Decreased interoceptive accuracy following social exclusion

• We examine the effect of social exclusion on interoceptive accuracy.
• Interoceptive accuracy is measured via a heartbeat perception task.
• Social exclusion is manipulated using the Cyberball paradigm.
• Exclusion decreases heartbeat perception accuracy.

The need for social affiliation is one of the most important and fundamental human needs. Unsurprisingly, humans display strong negative reactions to social exclusion. In the present study, we investigated the effect of social exclusion on interoceptive accuracy – accuracy in detecting signals arising inside the body – measured with a heartbeat perception task. We manipulated exclusion using Cyberball, a widely used paradigm of a virtual ball-tossing game, with half of the participants being included during the game and the other half of participants being ostracized during the game. Our results indicated that heartbeat perception accuracy decreased in the excluded, but not in the included, participants. We discuss these results in the context of social and physical pain overlap, as well as in relation to internally versus externally oriented attention.