The Science of Being Left Out: Your Brain's Ancient Alarm, Running on a Feed

Key findings

1. 2000

   Introduced Cyberball and showed that a few minutes of being ignored by two strangers in a trivial online game measurably lowers four fundamental needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. ↗

2. 2009

   Proposed the Temporal Need-Threat Model: ostracism unfolds in a reflexive stage (immediate, painful, hard to moderate) and a later reflective stage where people appraise the event and work to restore threatened needs. ↗

3. 2011

   Reviewing two decades of research, argued that the pain of ostracism is detected rapidly and indiscriminately — it registers even when the exclusion is trivial, brief, or from people you'd otherwise dismiss — consistent with an evolved social-monitoring alarm. ↗

Key findings

1. 2003

   Using fMRI during a Cyberball exclusion, found that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex — linked to the distress of physical pain — was more active during exclusion, and its activation tracked how much social distress participants reported. ↗

2. 2010

   In a collaboration testing the social-pain overlap, acetaminophen — an ordinary physical painkiller — reduced daily self-reported hurt feelings and dampened neural responses to social rejection over three weeks, relative to placebo. ↗

Key findings

1. 2013

   Developed the first validated FoMO scale and found that fear of missing out was highest among people whose basic psychological needs — relatedness, competence, and autonomy — were least satisfied, framing FoMO as a signal of unmet needs rather than mere habit. ↗

2. 2013

   In the same work, FoMO was linked to more negative affect and to problematic patterns of engagement — such as checking during meals or driving — offering an account of why the alarm drives compulsive checking rather than blaming individual willpower. ↗