The Ongoing Cognitive Processing of Exclusionary Social Events: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Social Exclusion and ERPs Social exclusion is theorized to influence cognition by reallocating attention toward exclusion and away from other processes. Accordingly, this additional processing of exclusionary events should be exhibited in neural indices of attention allocation. Previous research has shown N2 differences at the moment that an individual can identify being included or excluded within an ongoing social interaction regardless of the larger nature of the social exchange. Further, research has shown that exclusion draws attention away from other cognitive control processes, suggesting that additional processing of exclusionary events should be evidenced in ongoing interactions. Current Study To examine the potential of ongoing differences in neural activity following social exclusion, we utilized the Cyberball paradigm to assess participants’ event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to both inclusionary and exclusionary events occurring within two social interaction blocks (inclusion, exclusion). Each event consisted of a series of throw frames that showed a ball moving across the screen from player to player. This study specifically examined the frame following the informational frame that informed participants about the recipient of the throw.