Do People Eat the Pain Away? The Effects of Acute Physical Pain on Subsequent Consumption of Sweet-Tasting Food

Sweet tasting foods have been found to have an analgesic effect. Therefore people might consume more sweet-tasting food when they feel pain. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to a pain or non-pain condition and their consumption of cheesecake was measured. Participants ate more cheesecake (a sweet-tasting food) following a painful experience than a non-painful one. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to a painful experience or a resource depleting experience (i.e., squeezing a handgrip) and then were asked to taste test two foods, one sweet and one not sweet. Participants ate more sweet-tasting food following a painful experience than a non-painful or a resource-depleting experience. These differences were not present for consumption of non-sweet food. Further, habitual self-control predicted consumption of sweet-tasting food when in pain, with those lower in self-control particularly likely to eat more. Results suggest that people do eat more sweet-tasting food when they feel pain, particularly if they are not in the habit of controlling their impulses. These findings have implications for health given rising rates of obesity and pain-related diagnoses

Examining Workplace Ostracism Experiences in Academia: Understanding How Differences in the Faculty Ranks Influence Inclusive Climates on Campus

Research on the retention of women in academia has focused on challenges, including a chilly climate, devaluation, and incivility. The unique consequences of workplace ostracism – being ignored and excluded by others in an organizational setting – require focus on this experience as another interpersonal challenge for women in academia. The purpose of this study is to examine differences in the faculty experiences and outcomes of workplace ostracism, and to determine if these experiences are affected significantly by the gender composition of an employee’s specific department. Participants were recruited at two time points to complete campus climate surveys that were distributed to faculty at a large, public, research university. We examined the number of reported ostracism experiences (Study 1) and perceived information sharing (Study 2) among male and female university faculty. The findings indicated that female faculty members perceived more workplace ostracism than male faculty members. Analyses of department gender ratios suggested that the proportion of women in the department did not reduce the amount of workplace ostracism experienced by women. No gender differences were found in perceived information sharing. However, we found that Faculty of Color, both men and women, reported more frequent information exclusion than White faculty. These results have important implications for theoretical and practical understandings of workplace demography and suggest that it is necessary to look at subtle, ambiguous forms of discrimination in order to increase retention of faculty from underrepresented groups in academia

Lifetime ostracism experiences and mechanisms of pain

One social mechanism by which marginalization is enacted is via ostracism. Recent research has demonstrated ostracism's impact on physical health, but little is known about the relationship between accumulated lifetime experiences of ostracism and pain. Despite recent calls for added attention to social modulation of pain and social indicators of pain disparities, the impact of specific social factors on pain—including those of ostracism—are not well understood. Results of laboratory studies on the effects of acute ostracism experiences on pain sensitivity have been mixed. However, these studies have not considered lived and repeated experiences of ostracism, and primarily included single static measures of pain sensitivity. Additionally, inclusion and representation of the relationship between ostracism experiences and pain among people with minoritized identities are lacking in the current literature. In this study, we explored accumulated lifetime experiences of ostracism as a potential contributing factor to enhanced pain and one social mechanism by which societal inequity may create and maintain inequity in pain. We extracted measures of lifetime experiences of ostracism from six studies focused on social factors and (non-chronic) pain conducted between 2016 and 2020 (n = 505 adults). To retain and examine diversity within the sample, we used moderation and within-group analyses. Results indicate that greater experiences of lifetime ostracism are associated with lower cold pain tolerance, but not other pain measures, in the whole sample. Moderation and within-group analyses reveal opposing patterns of results between populations included in the extant literature (White participants, convenience samples) and those under-represented in the scientific literature (racialized groups, community samples). This study provides an example of a diversity science approach to examining social indicators of pain, illustrates the limited generalizability of previous studies on ostracism and pain, and highlights the need for increased representation and inclusion to understand mechanisms of pain and inequity

