Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion

TLDR

The study examined neural correlates of social exclusion, testing whether social pain shares brain bases with physical pain. Participants underwent fMRI while playing a virtual ball‑tossing game that culminated in exclusion. Exclusion increased ACC activity, which positively correlated with distress, while RVPFC activity decreased and negatively correlated with distress, with ACC changes mediating the RVPFC–distress relationship, indicating RVPFC modulates social pain by influencing ACC.

Abstract

A neuroimaging study examined the neural correlates of social exclusion and tested the hypothesis that the brain bases of social pain are similar to those of physical pain. Participants were scanned while playing a virtual ball-tossing game in which they were ultimately excluded. Paralleling results from physical pain studies, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during exclusion than during inclusion and correlated positively with self-reported distress. Right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) was active during exclusion and correlated negatively with self-reported distress. ACC changes mediated the RVPFC-distress correlation, suggesting that RVPFC regulates the distress of social exclusion by disrupting ACC activity.