title: Who is most vulnerable to social rejection? The toxic combination of low self-esteem and lack of negative emotion differentiation on neural responses to rejection.
abstract: People have a fundamental need to belong that, when satisfied, is associated with mental and physical well-being. The current investigation examined what happens when the need to belong is thwarted-and how individual differences in self-esteem and emotion differentiation modulate neural responses to social rejection. We hypothesized that low self-esteem would predict heightened activation in distress-related neural responses during a social rejection manipulation, but that this relationship would be moderated by negative emotion differentiation-defined as adeptness at using discrete negative emotion categories to capture one's felt experience. Combining daily diary and neuroimaging methodologies, the current study showed that low self-esteem and low negative emotion differentiation represented a toxic combination that was associated with stronger activation during social rejection (versus social inclusion) in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula-two regions previously shown to index social distress. In contrast, individuals with greater negative emotion differentiation did not show stronger activation in these regions, regardless of their level of self-esteem; fitting with prior evidence that negative emotion differentiation confers equanimity in emotionally upsetting situations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Todd B
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Kashdan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
authors.forename: C Nathan
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Dewall
authors.affiliation: Center for the Mind and Brain, University of California-Davis, Davis, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Carrie L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Masten
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Richard S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Pond
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, Georgia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Caitlin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Combs
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Schurtz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Antonina S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Farmer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D059906:Neuroimaging; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012649:Self Concept; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D055815:Young Adult