Decreased interoceptive accuracy following social exclusion

Caroline Durlik, Manos Tsakiris

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Abstract

The need for social affiliation is one of the most important and fundamental human needs. Unsurprisingly, humans display strong negative reactions to social exclusion. In the present study, we investigated the effect of social exclusion on interoceptive accuracy – accuracy in detecting signals arising inside the body – measured with a heartbeat perception task. We manipulated exclusion using Cyberball, a widely used paradigm of a virtual ball-tossing game, with half of the participants being included during the game and the other half of participants being ostracized during the game. Our results indicated that heartbeat perception accuracy decreased in the excluded, but not in the included, participants. We discuss these results in the context of social and physical pain overlap, as well as in relation to internally versus externally oriented attention.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)57–63
Number of pages17
JournalInternational journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
Volume96
Issue number1
Early online date18 Feb 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2015

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