Goal derailment and goal persistence in response to honor threats

In honor cultures, maintaining a positive moral reputation (e.g., being known as an honest person) is highly important, whereas in dignity cultures self-respect (e.g., competence and success) is strongly emphasized. Depending on their cultural background, people respond differently to threats to these two dimensions of honor. In two studies, we examined the effects of morality-focused and competence-focused threats on people’s goal pursuit in two honor cultures (Turkey, Southern U.S., & Latinx) and in a dignity culture (Northern U.S.). In Study 1, Turkish participants were more likely to reject a highly qualified person as a partner in a future task if that person threatened their morality (vs. no-threat), even though this meant letting go of the goal of winning an award. Participants from the U.S. honor and dignity groups, however, were equally likely to choose the people who gave them threatening and neutral feedback. In Study 2, Turkish and U.S. honor participants were more likely to persist in a subsequent goal after receiving a morality threat (vs. no-threat), whereas U.S. dignity participants were more likely to persist in a subsequent goal after receiving a competence threat (vs. no-threat). These results show that people’s responses to honor threats are influenced by the dominant values of their culture and by the tools that are available to them to potentially restore their reputation (e.g., punishing the offender vs. working hard on a different task). This research can have implications for multicultural contexts in which people can have conflicting goals, such as diverse work environments

Salting a wound, building a callous, or throwing in the towel? The measurement and effects of chronic ostracism experiences

Reactions to ostracism—ignoring and excluding change over time. Williams\u27s (2009) temporal model of ostracism suggests that there are three response stages: the initial (Reflexive) stage, the delayed (Reflective) stage, and the prolonged (Resignation) stage. This third stage has received little empirical attention. How do individual differences for prolonged ostracism experiences affect reactions to ostracism episodes? How do chronically ostracized individuals respond initially and how do they cope with exclusionary social interactions? This dissertation involved two stages: the development of a scale assessing prolonged ostracism experience and an experiment testing participants\u27 responses to this scale and how that influenced immediate and delayed responses to a brief ostracism episode. In the first stage, I developed an Ostracism Experiences Scale consisting of 8-items (comprised of 2-Factors; 4-items for ignoring and 4 items for excluding). The sample combined participants from Howard University, a Historically Black University and participants from Purdue University, a Predominately White Institution. The demographic profile for participants in the Howard University sample included: n = 374 university students (123 men, 251 women) with a mean age of 20.74 years (SD = 9.55) and 99% self-reported as African American or a race/ethnicity of African descent. The demographic profile for participants in the Purdue University sample included: n = 1051 university students (543 men, 508 women) with a mean age of 19.59 years (SD = 1.64) and 76% self-reported as Caucasian or a race/ethnicity of European descent. Using the combined sample, the Ostracism Experiences Scales (OES) demonstrated sound internal reliability, factor correlations, and construct validity. For example, as expected in the Known-Groups test for construct validation, African Americans scored higher on ostracism experiences than Caucasians. Using a subset of the Purdue University sample (n=74), tests for convergent and discriminant validities were conducted. The results showed that regarding convergent validity, the scores on the Ostracism Experiences Scale only moderately correlated with scores on the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire, r = .24 (Downey & Feldman, 1996) and the Loneliness Scale, r = .38 (Hughes, Waite, Hawkley, & Cacioppo, 2004). In relation to discriminant validity the OES scores correlated minimally with scores on the Social Monitoring Scale, r = -.01 (Snyder, 1974). These findings indicated that the Ostracism Experiences Scale was uniquely assessing the ostracism construct as well as identifying individual, plus group level differences as anticipated. In the experimental study, the participants\u27 scores on the Ostracism Experiences Scale were used as a predictor variable in assessing immediate and delayed responses to manipulations of ostracism in a computer ball toss game called Cyberball. Using the same subset of Purdue University participants as mentioned for the validity tests, the demographic profile was as follows for participants in the experimental sample. The sample n = 74 consisted of university students (38 men, 36 women) with a mean age of 19.12 years (SD = 1.87) and 76% self-reported as Caucasian, the remaining were Asian – 13.6%, African American – 2.2%, Hispanic – 2.4%, and Other – 5.0%. The results indicated that the Ostracism Experiences Scale did not predict threatened needs (immediate or delayed), but did influence post-ostracism affect. Specifically, the individuals who had higher than average ostracism experiences showed longer persistence of sadness and anger. Implications for ostracism research are that chronically ostracized individuals have an impaired response pattern when responding to acute episodes of ostracism

Correction: Do People Eat the Pain Away? The Effects of Acute Physical Pain on Subsequent Consumption of Sweet-Tasting Food.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0166931.]

Women’s Perceived Safety and Academic Engagement: Can Safety Concerns Create Gender Gaps in Academia?

Materials and data for the manuscript (R&R