Cyberball Paradigm Research Articles

Examining the causal effects of social exclusion on shame and dissociative detachment

Background and objectivesDissociative detachment experiences (e.g., derealization, absorption) underpin much psychopathology and are often researched in relation to co-occurring affective states such as shame, the latter being known to occur in situations involving actual or perceived negative social evaluation. The association between shame and dissociative detachment may also be moderated by individual differences in people's need to belong. The goal of the present study was to experimentally investigate the effects of social exclusion on shame and dissociative detachment depending on perceivers' need to belong. MethodsAfter measuring individual differences in need to belong and shame proneness, the Cyberball paradigm was utilized to communicate either social inclusion or exclusion. Following Cyberball, a sample of 281 participants completed measures of state shame and state dissociation. ResultsSocial exclusion increased dissociative detachment, and these effects were mediated by increases in state shame. These effects were particularly evident among people with a high need to belong. LimitationsOther individual differences such as rejection sensitivity may also moderate the relationship between exclusion and shame. While Cyberball can be used to investigate shame, it can only induce shame via social exclusion, whereas shame can also be elicited in other ways such as performance failure. ConclusionsSocial exclusion can elicit shame, which is most acutely felt by those with a strong need to belong, and this aversive experience appears to be managed by dissociative detachment.

Combined Effects of Social Exclusion and Social Rank Feedback on Risky Decision-Making Across Adolescence.

Adolescents' need to belong and concerns about social status are thought to increase risk-taking, however, not much is known about how feedback about social rank and the effects of social exclusion moderate risky decision-making. To this end, the present study examined how social rank feedback moderates the effects of social exclusion on risky decisions during adolescence. The experimental study included a total of 122 participants (11-19 years; 44% female). Participants were randomly assigned to receive either individual or social rank feedback in the Columbia Card Task after social inclusion and exclusion via the Cyberball paradigm. Contrary to expectations, social exclusion led to more cautious decision-making. Mid-adolescents were most influenced by the combination of social exclusion and social rank feedback, while late adolescents became more cautious with individual feedback. These findings suggest that peer influences also have adaptive effects, increasing sensitivity to risk information, with developmental differences in the role of social rank.

The mediating role of hostile attribution bias in social exclusion affecting aggressive behavior.

Aggression is one of the public social issues affecting campus harmony and stability, and social exclusion is an important interpersonal contextual factor among many factors affecting aggression. However, studies examining the influence of social exclusion on aggression and its mediating mechanism are not systematic enough. Based on the general aggression model (GAM), we intend to explore the role of hostile attribution bias (HAB) in both trait and state levels of social exclusion, which leads to aggression through a combination of questionnaire and experimental methods. Study 1 surveyed 388 current high school students (Mage = 16.09, SD = 1.01) and found that HAB mediates the relationship between long-term social exclusion (trait level) and aggression tendency. Study 2 experimented with 181 high school students (Mage = 16.95, SD = 1.13) to examine whether short-term social exclusion (state level) after initiating the Cyberball paradigm could still influence aggressive behavior through the mediating role of HAB. Results found that the mediating role of HAB still holds. The findings of the study further enrich the GAM and have important implications for a more targeted approach to aggression prevention and intervention.

Automatic detection of facial expressions during the Cyberball paradigm in Borderline Personality Disorder: a pilot study.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) symptoms include inappropriate control of anger and severe emotional dysregulation after rejection in daily life. Nevertheless, when using the Cyberball paradigm, a tossing game to simulate social exclusion, the seven basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, and contempt) have not been exhaustively tracked out. It was hypothesized that these patients would show anger, contempt, and disgust during the condition of exclusion versus the condition of inclusion. When facial emotions are automatically detected by Artificial Intelligence, "blending", -or a mixture of at least two emotions- and "masking", -or showing happiness while expressing negative emotions- may be most easily traced expecting higher percentages during exclusion rather than inclusion. Therefore, face videos of fourteen patients diagnosed with BPD (26 ± 6 years old), recorded while playing the tossing game, were analyzed by the FaceReader software. The comparison of conditions highlighted an interaction for anger: it increased during inclusion and decreased during exclusion. During exclusion, the masking of surprise; i.e., displaying happiness while feeling surprised, was significantly more expressed. Furthermore, disgust and contempt were inversely correlated with greater difficulties in emotion regulation and symptomatology, respectively. Therefore, the automatic detection of emotional expressions during both conditions could be useful in rendering diagnostic guidelines in clinical scenarios.

