After completing the personality test, the computer
analyzed their responses. Then, participants first received
accurate feedback concerning their introversion/extroversion
(see Study 1) followed by bogus feedback concerning their
“personality profile” and how their responses predicted their
future lives. This is where the manipulation of severity occurred.
Participants in the “high-severity” condition were given
the feedback indicating they would lose virtually all of their
social connections (as described in the Study 2 Pilot). In this
situation, the extent of the “social damage” is quite extensive.
Bernstein and Claypool 9
Recipients are led to believe that essentially all of their social
relationships will be “broken” and that they will exist in near
isolation. Participants in the “less severe” condition were
given the other feedback described in the pilot study, indicat-
ing they would lose much of the social connections but main-
tain some. In this condition, “social damage” has certainly
occurred, but it is not as severe. Recipients still will feel con-
nected to others, but the extent and magnitude of their social
fulfillment is not what they would have hoped.
Just as in Study 1, immediately following receipt of this
feedback, two additional measures of pain threshold and tol-
erance were taken, using the same procedure from the begin-
ning of the study. Following this task, participants were given
a thorough debriefing just as in Study 1. After the debriefing,
participants were thanked and encouraged to ask questions
before leaving.
Results and Discussion
We hypothesized that the severity of the social injury (i.e., the
exclusion experience) would affect the effect that exclusion
has on pain sensitivity. Specifically, we predicted that when
an exclusion experience is extremely severe, like the standard
future-alone feedback, participants should experience a
decrease in pain sensitivity. At the same time, a somewhat
less severe experience of social exclusion should actually
elicit more sensitivity to pain. To test these predictions, we
once again standardized each participant’s baseline pain toler-
ance and pain threshold measures. Once standardized, these
measures were averaged to form an overall measure of base-
line pain sensitivity (with lower numbers indicating more
sensitivity). The same procedure was performed for partici-
pants’ postmanipulation pain threshold/tolerance measures.
We performed an ANCOVA comparing the high-severity
and lower-severity versions of the manipulation of social
exclusion on the postmanipulation averaged pain scores
while using the premanipulation as a covariate (as in Study 1).4
The result was significant and supported our hypothesis,
F(1, 21) = 8.65, p = .008, η2 = .29 (see Figure 2). Participants
in the high-severity condition (M = 0.12, SD = 0.71) experi-
enced a relative decrease in pain sensitivity compared to
those in the lower-severity condition (M = –0.14, SD = 1.18).
When using a one-sample t test to compare the difference
between postmanipulation pain and premanipulation pain to
0, we found that participants in the high-severity condition
experienced a decreased pain sensitivity (higher pain thresh-
old and tolerance) relative to baseline, t(12) = 2.69, p = .02.
Moreover, the opposite was found for the lower-severity
condition; participants in this condition experienced a higher
pain sensitivity (lower pain threshold and tolerance) relative
to baseline, t(10) = –2.12, p = .058.
Overall, we hypothesized that the severity (or extent of
“social damage”) of the exclusion experience might dictate
the effect social exclusion has on pain sensitivity. In this sec-
ond study, we employed two different versions of the
future-alone feedback so that some participants were exposed
to a very severe manipulation (which is quite similar to the
one currently used in the literature), whereas others received
a less-severe version. We hypothesized and found that the
less-severe version of the manipulation actually led to more
pain sensitivity (yielding results that looked very much like
those engendered by Cyberball rejection in Study 1), whereas
the more-severe version replicated the numbing of pain from
Study 1 and prior work.
General Discussion
Within the exclusion literature, a contradiction has existed
regarding the effect of social exclusion on pain sensitivity.
Though both pain overlap (Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2005)
and social pain theories (MacDonald & Leary, 2005) sug-
gest that social exclusion might trigger a response from the
physical- and social-pain systems, the nature of this response
is unclear. Both a numbing (e.g., DeWall & Baumeister,
2006) and a hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., Eisenberger et al.,
2003) appear possible. We hypothesized that these different
patterns of findings may be the result of the severity of the
social-exclusion experiences themselves. Physical injuries
and experienced pain share a nonlinear relationship, such
that as the damage from the injury increases, so too does the
experience of pain, but only to a certain point; eventually,
injuries become too severe and pain actually diminishes as
the body experiences numbing. We asserted that perhaps
social injuries follow a similar pattern, such that as social
injuries (e.g., from social exclusion) increase in their per-
ceived severity (i.e., as the victim perceives greater social
distance from others), pain increases as well until a critical
threshold is reached, at which point a numbing begins.
