June 30–July 7, 2010
In the fall of 2003, psychologist Kipling D. Williams performed an experiment to test social exclusion. He had three test subjects participate in a game of Cyberball — a virtual ball game where the players pass a ball around. After a period of time, two of them started to pass the ball between themselves. The third player, unaware that he was playing against two computerized test subjects, immediately experienced strong feelings of exclusion and rejection. The feelings were so powerful that an MRI was able to register enhanced activity in the very same part of the brain that is activated during physical pain.