The ‘scars’ left on children by exclusion, but re‐inclusion may ‘heal up’

AbstractPrevious studies have shown that social exclusion can have negative effects on the well‐being of children and adolescents. However, there is inconsistent evidence regarding how the impact of social exclusion changes with age. This study used the Cyberball paradigm to investigate the effects of exclusion and subsequent inclusion on primary needs (such as belonging, self‐esteem, control and meaningful existence) and emotions (including happiness, sadness and anger) in a sample of Chinese school‐aged children (163 children aged 6–8, 8–10 and 10–11). The results revealed that children aged 6–8 showed lower susceptibility to ostracism, while threats to primary needs emerged around the ages of 8–10 and persisted until 10–12. Negative effects on moods were evident from the age of 6–8 and intensified with age. Brief inclusion following exclusion was found to effectively restore the primary needs and moods of ostracized children, serving as a reliable intervention for promoting rapid recovery. However, age‐related differences were observed in the restorative effects of re‐inclusion, with 8‐ to 10‐year‐olds benefiting more compared to 10‐ to 12‐year‐olds. These findings provide valuable insights for educational institutions seeking to create supportive environments that help children recover from the detrimental effects of ostracism.Highlights Ostracism can be detrimental to the primary needs and moods of school‐aged children. There are developmental changes in the effects of ostracism on children's primary needs and moods, and 8–10 years old may be a critical period. Re‐inclusion can effectively restore the damaged primary needs and moods of excluded children, but its effect is also age‐dependent.

A Study on Social Inclusion of Humanoid Robots: A Novel Embodied Adaptation of the Cyberball Paradigm

As social robots are being built with the aim of employing them in our social environments, it is crucial to understand whether we are inclined to include them in our social ingroups. Social inclusion might depend on various factors. To understand if people have the tendency to treat robots as their in-group members, we adapted a classical social psychology paradigm, namely the “Cyberball game”, to a 3-D experimental protocol involving an embodied humanoid robot. In our experiment, participants played the ball-tossing game with the iCub robot and another human confederate. In our version, the human confederate was instructed to exclude the robot from the game. This was done to investigate whether participants would re-include the robot in the game. In addition, we examined if acquired technical knowledge about robots would affect social inclusion. To this aim, participants performed the Cyberball twice, namely before and after a familiarization phase when they were provided with technical knowledge about the mechanics and software related to the functionality of the robot. Results showed that participants socially re-included the robot during the task, equally before and after the familiarization session. The familiarization phase did not affect the frequency of social inclusion, suggesting that humans tend to socially include robots, independent of the knowledge they have about their inner functioning.

An experimental paradigm for triggering a depressive syndrome.

Research investigating whether depression is an adaptation or a disorder has been hindered by the lack of an experimental paradigm that can test causal relationships. Moreover, studies attempting to induce the syndrome often fail to capture the suite of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that characterize depression. An experimental paradigm for triggering depressive symptoms can improve our etiological understanding of the syndrome. The present study attempts to induce core symptoms of depression, particularly those related to rumination, in a healthy, nonclinical sample through a controlled social experiment. These symptoms are sad or depressed mood, anhedonia, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, and difficulty concentrating. One hundred and thirty-four undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either an exclusion (E) or control (C) group. Participants in the exclusion group were exposed to a modified Cyberball paradigm, designed to make them feel socially excluded, followed by a dual-interference task to assess whether their exclusion interfered with their working memory. Excluded participants: (a) self-reported a significant increase in sadness and decrease in happiness, but not anxiety or calmness; (b) scored significantly higher in four of five variables related to depressive rumination; and (c) performed significantly worse on a dual-interference task, suggesting an impaired ability to concentrate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Not All Levels of Social Re-Inclusion Allow for Recovery from Negative Outcomes of Social Exclusion: The Moderating Role of Self-Esteem.

