Today's encore selection
-- from "The Pain of Exclusion" by Kipling D.
Williams. Our need to matter and our need to
belong are as fundamental as our need to eat and breathe.
Therefore ostracism -- rejection, silence, exclusion -- is one
of the most powerful punishments that one person can inflict
on another. Brain scans have shown that this rejection is
actually experienced as physical pain, and that this pain is
experienced whether those that reject us are close friends or
family or total strangers, and whether the act is overt
exclusion or merely looking away. Most typically, ostracism
causes us to act to be included again -- to belong again --
although not necessarily with the same group:
"Studies reveal
that even subtle, artificial or ostensibly unimportant
exclusion can lead to strong emotional reactions. A strong
reaction makes sense when your spouse's family or close circle
of friends rejects or shuns you, because these people are
important to you. It is more surprising that important
instances of being barred are not necessary for intense
feelings of rejection to emerge. We can feel awful even after
people we have never met simply look the other way.
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"This reaction
serves a function: it warns us that something is wrong, that
there exists a serious threat to our social and psychological
well-being. Psychologists Roy Baumeister of Florida State
University and Mark Leary of Duke University had argued in a
1995 article that belonging to a group was a need -- not a
desire or preference -- and, when thwarted, leads to
psychological and physical illness. Meanwhile other
researchers have hypothesized that belonging, self-esteem, a
sense of control over your life and a belief that existence is
meaningful constitute four fundamental psychological needs
that we must meet to function as social individuals. ...
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"Ostracism
uniquely threatens all these needs. Even in a verbal or
physical altercation, individuals are still connected. Total
exclusion, however, severs all bonds. Social rejection also
deals a uniquely harsh blow to self-esteem, because it implies
wrongdoing. Worse, the imposed silence forces us to ruminate,
generating self-deprecating thoughts in our search for an
explanation. The forced isolation also makes us feel helpless:
you can fight back, but no one will respond. Finally,
ostracism makes our very existence feel less meaningful
because this type of rejection makes us feel invisible and
unimportant. The magnitude of the emotional impact of
ostracism even makes evolutionary sense. After all, social
exclusion interferes not only with reproductive success but
also with survival. People who do not belong are not included
in collaborations necessary to obtain and share food and also
lack protection against enemies.
"In fact, the
emotional fallout is so poignant that the brain registers it
as physical pain. ... As soon as [we begin] to feel
ostracized, [brain] scanners register a flurry of activity in
[our] dorsal anterior cingulate cortex -- a brain region
associated with the emotional aspects of physical pain.
...
"For most
people, ostracism usually engenders a concerted effort to be
included again, though not necessarily by the group that
shunned us. We do this by agreeing with, mimicking, obeying or
cooperating with others. In our 2000 study, for example,
Cheung and Choi asked participants to perform a perceptual
task in which they had to memorize a simple shape such as a
triangle and correctly identify the shape within a more
complex figure. Before they made their decision, we flashed
the supposed answers of other participants on the screen.
Those who had been previously ostracized ... were more likely
than included players to give the same answers as the majority
of participants, even though the majority was always wrong.
Those who had been excluded wanted to fit in, even if that
meant ignoring their own better judgment.
"Although
personality seems to have no influence on our immediate
reactions to ostracism, character traits do affect how quickly
we recover from it and how we cope with the experience. ...
People who are socially anxious tend to ruminate or are prone
to depression take longer to recover from ostracism than other
people do."
| Author: |
Kipling D.
Williams |
| Title: |
"The Pain of
Exclusion" |
| Publisher: |
Scientific American
Mind |
| Date: |
January/February
2011 |
| Pages: |
30-37 | |
