title: Social exclusion and pain sensitivity: why exclusion sometimes hurts and sometimes numbs.
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.
authors: Penn State Abington, Abington, PA 19020, USA. mjb70@psu.edu
authors: Michael J
authors: MJ
authors: Bernstein
authors: Heather M
authors: HM
authors: Claypool
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D058748:Pain Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000523:psychology*; D012929:Psychological Distance