Body Temperature Actually Drops During Social Exclusion
Christopher Philip
Warmth appears to be a part of the social fabric of relationships. We say “She’s a cold person”, or “He’s frigid” when people respond to social settings negatively.
Being ostracized or excluded, even by strangers is quite painful as it threatens fundamental human needs. Previous research has shown that people perceive their environment as cooler when they were excluded. This led participants to prefer warmer drinks.
Recent theory into social exclusion has been framed within embodiment – people use metaphor such as “warm” and “cold” to help us understand their feelings.
In the current research a team led by researcher Hans IJzerman Tilburg University, Netherlands predicted that social exclusion results in feelings of being cold, because people actually are cold. Their theory stems from the thought that social relations are scaffold onto literal changes in bodily temperature. This idea implies that the metaphors of warm and cold that we use to describe social relationship stem from actual experiences of warmth and coldness as a physiological response.
In the first experiment 41 participants played an online ball-tossing game called “Cyberball.” During the experiment, subjects were fitted with a device attached to their finger to measure their temperature. Half of the students were assigned to the inclusion condition and the other half the exclusion condition. During the game, participants played as the ‘third player’ and received the ball every two throws (in the inclusion condition), but did not receive the ball after the first two throws (exclusion condition).
As predicted, the subjects who were excluded showed a measured drop in temperature whereas those who were included, experienced no discernable temperature drop.
In the second experiment, the researchers wanted to test if a warm drink could alleviate the negative effects of social exclusion. They figured that a warm drink would raise the temperature of the participant’s fingers and therefore trick a person into feeling less isolated.
The second experiment was conducted much like the first, except this time after a set length of time, the game was interrupted by a pre-programmed message showing “error” on the screen. The experimenter than went into the room and handed the participant either a warm cup of tea or cold cup of tea to hold for 30 seconds as they “fixed” the problem. After the issue was resolved, the participants were asked to fill out a survey including their feelings on a 5-point scale (bad, sad, tense, and stressed).
The results showed that the warm tea alleviate, as predicted, the negative effects of social exclusion whereas the cold tea did not.
The results support the idea that people use perception of their selves and the environment in order to conceptualize experiences. This is why a warm cup of tea and positive social relationships leads to “holding” “warm feelings” toward someone.
Previous research has shown that babies who are held by their mothers have lower skin temperatures than babies left alone in a cot. Additionally, socially connected people tend to have high cardiac output and better levels of autonomic activity than those who are social isolated.
Being disconnected from others may lead to vasoconstriction (narrowing of the blood vessels in the periphery) so as to keep warm blood in the core body. So when people are fearful, the skin temperature drops and the blood is kept in the core to keep vital organs functioning.
The researchers say that skin temperature plays a vital role in relationships at a physiological level and that our mental state, or how we think about social connection, is scaffold onto these very real physiological states. Therefore, when people experience positive and negate social interaction, it is reflected in temperature re-adjustments.
Over two studies it was found that skin temperature actually dropped in response social exclusion, and that the negative effects were mitigated with a warm drink.
Resources
IJzerman, Hans; Marcello Gallucci; Wim T.J.L. Pouw; Sophia C. Weigerber; Niels J. Van Doesum and Kipling D. Williams. Cold-Blooded Loneliness: Social Exclusion Leads To Lower Skin Temperatures. Acta Psychologica. 2019. 140:283-288.
Fransson, A., Karlsson, H., & Nilsson, K. Temperature Variation In Newborn
Babies: Importance Of Physical Contact With The Mother. Archives of Disease in
Childhood. Fetal and Neonatal Edition. 2005; 90: 500-504.
Uchino, B. N., Cacioppo, J. T., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996). The Relationship Between Social Support And Psychological Processes: A Review With Emphasis On Underlying Mechanisms And Implications For Health. Psychological Bulletin. 1996; 119: 488-531.
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., Crawford, L. E., Ernst, J. M., Burleson, M. H., Kowalewski, R. B., et al. (2002). Loneliness and health: Potential mechanisms. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2002; 64: 407-417.
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