Previous studies on social exclusion have focused on its adverse effects, rarely exploring how social re-inclusion can aid recovery from exclusion-induced distress. The level of social re-inclusion that can help individuals recover from social exclusion, and whether the recovery effect is influenced by individual characteristics are unclear. The present experimental study extends the Cyberball paradigm, adding a re-inclusion stage to explore the recovery effects of four levels of social re-inclusion on affect; furthermore, it tests the moderating role of self-esteem in the recovery effect. A total of 154 Chinese college students participated in the experiment. Results showed that (1) recovery was effective when the level of re-inclusion was equal to (replica re-inclusion) or greater than (moderate and high over-re-inclusions) the pre-exclusion level of inclusion, but ineffective when it was below this level (token re-inclusion); (2) the re-inclusion level positively predicted recovery, and this was moderated by self-esteem-the prediction was effective for participants with middle and high self-esteem, but not for participants with low self-esteem. These results are discussed from a group process and self-psychology perspective.

Social exclusion evokes different psychophysiological responses in individuals high on the psychopathy facets fearless dominance and self-centered impulsivity.

Individuals with psychopathic personality traits are generally thought to have difficulties in processing and experiencing emotions. These difficulties could also translate to emotionally charged social situations such as social exclusion. Being socially excluded is often experienced as stressful and unpleasant, potentially even leading to selfish or aggressive behavior-both of which are linked to certain aspects of psychopathy. The current study investigated self-report and physiological responses to social exclusion in the cyberball paradigm in a carefully selected community sample of individuals either scoring high on primary (N = 24) or secondary psychopathy traits (N = 17). Across the sample, the cyberball paradigm decreased experiences of joy and approach motivation, increased subjective anger reports, and induced changes in heart rate. In contrast, individuals scoring high on secondary psychopathy traits (Self-Centered Impulsivity group) displayed stronger physiological reactivity during a habituation phase of prolonged social exclusion than individuals scoring high on primary psychopathy traits (Fearless Dominance group), indexed by changes in skin conductance level. Moreover, a potential mismatch between self-reported and physiological arousal seemed to be only observable in individuals with high secondary psychopathy traits. Overall, the current results suggest diverging patterns of emotional processing and regulation in a social exclusion situation when comparing well-functioning individuals with varying psychopathy traits. It seemed as if individuals high on primary psychopathy traits were insensitive to contextual social cues, while individuals high on secondary psychopathy traits were more affected by the potentially threatening social situation. Cautiously transferring the current findings to forensic samples, they support the idea of moving from a behavioral understanding of the psychopathy construct to a more clinical picture with distinct cognitive and emotional processing patterns in individuals high on either primary or secondary psychopathy traits.

Effects of resilience and timing of adverse and adaptive experiences on interpersonal behavior: a transdiagnostic study in a clinical sample

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) have been linked to less prosocial behavior during social exclusion in vulnerable groups. However, little is known about the impact of the timing of ACE and the roles of protective factors. Therefore, this study investigated the association of the behavioral response to experimental partial social exclusion with adverse and adaptive experiences across age groups and resilience in clinical groups with persistent depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder, i.e., groups with high ACE, and in healthy controls (HC) (N = 140). Adverse and adaptive experiences during childhood, youth, and adulthood were assessed with the Traumatic Antecedents Questionnaire, and resilience was measured with the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale. A modified version of the Cyberball paradigm was used to assess the direct behavioral response to partial social exclusion. In patients, adverse events during youth (B = − 0.12, p = 0.016) and adulthood (B = − 0.14, p = 0.013) were negatively associated with prosocial behavior, whereas in the HC sample, adaptive experiences during youth were positively associated with prosocial behavior (B = 0.25, p = 0.041). Resilience did not mediate these effects. The findings indicate that critical events during youth may be particularly relevant for interpersonal dysfunction in adulthood.

