J Pers Soc Psychol. 2006 Jul;91(1):1-15.

Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy.

Source

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1270, USA. dewall@darwin.psy.fsu.edu

Abstract

Prior findings of emotional numbness (rather than distress) among socially excluded persons led the authors to investigate whether exclusion causes a far-reaching insensitivity to both physical and emotional pain. Experiments 1-4 showed that receiving an ostensibly diagnostic forecast of a lonesome future life reduced sensitivity to physical pain, as indicated by both (higher) thresholds and tolerance. Exclusion also caused emotional insensitivity, as indicated by reductions in affective forecasting of joy or woe over a future football outcome (Experiment 3), as well as lesser empathizing with another person's suffering from either romantic breakup (Experiment 4) or a broken leg (Experiment 5). The insensitivities to pain and emotion were highly intercorrelated.

PMID:: 16834476; [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Publication Types, MeSH Terms, Grant Support

Publication Types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH Terms

Grant Support

MH-65559/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources

Medical

Pain - MedlinePlus Health Information

Supplemental Content

Related citations

Empathy gaps for social pain: why people underestimate the pain of social suffering. [J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011]
Empathy gaps for social pain: why people underestimate the pain of social suffering.
Nordgren LF, Banas K, MacDonald G. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2011 Jan; 100(1):120-8.
An experimental study of shared sensitivity to physical pain and social rejection. [Pain. 2006]
An experimental study of shared sensitivity to physical pain and social rejection.
Eisenberger NI, Jarcho JM, Lieberman MD, Naliboff BD. Pain. 2006 Dec 15; 126(1-3):132-8. Epub 2006 Aug 4.
An experimental investigation of emotional willingness and physical pain tolerance in deliberate self-harm: the moderating role of interpersonal distress. [Compr Psychiatry. 2011]
An experimental investigation of emotional willingness and physical pain tolerance in deliberate self-harm: the moderating role of interpersonal distress.
Gratz KL, Hepworth C, Tull MT, Paulson A, Clarke S, Remington B, Lejuez CW. Compr Psychiatry. 2011 Jan-Feb; 52(1):63-74. Epub 2010 Jun 26.
Review Loneliness in the school setting. [J Sch Nurs. 2008]
Review Loneliness in the school setting.
Krause-Parello CA. J Sch Nurs. 2008 Apr; 24(2):66-70.
Review Conceptual relations between loneliness and culture. [Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2010]
Review Conceptual relations between loneliness and culture.
van Staden WC, Coetzee K. Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2010 Nov; 23(6):524-9.

See reviews... See all...

Cited by 7 PubMed Central articles

Cognitive determinants of affective forecasting errors. [Judgm Decis Mak. 2010]
Cognitive determinants of affective forecasting errors.
Hoerger M, Quirk SW, Lucas RE, Carr TH. Judgm Decis Mak. 2010 Aug; 5(5):365-373.
Alone and Without Purpose: Life Loses Meaning Following Social Exclusion. [J Exp Soc Psychol. 2009]
Alone and Without Purpose: Life Loses Meaning Following Social Exclusion.
Stillman TF, Baumeister RF, Lambert NM, Crescioni AW, Dewall CN, Fincham FD. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2009 Jul; 45(4):686-694.
The Scaffolded Mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world. [Eur J Soc Psychol. 2009]
The Scaffolded Mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world.
Williams LE, Huang JY, Bargh JA. Eur J Soc Psychol. 2009 Dec 1; 39(7):1257-1267.

See all...

Related information

Related Citations
Calculated set of PubMed citations closely related to the selected article(s) retrieved using a word weight algorithm. Related articles are displayed in ranked order from most to least relevant, with the “linked from” citation displayed first.
Cited in PMC
Full-text articles in the PubMed Central Database that cite the current articles.

Recent activity

Clear Turn Off Turn On

Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain toleranc...
Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2006 Jul ;91(1):1-15.

PubMed
Brain areas underlying visual mental imagery and visual perception: an fMRI stud...
Brain areas underlying visual mental imagery and visual perception: an fMRI study.
Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2004 Jul ;20(2):226-41.

PubMed
Divalproex in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized, doub...
Divalproex in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in a veteran population.
J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2008 Feb ;28(1):84-8.

PubMed
Effects of isradipine on methamphetamine-induced changes in attentional and perc...
Effects of isradipine on methamphetamine-induced changes in attentional and perceptual-motor skills of cognition.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2005 Mar ;178(2-3):296-302. Epub 2004 Sep 25 .

PubMed
A case of mania following deep brain stimulation for obsessive compulsive disord...
A case of mania following deep brain stimulation for obsessive compulsive disorder.
Stereotact Funct Neurosurg. 2010 ;88(5):322-8. Epub 2010 Aug 13 .

PubMed

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

PubMed

Display Settings:

Send to: