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"What Happens in Your Mind and Brain When You Are Excluded from a Social Activity?" - Article

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"What Happens in Your Mind and Brain When You Are Excluded from a Social Activity?" - Article

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I wanted to include a science-based article to demonstrate that rejection goes deeper than a temporary feeling or an individual scenario. There is an abundance of research on bullying. I selected this article because it includes research but is written for younger students. Often, I think students do not get to interact with journal articles set up with abstracts, full lab reports, etc. during middle and high school. I see this as an interdisciplinary opportunity and one that gives them a simplified look at scientific writing.

https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2017.00046

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Abstract

In school and in everyday life, we sometimes experience rejection by classmates, or we might see someone being excluded from an activity. What do excluded individuals feel? How does the brain process information about being socially excluded? In the past few decades, psychologists and social neuroscientists have investigated the influence of social exclusion on our mind, brain, and behavior. Social exclusion is a complex and ambiguous phenomenon, and therefore, we process information about it dynamically and often cope with it flexibly. In this article, I have described the dynamic effects of social exclusion on our mind, brain, and behavior by developing a model of what happens in the brain and the actions people take upon experiencing social exclusion.

What is Social Exclusion?

Social exclusion refers to the experience of being socially isolated, either physically (for example, being totally alone), or emotionally (for example, being ignored or told that one is unwanted). When someone excludes you, you probably feel bad or even experience "painful" feelings. Why does social exclusion cause these feelings? One possibility is that human beings are social animals, and we have been selected by evolution to live together with others. Social exclusion tells us that social relationships are threatened or damaged, and therefore, exclusion tells us there is a crisis, by causing aversive feelings. Previous research by psychologists (people who study the mind and behavior) and social neuroscientists (people who study the neural, hormonal, cellular, and gametic mechanisms underlying social interaction and behavior) has revealed much about what happens during and after social exclusion. Before beginning to explain how social exclusion dynamically affects our mind, brain, and behavior, I would like to briefly introduce the mystery of social pain-defined as the painful feeling caused by social exclusion.

The Pain of Social Exclusion

We often use the term "painful" to describe the feeling we have when we are being excluded. The question is, why do we use this word to describe what we feel, even though we do not have actual physical injury or pain? Using the concepts, "pain," or "painful" to describe the feeling of being excluded or rejected by others is common across languages. I live in Japan, which is probably very far from where you are live. In Japan, I use the word "pain" to describe my feelings when I end a relationship with a lover or a friend, or when my parents exclude me. It is quite possible that you also use a similar word to describe your feelings under similar circumstances.

Prior social neuroscience studies have shown that similar areas in the brain are activated when we experience physical and social pain. Scientists have often used the Cyberball task to study social pain in the laboratory []. In this task, participants play an online ball-tossing game with two or three other players, in which the other players might exclude the participant by throwing fewer tosses at him or her. In one study, participants played this game while inside a brain scanner called a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The fMRI can identify brain regions that become active when an activity is being performed. When the participants experienced social pain during the game, an area of the brain called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) became activated []. The dACC is also known to activate when we experience aversive feelings of physical pain, suggesting that social and physical injuries are similarly processed by the brain (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 - The brain responses to social and physical injuries.

Illustrations are adopted from Kawamoto [3] and irasutoya (http://www.irasutoya.com/).

We could use this evidence to conclude that physical and social pain are identical. But, it is possible that the relationship between physical and social pain is more complex. We know there are some similarities between physical and social pain. For example, both physical and social pain might be caused by distressing experiences. But the relationship between these two kinds of pain might be more complicated, because the dACC is also known to play an important role in certain other feelings, such as surprise. When someone excludes you, you might feel social pain as well as surprise ("I did not expect this to happen! Why are they excluding me?"). But some other studies have suggested that dACC activity in response to social exclusion is not merely due to surprise, and that the dACC's main role is in processing pain. Therefore, current evidence is more supportive of the idea that social exclusion directly causes social pain. As you can see, these ideas are still under study! Researchers are now investigating the degree of similarity in the way the brain processes physical and social pain, as well looking at what the dACC actually does when the brain responds to social exclusion.

Dynamic Processes in Social Exclusion

We dynamically interpret and process information about social exclusion, because of the ambiguity and complexity of social exclusion. Just imagine the Cyberball game: You have been looking forward to playing the game, but when it starts, the other two players do not throw balls at you. You wait and wait hoping that the situation will change, but the game ends without you getting any balls. How would you feel during the game, and how would your brain respond to this situation over time?

We have previously proposed an "intrapersonal and interpersonal process model of social exclusion" that describes what happens to our minds, brains, and behaviors during and after social exclusion [] (see Figure 2). When we are excluded, we detect, appraise, and regulate the aversive impact of social exclusion. Detection and appraisal are associated with an "alarm system," which signals that there is a problem requiring our attention []. Both detection and appraisal have been explained by using the analogy of a smoke alarm. An alarm works by detecting smoke (detecting that something is wrong or abnormal) and by ringing (sending out a warning to bring attention to the problem) when a fire occurs. These functions of the alarm help us to notice that a fire has occurred and that there is a need to take action. The warning sound is discontinued when there is no abnormal smoke. During social exclusion, we need to detect the event that threatens a relationship (detecting that something is wrong or abnormal) and appraise how painful it is (pain is the warning sound). Both systems are associated with the dACC and evoke social pain. There is another area of the brain, called the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), that is known to reduce social pain. The VLPFC helps regulate the sound of the alarm so that it does not become too loud. The loudness of the alarm (the amount of social pain) changes with time during social exclusion, based on the degree of threat associated with the exclusion. Thus, it seems that we continuously detect, appraise, and regulate social pain during social exclusion.

Figure 2 - A dynamic process model of social exclusion.

Red rectangles represent intrapersonal processes (things that happens within the brain of the excluded individuals) whereas blue rectangles represent interpersonal processes (actions that the excluded individual can take). When we are excluded, we detect, appraise, and regulate the aversive impact of social exclusion. These processes are considered to change over time. Following this, we activate the social monitoring system to determine how to behave. We behave prosocially or antisocially, or try to recover by ourselves, depending on the situation. All these processes are stored as experiences, and they influence how we interpret and respond to future social exclusions (broken arrows). The illustrations are adopted from Kawamoto et al. [4] and irasutoya (http://www.irasutoya.com/).

Another method of investigating how the brain reacts to social exclusion is by using event-related brain potential (ERP), which is a family of brain waves. fMRI is ideal for observing brain regions that are associated with social exclusion, whereas ERP has the advantage of identifying cognitive processes related to social exclusion on a very fast timescale (milliseconds, which are 1/1,000 of a second). By using both fMRI and ERP techniques, we can know what happens in the brain in response to each step of social exclusion (such as each ball throw, for example) on a very fast timescale, as well as how the brain responds to the complete social exclusion experience (from the beginning to the end of the experience of social exclusion). Like the fMRI studies, ERP studies have also shown that social exclusion causes processes of detection, appraisal, and regulation. Detection in response to social exclusion cues is associated with N2 components (approximately 200 ms following exclusion cues), the appraisal is associated with P3 components (approximately 300 ms following exclusion cues), and the regulation is associated with slow wave component (approximately 600 ms following exclusion cues). In addition, both fMRI and ERP studies have revealed that brain regions and processes related to detection, appraisal, and regulation change over time. More specifically, excluded individuals show increased detection and appraisal processes (e.g., dACC) at the beginning of social exclusion, whereas the regulation process (e.g., VLPFC) becomes stronger during the later stages. These findings suggest that the brain does not have just one simple way of processing social exclusion-the brain responses change over time.

What should you do if you hear the alarm bells ringing without stopping? How we cope with social exclusion is known to be situation dependent. Excluded individuals enhance their social monitoring system (SMS) to determine how to behave. More specifically, excluded people become highly attentive to how other people might be feeling and thinking. The brain regions that are associated with understanding thoughts and beliefs of others (the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction) and cognitive processes related to attention (ERP component called the P1), and facial recognition (ERP component called the N170) are known to be involved with the SMS. This system helps excluded people to navigate social environments. Excluded people decide how they should behave based on SMS. If there are cues of social acceptance, such as opportunities to build new relationships and the smiling faces of others, excluded people behave prosocially, which means behaviors performed with intention of helping others and being included by others. Prosocial behavior helps to reduce social pain by helping the person to feel connected. On the other hand, excluded people might also behave aggressively if there are cues indicating social threats (e.g., excluders and peers of excluders). Behaving aggressively helps to protect them from further social exclusion. If a person is so socially excluded that there are no other people in his or her life, how does the excluded individual cope? It is known that excluded people in such situations sometimes use mental representations associated with feelings of connectivity, such as memories of family members and favorite TV characters, to temporarily reduce their social pain. Thus, excluded people cope flexibly depending on the situation.

Social Exclusion as Stored Experiences

So far I have described how a single instance of social exclusion affects our mind, brain, and behavior. How would these processes change if social exclusion is long-lasting and repeated? We can speculate about this by investigating individual differences in attachment anxiety and avoidance, both of which are related to the history of social exclusion []. Attachment anxiety is the degree to which people are concerned about being excluded by others who are close to them. Anxious-attached individuals often have early social experiences of unexpected social exclusion, in which their parents or caregivers flooded them with affection in one moment and rejected them in the next. Attachment avoidance, on the other hand, is the degree to which people avoid closeness and intimacy with others. People with attachment avoidance have often experienced chronic social exclusion by caregivers who have not helped them to feel comfortable and accepted.