Facing ostracism: micro-coding facial expressions in the Cyberball social exclusion paradigm

BackgroundSocial exclusion is often measured with the Cyberball paradigm, a computerized ball-tossing game. Most Cyberball studies, however, used self-report questionnaires, leaving the data vulnerable to reporter bias, and associations with individual characteristics have been inconsistent.MethodsIn this large-scale observational study, we video-recorded 4,813 10-year-old children during Cyberball and developed a real-time micro-coding method measuring facial expressions of anger, sadness and contempt, in a multi-ethnic population-based sample. We estimated associations between facial expressions and self-reported negative feelings, explored associations of child characteristics such as sex and parental national origin with observed and self-reported feelings during social exclusion, and tested associations of observed and self-reported feelings during social exclusion with behavior problems at age 14.ResultsFacial expressions of sadness and anger were associated with self-reported negative feelings during the game, but not with such feelings after the game. Further, girls reported to have had less negative feelings during the game than boys, but no such sex-differences were found in total observed emotions. Likewise, children with parents of Moroccan origin reported less negative feelings during the game than Dutch children, but their facial expressions did not indicate that they were differently affected. Last, observed emotions related negatively to later internalizing problems, whereas self-report on negative feelings during the game related positively to later internalizing and externalizing problems.ConclusionsWe show that facial expressions are associated with self-reported negative feelings during social exclusion, discuss that reporter-bias might be minimized using facial expressions, and find divergent associations of observed facial expressions and self-reported negative feelings with later internalizing problems.

Ostracism and suggestibility: how temporary cognitive deficits drive suggestibility after ostracism

ABSTRACT Interrogative suggestibility has been suggested to grow in situations of isolation. The current study aimed to test this assumption for the first time in an experimental approach. We hypothesized that ostracism increases suggestibility, and assumed this relationship to be mediated by cognitive impairments or social uncertainty. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two studies. We manipulated the state of ostracism (vs. inclusion) using the O-Cam (Study 1) and Cyberball paradigm (Study 2), and measured suggestibility using the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale. Results revealed an indirect link between inclusionary status and suggestibility. More precisely, there was no direct relationship between ostracism and suggestibility. However, ostracism induced weaker cognitive performances and this translated to increased suggestibility. Social uncertainty, on the other hand, did not serve as effective mediator. These findings indicate that each situation that is accompanied by (temporary) cognitive impairments, as is ostracism, might have the power to raise interrogative suggestibility.

The regulation of emotions associated with social exclusion: modulating effects of tDCS on patients with borderline personality disorder

Abstract Background. Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) show negative emotional reactions following both social exclusion and normally including scenarios; only experimental conditions of extreme inclusion decrease BPD patients’ rejection-related emotions to levels comparable to healthy individuals. At the brain level, emotional reactions to social exclusion are mediated by the right Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex (rVLPFC). Among healthy subjects, the neuromodulation of this region by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) decreases negative emotional responses and pain following social exclusion. However, no study yet evaluated whether, among BPD patients, tDCS on rVLPFC reduces the intense negative emotions elicited by both social exclusion and social inclusion. Methods: Forty BPD patients (36 females) were randomly assigned to receive either real or sham tDCS on rVLPFC while, in a one session experiment, they were socially included, then excluded, and finally overincluded by using the Cyberball paradigm. Participants self-reported their level of rejection-related emotions after each Cyberball condition. Results. Overall, BPD patients reported high levels of rejection-related emotions in the ostracism condition, intermediate in the inclusion condition, and low in the overinclusion condition. tDCS, compared to sham stimulation, reduced the overall levels of rejection-related emotions following both the exclusion and inclusion conditions. tDCS stimulation on rVLPFC did not influence patients’ negative emotions in the overinclusion condition. Conclusion: Our results showed that tDCS applied to rVLPFC helped to downregulate negative emotions of BPD patients in both excluding and including interactions. Conversely, the sham group manifested higher negative reactions in both these conditions. A ceiling effect was hypothesized for the overinclusion condition. Overall, these findings improve evidence of rVLPFC involvement in responses to perceived social exclusion in BPD and provide new data on neuromodulation effects in BPD patients. Research Category and Technology and Methods Clinical Research: 9. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Keywords: Borderline Personality Disorder, Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex, Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, Social exclusion

A sheep in wolf's clothing? Toward an understanding of the religious dones.

People often favor their ingroup and derogate members of the outgroup. However, less is known about "religious dones," who used to identify as religious but no longer do and have more transitional identities. Across six studies (N = 5,001; four preregistered), we examined the affiliative tendencies of religious dones and how they are perceived by other religious groups. In Study 1, using a Cyberball paradigm, religious dones included atheist targets relative to Christian targets. In Studies 2 and 3, currently religious participants demonstrated an attenuated tendency to commit the conjunction fallacy (i.e., associating people with heinous acts of violence) for religious dones compared to never religious targets. In Study 4, using a behavioral sacrifice paradigm (e.g., reducing compensation to reduce an uncomfortable noise blast to a partner), religious dones favored never religious partners (who did not reciprocate) and did not sacrifice as much for currently religious partners (who sacrificed for them as a member of their ingroup). Studies 5 and 6, investigating belief and identity, revealed that religious dones hold favorable attitudes toward other dones (and former believers) and the never religious (and never believers), whereas other groups view dones "in the middle." We also identified mediating mechanisms of trust, ingroup identification, and belief superiority. Taken together, these six studies suggest that religious dones are viewed as "a sheep in wolf's clothing," in which they are treated favorably by currently religious individuals but often prefer never religious individuals, even though that warmth is not consistently reciprocated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of social exclusion on intertemporal choice in suicide attempters: A preliminary experimental study

BackgroundSuicide-related theories and a growing body of evidence suggest that suicidal patients may have a tendency toward “short-sightedness"—the preference for immediate gratification when making intertemporal choice—and that social exclusion may exacerbate this tendency in suicidal patients. The present study examined the intertemporal choice performance of suicide attempters under conditions of social exclusion in a sample of affective disorder patients. MethodsA total of 64 affective disorder patients (22 non-suicidal patients, 24 single-suicide attempters and 18 multiple-suicide attempters) completed an intertemporal choice task in an exclusion or a non-exclusion condition. Social exclusion was manipulated using the Cyberball paradigm. ResultsNon-suicidal patients and single-suicide attempters both exhibited an exaggerated preference for immediate rewards in the exclusion condition compared with the non-exclusion condition; in contrast, the multiple-suicide attempters appeared relatively indifferent to the social exclusion, exhibiting virtually identical preferences for immediate rewards in both the exclusion and non-exclusion conditions. In addition, the multiple-suicide attempters exhibited an exaggerated preference for immediate rewards compared with non-suicidal patients and single-suicide attempters in the non-exclusion condition, while the three groups did not differ in the exclusion condition. ConclusionsAffective disorder patients with a single or no suicide attempts are more short-sighted after being excluded, while those with multiple suicide attempts appeared consistent short-sightedness in both exclusion and non-exclusion conditions. The study provides preliminary evidence of the role of disadvantageous intertemporal choice in the suicidal process. Future research replicate and extend these findings could have implications for suicide prevention and intervention.

Inclusion motivation: Measuring the drive to be included in real time and how it is affected by loneliness.

Humans have a fundamental need to belong and affiliate with others. The term inclusion motivation, coined here, represents the drive of the individual toward an active attempt to be included, at least as equally as others, in social interactions. It is postulated to be triggered by social exclusion and further influenced by personal traits and other stable conditions. To assess inclusion motivation, we developed the active inclusion task (AIT), which is based on the cyberball paradigm. The AIT allows participants for the first time to actively influence their inclusion during conditions of fair play and exclusion, by waving a virtual hand controlled by keyboard presses. In the first step of our study, we examined how different levels of required effort affect the performance of participants (N = 154) by using two versions of the AIT that differ in the magnitude of influence generated by each keypress. Using basic measures of motivation, we found that behavioral inhibition predicted lower numbers of keypresses during exclusion compared with fair play, only when high effort was required. Conversely, higher behavioral activation predicted higher numbers of keypresses across conditions. In the second step of our study, we tested whether loneliness accounts for differences in inclusion motivation. Results show that higher loneliness score predicted higher number of keypresses during exclusion compared with fair play, only when low effort was required. Collectively, we propose that inclusion motivation should be considered as a prominent facet of motivation with the potential to explain social behavior in health and in psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

From Loss of Control to Social Exclusion: ERP Effects of Preexposure to a Social Threat in the Cyberball Paradigm.

