Processing of social exclusion in a strict hierarchy
Michael Niedeggen1, Rudolf Kerschreiter2
1Division of Experimental Psychology and Neuropsychology, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Plos One
|December 19, 2025
Summary
Social exclusion is less distressing and elicits weaker brain responses when perceived as decided by one person, unlike group exclusion. This challenges previous findings on social exclusion processing.
Area of Science:
- Social psychology
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Social exclusion significantly impacts belonging and elicits negative affective responses.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically the P3 effect, indicate processing of exclusion as a violation of expected social involvement.
- The Cyberball paradigm is the predominant method for studying social exclusion, simulating a ball-tossing game.
Purpose of the Study:
- To challenge existing findings on social exclusion by introducing a novel paradigm, Cyberband.
- To investigate how exclusion experienced in an orchestra setting, influenced by a single decider (conductor), affects affective responses and brain activity.
- To compare the effects of exclusion from solo performance versus joint actions.
Main Methods:
- Introduction of the Cyberband paradigm, simulating exclusion within an orchestra setting.
- Experiment 1: Reduced conductor cues directed to an individual (solo exclusion).
- Experiment 2: Reduced participation in joint actions (tutti) versus dyadic actions (duets).
Main Results:
- Solo exclusion in Cyberband diminished self-reported threat to belonging and the P3 effect compared to Cyberball findings.
- Exclusion from joint actions (tutti) enhanced the P3 effect, while exclusion from dyadic actions (duets) did not.
- Reduced participation affected early frontal ERP positivity (P2), indicating changes in cue salience.
Conclusions:
- Exclusion attributed to a single decision-maker is experienced as less painful and elicits different neural signatures than exclusion in group settings.
- The Cyberball setup's findings on exclusion processing may not generalize to situations involving a single authority figure.
- Exclusion from joint actions appears to be a more potent trigger for ERP signatures of violated expectations than exclusion from individual performance cues.
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