The results of Study 1 unambiguously supported this
hypothesis: Cyberball exclusion (shown in pilot testing to be
a relatively low-severity exclusion) caused hypersensitivity
to pain, whereas future-alone exclusion (shown to be a rela-
tively high-severity exclusion) caused numbness to pain. We
believe the finding that the type of social exclusion experi-
ence itself can moderate the response to physical pain is a
novel contribution itself. Furthermore, to our knowledge,
this study is the first to directly compare these two very dif-
ferent manipulations of social exclusion within the same
study and show that they produce opposing outcomes. Based
on these results, it no longer seems wise to assume that all
exclusion experiences affect their victims equivalently.
Though the results of Study 1 were consistent with our
severity hypothesis, they were not completely conclusive
because many other alternative explanations could apply. In
Study 2, however, we directly manipulated the severity of
the exclusion experience while holding all other features of
the episode constant (thus ensuring none of the possible
confounds from the manipulations in Study 1 were respon-
sible for our findings). Consistent with the hypothesis, our
results revealed that the manipulation of exclusion severity
10 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
led to opposing pain responses, such that a less severe
future-alone rejection led to an increase in sensitivity to
painful stimuli, whereas the highly severe version led to
pain numbing.
Though Study 1 offers novel evidence concerning the dif-
ferences between these two different manipulations of exclu-
sion, the results of Study 2 in particular may yield potentially
important insights regarding possible moderators of social-
exclusion outcomes more broadly. A lingering question
among researchers studying exclusion focuses on explaining
why the outcomes of social exclusion vary as they do. If the
severity of the exclusion experience is the reason why
Cyberball exclusion increases pain sensitivity and future-
alone exclusion numbs one to pain, this might explain, in
part, the tendency to find prosocial, adaptive responses fol-
lowing Cyberball exclusion and antisocial, maladaptive
responses following future-alone exclusion.
Cyberball exclusion, we argue, leads to a low-severity
experience of exclusion. It hurts, both emotionally (as shown
previously) and physically. Just as physical pain directs us to
engage in behaviors to remedy the situation, the social dis-
tress associated with the low-severity pain of Cyberball
exclusion should lead us to engage in corrective behaviors.
People should take steps toward fixing the injury and thus
reducing the pain. Helping others (Williams & Sommer,
1997), engaging in behavioral mimicry (Lakin & Chartrand,
2005), and attending to cues relevant for reaffiliation
(Bernstein, Sacco, Brown, Young, & Claypool, 2010; Bernstein,
Young, Brown, Sacco, & Claypool, 2008) are all behaviors
that lead to the desired end state of reaffiliation and thus a
reduction in social distress and pain.
On the other hand, future-alone exclusion is not a low-
severity injury. It is a major, shock-inducing injury that
numbs rather than hurts. Because it leads to emotional and
physical numbness, people experience no pain and thus are
not compelled in the same way to fix the situation. DeWall
and Baumeister (2006) argued that people may use their
emotional faculties to understand the world around them and
to determine how to interact with other people. If people’s
emotional systems are shocked into numbness, this might
explain why people engage in behaviors that seem to be
counter to the goal of affiliating with others—like aggressive
behavior (e.g., Twenge et al., 2001). Perhaps the only caveat
to DeWall and Baumeister’s argument that we would add,
then, is that it is not true that all exclusionary experiences
lead to this numbing. The severity of the experience appears
to be an important moderator. “Minor” social injuries should
trigger pain, which may lead to prosocial responses. “Severe”
social injuries, on the other hand, should trigger numbing
and thus lead to more antisocial behaviors.
Future research should examine the extent to which low-
severity social exclusions trigger reaffiliative behaviors and
otherwise adaptive responses and the extent to which high-
severity exclusions trigger more maladaptive and antisocial
behaviors. Furthermore, to extend the link between physical
pain and social pain even further, perhaps it would be best not
to consider social exclusion as leading to either antisocial or
prosocial responses but, instead, to consider that social exclu-
sion leads to behaviors aimed at either fixing the situation or
protecting the self and that the extent to which anti- versus
prosocial reactions occur is likely moderated by the severity
of the social exclusion. If this perspective were supported, it
would offer a new understanding of social exclusion’s
effects and might spawn new and interesting predictions. For
instance, perhaps low-severity exclusions elicit the purchase
of luxury items that indicate status (in an attempt to attract
social connections), whereas high-severity social exclusions
perhaps elicit the purchase of survival items (in an attempt to
protect the self). Future research would benefit the literature
by examining these ideas further.
Though there is much promise in this research, these stud-
ies, like all others, have some limitations. One obvious limita-
tion is that Study 2 manipulated severity within the future-life
paradigm only. The outcome was as hoped, that a less-severe
future-alone manipulation triggered increased pain sensitiv-
ity. In subsequent work, however, it will be equally important
to manipulate severity within other exclusion paradigms and
to show that more and less severe versions can produce pain
numbing and hypersensitivity, respectively. For instance,
does writing about a time one experienced a mild exclusion
(e.g., friends forgetting to call you on a Friday night) lead to
heightened sensitivity to pain, and does writing about a more
serious social infraction (e.g., the end of a multiyear relation-
ship) lead to a numbing of pain?
We are also limited in our understanding of whether or
not our results could be mapped at the neurological level.
There is now ample evidence that social pain is experienced
by the same centers of the brain as is physical pain (see
Eisenberger et al., 2003). It would be interesting to deter-
mine if the severity of a social injury also moderates the neu-
rological reactions to rejection. Presently, we do not know
whether our effect is driven by neurological responses or
whether it is the result of other processes. Future research
should investigate this issue.
In closing, we believe this work has the potential to make
varied and valuable contributions to the social-exclusion lit-
erature. This work is the first to experimentally compare two
distinct methods of social exclusion and show, in a single
study, that not all methods of exclusion are the same.
Moreover, this work showed that Cyberball exclusion can
lead to pain hypersensitivity, that future-life exclusion can
lead to pain numbing, and that these different patterns may
be the result of the two types of exclusions varying in their
perceived severity. In addition, this work offers new evidence
in support of pain overlap theory (Eisenberger & Lieberman,
2005) and social pain theory (MacDonald & Leary, 2005),
both of which argue that social and physical pain share a
neurological system. Finally, and most broadly, this work
shows, in a unique way, what social psychologists have long
argued—that one’s social experiences can have profound
effects on one’s functioning, in this case even altering one’s
physical sensations.
Bernstein and Claypool 11
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. One exception to this pattern comes from MacDonald, Kings-
bury, and Shaw (2005), who excluded or accepted participants
in Cyberball (Williams et al., 2002). Prior to the game, partici-
pants’ proneness to hurt feelings was measured and, immedi-
ately after, their physical pain threshold was measured using a
cold-pressor task. The results indicated that, among individuals
who were highly prone to hurt feelings, social exclusion dur-
ing the game elicited higher pain thresholds than did inclusion
(indicative of numbing). Even this exception to the aforemen-
tioned pattern appears consistent with our severity hypothesis.
The reason is simple: Just as people who are highly sensitive
to physical pain may interpret the same amount of pressure as
much more severe than others who are less sensitive to physical
pain, perhaps those high in hurt-feeling proneness interpret the
exclusion from Cyberball as a far more socially severe expe-
rience than those lower on this dimension might interpret the
same experience.
2. If the pressure reached 250N, the application of pressure was
immediately stopped to avoid injuring the participant. In those
cases, we recorded that maximum allotted amount (of 250N)
as the participant’s tolerance/threshold. A total of 8 participants
received 250N, all when measuring tolerance. At baseline, 4
participants registered 250N, 3 of whom were in the Cyberball
condition (2 rejection, 1 acceptance) and 1 of whom was in the
future-life condition (1 acceptance). Postmanipulation, 2 of the
same participants also registered 250N (both were in the Cyber-
ball condition; 1 rejection, 1 acceptance). The remaining 4 par-
ticipants also registered 250N postmanipulation, all of whom
were in the future-life condition (3 rejection, 1 acceptance).
3. Though we ran our analyses using baseline measures of pain
as a covariate, as DeWall and Baumeister (2006) did, we also
conducted a 2 (Inclusionary Status: exclusion, inclusion) × 2
(Paradigm: Cyberball, future life) × 2 Measurement Time (pre-
manipulation, postmanipulation) mixed-model ANOVA with
repeated measures on the last factor. This yielded a significant
three-way interaction, F(1, 48) = 18.042, p < .001. Significant
two-way interactions between Inclusionary Status and Measure-
ment Time were found for both the Cyberball and the future-
life paradigms (both ps < .04). The pattern exhibited using the
covariate analyses remained true when using Measurement
Time as a repeated-measures factor; among future-alone partici-
pants, excluded individuals became more numb to pain after the
manipulation than prior to it (p = .003), whereas among partici-
pants excluded via Cyberball, individuals had a lower average
pain threshold/tolerance after the manipulation than prior to it
(p = .001). The acceptance conditions did not differ in either
paradigm between Time 1 and Time 2 (both ps > .58).
4. As in Study 1, when conducting the analyses using a 2 (Severity:
high, low) × 2 Measurement Time (premanipulation, postma-
nipulation) mixed-model ANOVA with repeated measures on
the last factor, the interaction was significant, and the pattern of
data remained unchanged, F(1, 22) = 11.34, p = .003. Individu-
als in the “low-severity” condition experienced a decrease in
their combined threshold/tolerance measure (p = .021), whereas
individuals receiving the “high-severity” feedback experienced
a numbing of pain sensitivity, as indicated by an increased com-
bined threshold/tolerance (p = .033).
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