Previous studies indicated that the onsets of different social threats, such as threats to ”belonging” and “control”, are inconsistent with the subjective beliefs of social participation and require readjustment of expectations. Because a common cognitive system is assumed to be involved, the adjustment triggered by the experience of a single social threat should affect the processing of subsequent social interactions. We examined how preexposure to a loss of control affected social exclusion processing by using the Cyberball paradigm. An event-related brain component (P3) served as a probe for the state of the expectancy system, and self-reports reflected the subjective evaluations of the social threats. In the control group (n = 23), the transition to exclusion elicited a significant P3 effect and a high threat to belonging in the self-reports. Both effects were significantly reduced when the exclusion was preceded by preexposure to a loss of control (EG1disc, n = 23). These effects, however, depend on the offset of the preexposure. In case of a continuation (EG2cont, n = 24), the P3 effect was further reduced, but the threat to belonging was restored. We conclude that the P3 data are consistent with predictions of a common expectancy violation account, whereas self-reports are supposed to be affected by additional processes.

Response to unexpected social inclusion: A study using the cyberball paradigm.

BackgroundDysfunctional expectations are considered core characteristics of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and should be focused in psychotherapy. Dysfunctional expectations are especially pronounced in the interpersonal area (social expectations). In the present study, we examine the effect of unexpected social inclusion (expectation violation) on the change of generalized and specific depression-typical social expectations.MethodWe conducted an online study to investigate the impact of social inclusion after a period of social exclusion (unexpected social inclusion) on social expectation change (sample size 144) in a non-clinical sample. Depressive symptoms were assessed via self-reporting. Participants took part in two rounds of the online ball-game Cyberball. In the first round, all participants were socially excluded by their two co-players (acquisition of negative social expectations). In the second round, participants were either once more excluded (expectation confirmation) or included equally (expectation violation) by the same co-players. Specific and generalized social expectations were assessed after each round.ResultsSpecific and generalized social expectations increased following expectation violation. Even though depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of social expectations, we found that depressive symptoms did not moderate expectation change after positive expectation violations.ConclusionsIn the present experimental setup including the use of the online ball-game Cyberball, the establishment and change of social expectations can be experimentally manipulated. Under the given circumstances and in a non-clinical sample, negative expectations can be updated after unexpected positive experiences regardless of the number of depressive symptoms. The results are discussed in the context of current models of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), expectation change, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Emotional maltreatment and neglect impact neural activation upon exclusion in early and mid-adolescence: An event-related fMRI study.

Child maltreatment gives rise to atypical patterns of social functioning with peers which might be particularly pronounced in early adolescence when peer influence typically peaks. Yet, few neuroimaging studies in adolescents use peer interaction paradigms to parse neural correlates of distinct maltreatment exposures. This fMRI study examines effects of abuse, neglect, and emotional maltreatment (EM) among 98 youth (n=58 maltreated; n=40 matched controls) using an event-related Cyberball paradigm affording assessment of both social exclusion and inclusion across early and mid-adolescence (≤13.5 years, n=50; >13.5 years, n=48). Younger adolescents showed increased activation to social exclusion versus inclusion in regions implicated in mentalizing (e.g., superior temporal gyrus). Individual exposure-specific analyses suggested that neglect and EM coincided with less reduction of activation to social exclusion relative to inclusion in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/pre-supplementary motor area (dACC/pre-SMA) among younger versus older adolescents. Integrative follow-up analyses showed that EM accounted for this dACC/pre-SMA activation pattern over and above other exposures. Moreover, age-independent results within respective exposure groups revealed that greater magnitude of neglect predicted blunted exclusion-related activity in the parahippocampal gyrus, while EM predicted increased activation to social exclusion in the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex.

The Association Between Dispositional Mindfulness and Need Threat Following Ostracism in Spanish Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Age.

Ostracism -being ignored and excluded- entails risks for adolescent mental health. Less is known about the factors that are negatively associated with the adverse consequences of ostracism. This study explored the association between dispositional mindfulness and need threat following social exclusion using the Cyberball paradigm. Sex and age were included as moderators of the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and need threat. Additionally, the factor structure of the Need Threat Scale (NTS) was analyzed in Spanish adolescents. Participants (N = 750, 52.4% female; mean age = 14.51) completed a mindfulness questionnaire, were ostracized in the Cyberball game, and reported their need threat during this game. Dispositional mindfulness was negatively associated with need threat only in older adolescents (>15 years old). Although girls reported higher levels of need threat than boys, sex did not moderate the association between mindfulness and need threat. This research suggests that dispositional mindfulness is only associated with NTS in older adolescents and girls are more vulnerable to the negative consequence of ostracism.