Social support modulates the neural correlates underlying social exclusion

Ostracism threatens the human need for social interactions, with negative consequences on cognition, affect and behavior. Understanding the mechanisms that can alleviate these consequences has therefore become an important research agenda. In this study, we used behavioral and fMRI measures to advance our understanding how social support can buffer the negative effects of social exclusion. We focused on two different types of support from a friend: emotional support, conveyed by gentle touch and appraisal support, implemented as informative text messages. Seventy-one female participants underwent fMRI scanning while playing a virtual ball-tossing game in the course of which they were excluded. Two consecutive runs of the game were separated according to the participant’s experimental condition (appraisal support, emotional support and no support). Results showed that the experience of social exclusion is modulated by the type of support received. Specifically, emotional support decreased negative emotions and anterior insula activity, while appraisal support increased negative emotions, with concomitant increase of subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and decrease of temporal-parietal junction activity. These divergent effects of social support point to the necessity to characterize whether and under which conditions it represents an effective and positive resource to alleviate the negative consequences of social exclusion.