Zhansheng Chen

When Hurt Will Not Heal Exploring the Capacity to Relive Social and Physical Pain

Recent discoveries suggest that socialpain is as real and intense as physical pain, and that the social-pain system may have piggybacked on the brain structure that had evolved earlier for physical pain. The present study examined an important distinction between social and physical pain: Individuals can relive and reexperience social pain more easily and more intensely than physical pain. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people reported higher levels of pain after reliving a past socially painful event than after reliving a past physically painful event. Studies 3 and 4 found, in addition, that people performed worse on cognitively demanding tasks after they relived social rather than physical pain. Implications for research on social pain and theories about social pain are discussed.

Feeling Entitled to More Ostracism Increases Dishonest Behavior

Five experiments tested whether ostracism increases dishonesty through increased feelings of entitlement. Compared with included and control participants, ostracized participants indicated higher levels of dishonest intentions (Experiments 1-3) and cheated more to take undeserved money in a behavioral task (Experiments 4 and 5). In addition, increased feelings of entitlement mediated the effect of ostracism on dishonesty (Experiments 3-5). Framing ostracism as beneficial weakened the connection between ostracism, entitlement, and dishonest behavior (Experiment 5). Together, these findings highlight the significance of entitlement in explaining when and why ostracism increases dishonest behavior and how to weaken this relationship.

Assuring a sense of growth

Prior studies have shown that cyber-ostracism increases aggression. The present research provided the first experimental support for the prediction that assuring a sense of growth after cyber-ostracism can weaken the effect of cyber-ostracism on aggression. Specifically, we found that ostracized participants who were primed with the beliefs that ostracism was detrimental behaved more aggressively than their included counterparts. In contrast, ostracized participants who were primed with the beliefs that ostracism could aid their growth and development no longer behaved aggressively. These findings highlight the significance of post-ostracism cognitive processes in influencing various behavioral responses of ostracism and other interpersonal maltreatments in the cyberspace. Implications are discussed. This study tested whether adopting growth beliefs weakened the effect of cyber-ostracism on aggression.Ostracized participants who were primed that ostracism was detrimental behaved more aggressively.Ostracized participants who were primed that ostracism could aid growth did not behave aggressively.

How Does the Source of Rejection Perceive Innocent Victims

ABSTRACT Prior studies have consistently revealed a strong positive association between general just-world beliefs and victim blaming. The present research aims to extend the literature by testing whether an act of social rejection overrides the influence of general just-world beliefs on victim blaming. Building upon the theory of moral compensation that people are more prosocial after behaving undesirably, we predicted that people should be less likely to blame an innocent victim after rejecting another person and that general just-world beliefs were not associated with victim blaming among the sources of rejection. To test these predictions, participants first completed a measure of general just-world beliefs and then recalled a past incident in which they rejected or accepted another person. They then read a scenario about school bullying and made attributions for the victim’s suffering. The results supported our predictions and the implications of the study are discussed.

Social Support and Money as Double-Edged Swords: Primary Soothers and Precipitants of Pain

Zhao and Gao (this issue) put forward a painbuffering theory whose central tenet is that social support is a primary pain buffer and money is a secondary pain buffer. As we went over their thought-provoking article, a number of questions inevitably came to mind: What does social support mean? Is a pain buffer the same as a pain soother? Do social support and money always play a protective role? Does social support always play a primary role while money always plays a secondary role? In the present commentary, we attempt to address each of these questions with our own views and cite relevant theories and findings to substantiate our views. Recommendations are made in an attempt to refine the hypotheses to make their theory a relatively more fecund one.

Cold Thermal Temperature Threatens Belonging: The Moderating Role of Perceived Social Support

Recent research suggests that thermal (cold vs. warm) experience influences people’s perception and construal of the social world. Extending this line of research, the present investigation examined whether cold thermal temperature would influence people’s psychological feelings of belonging. We found that drinking cold water threatened feelings of belonging (Study 1). An additional study replicated this effect and further showed that it was moderated by perceived family support, such that the effect of cold water on the belonging was only found among participants with low family support (Study 2). These findings not only strengthen the interconnection between social and physical experiences, but they also demonstrate the interactive effect of these two types of experiences on psychological feelings. Implications are discussed.

When do socially accepted people feel ostracized? Physical pain triggers social pain

The present research investigated whether physical suffering would cause people to feel ostracized even when they are accepted by their social interaction partners. Participants were instructed to place their hands either into a circulated cold water bath (to induce physical pain) or into a water bath at room temperature while they were either included or ostracized during an online ball tossing game—Cyberball. We found that physical pain led people to experience social pain, while they are socially accepted during a social interaction. Our findings suggest that people with physical suffering may need extra attention in social interactions to satisfy their threatened social needs.

Ostracized but why? Effects of attributions and empathy on connecting with the socially excluded

The present research examined people’s responses towards others’ exclusion experience. The authors predicted that both causal attributions and empathy would mediate whether people affiliate with a victim of an ambiguous exclusion experience. Perceivers observing another’s exclusion (relative to inclusion) without clearly announced reasons chose to affiliate with the target and this was mediated by increased external attributions for the exclusion (Studies 1a, 1b, 2). When the attributions people made for the exclusion of a target was experimentally manipulated, internal attributions decreased desire for affiliation relative to external or ambiguous attributions, and this was mediated by differences in empathy for the target (Study 3). Further, external attributions arisen from perceiving a causally unclear exclusion leads to an empathetic response which results in an increased desire to affiliate with the target (Study 4). Future directions on perceptions of those who have been excluded are discussed.