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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1368214

Social exclusion: differences in neural mechanisms underlying direct versus vicarious experience

Provisionally accepted
Juan Song Juan Song 1Tao Lian Tao Lian 1Yunhong Zhang Yunhong Zhang 2*Mingjing Cao Mingjing Cao 1Zhibin Jiao Zhibin Jiao 1
  • 1 Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China
  • 2 China National Institute of Standardization, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Social exclusion stands as a source of social discord and holds substantial research value. Prior investigations on social exclusion have overlooked the interactive relationship between the excluded individuals and the observers. Hence, this study comparatively explores the neural mechanisms underlying the psychological responses of two distinct roles within the same social exclusion context. A total of 40 35 pairs (20 19 pairs of females) participated in the experiment. Within each pair, one individual assumed the role of a socially excluded participant (subjecttarget), while the other acted as a social exclusion observer. SubjectTargets engaged in an online ball-passing game where controlled ball allocations to the participants created an exclusion scenario. Meanwhile, observers spectated the subjecttargets playing the game. Throughout the ball-passing activity, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recorded the blood oxygen data in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) of both participants. Our findings revealed varied levels of rejection sensitivity elicited by direct or observed social exclusion experiences. Additionally, distinct patterns of neural activation were observed: subjecttargets displayed conditional differences in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), while male observers exhibited conditional activation differences in the mPFC, and female observers showed conditional activation differences in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). This study juxtaposes the behavioral and neural activation variances between subjecttargets and observers within the same social context, offering a novel perspective on investigating the neural mechanisms of social exclusion.

    Keywords: social exclusion, observer, vicarious experience, Empathy, functional near-infrared spectroscopy

    Received: 17 Jan 2024; Accepted: 01 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Song, Lian, Zhang, Cao and Jiao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yunhong Zhang, China National Institute of Standardization, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.