It has been demonstrated that attachment anxiety leads to increased dACC activation in response to social exclusion. Individuals with attachment anxiety want to connect with others but feel nervous when doing so. Therefore, social exclusion signals a stronger crisis in such individuals. On the contrary, avoidant attachment results in decreased dACC activity in response to social exclusion, because avoidant individuals have experienced much social exclusion, and as a result, alarm signals are no longer informative. So, we can see that past social exclusion experiences affect the way a person will respond to new episodes of social exclusion.

Chronic social exclusion might also change how people behave after being excluded. One study suggested that chronic social exclusion is one of the causes of school shootings that occurred in the US []. It is possible that social exclusion damages our ability to control impulsive behaviors including aggression. It is also possible that people who are frequently excluded tend to see ambiguous actions of other people as hostile, even if those actions are not hostile. So, long-lasting and repeated social exclusion might also have the potential to change a person's interpretations about how others feel, think, and behave. These changes might result in violence and damaged relationships, which could result in crimes and jail sentences in the worst cases.

Conclusion

In this article, I have described how social exclusion affects our mind, brain, and behaviors. Because social exclusion is an ambiguous and complex phenomenon, we process it dynamically. The dynamic processing model of social exclusion is useful because it provides information about brain regions related to social exclusion and cognitive processes that occur in response. Is there anyone you know who is sensitive to social exclusion, or who is overaggressive after social exclusion? By using the framework described here, we can examine and understand the processes causing such people to respond strongly to social exclusion. This understanding could be used to help develop ways to improve people's responses to social exclusion, including reducing overreactions to exclusion that can lead to violence.

What can you do for your friends, if you see that they are being excluded by someone? If your friends are being excluded, help them to the best of your ability by taking kindly with them and empathize by saying, for example, "I know how painful it is." Such support, in fact, has the potential for helping excluded individuals feel less pain and to behave less aggressive.

We hope that you were able to learn about the effects of social exclusion on our mind, brain, and behavior by reading this article. Our hope is that social exclusion will cease to exist in the future as a result of getting to know how aversive it is, and as a result of understanding how excluded individuals react.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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What Happens in Your Mind and Brain When You Are Excluded from a Social Activity?

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In school and in everyday life, we sometimes experience rejection by classmates, or we might see someone being excluded from an activity. What do excluded individuals feel? How does the brain process information about being socially excluded? In the past few decades, psychologists and social neuroscientists have investigated the influence of social exclusion on our mind, brain, and behavior.

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This article describes different types of exclusion, including that which is caused by being different from the larger group. It discusses the various reactions many people have to these different types of exclusion and why they are different. I think this is a good piece for the text set because it expands the definition of exclusion and makes it more applicable. We could come up with different examples for each and then go back to what we've read in the main text and identify where we see the effects of this specific type of
exclusion.
https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/Uni-Nova/Uni-Nova-131/Uni-Nova-131-Essay.html

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Text: Rainer Greifeneder und Selma Rudert
It is painful when other people exclude you. Especially when you don't know why.

It is painful to be excluded. Regardless of whether the person who does so is a friend or an enemy, or whether the exclusion is real or imagined, it always hurts when you are shut out, just as it always hurts when you put your hand into a fire. In the literature, it is likened to a reflex. Although social exclusion does no harm to the body, it activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. Most people report that they have been ostracized and excluded at some point-in the school playground, for example, or at work.

Some even report being left out on a regular basis. This has negative consequences both for those who are being excluded and for the groups that are excluding them. To take an extreme example, the majority of young people who carry out shootings at schools do so following long periods of marginalization. Companies, too, can be harmed if excluded individuals are less motivated, develop symptoms of depression or start to behave in ways that are damaging to business.

Why do we experience social exclusion as painful? People have a basic human need to belong. From an evolutionary perspective, groups provided protection and allowed for the sharing of work and knowledge. If you belonged to a group, you were more likely to survive and prosper; left to fend for yourself, you could expect your life to be hard and - often - short.

According to scholars, this explains why people are extremely sensitive to signs of impending social exclusion. The feelings of danger and pain that an individual experiences provide a warning, signaling the urgent need to act. Interestingly, we do not need to be actively excluded to have these feelings; we also feel pain when we are ignored by others, or even when we only think that we are being ignored. There are many reasons for social exclusion.

Social exclusion is used to punish failure to observe common rules.

Many people assume that it is motivated by malice; they think, for example, of bullying at school. Some think of the perpetrators as sadistic individuals, who take pleasure in the pain of those they have excluded.

The second kind of social exclusion has nobler motivations, from the point of view of those doing the excluding. Groups, institutions and societies are themselves exposed to dangers that threaten their survival, so they use shared norms and laws to ensure that their members are able to co-exist harmoniously and effectively.

Social exclusion is used today, as in the past, to punish failure to observe these common rules and thereby to ensure that the group's survival is not threatened. This is the case both in large groups and in the very smallest units-for example when parents send a child to his or her room for throwing food around.

A third very common reason for social exclusion is to do with social roles and hierarchies. For example, the President's Conference at the University of Basel is restricted to members of the President's Board and the deans, while all other members of the university are excluded. Generally, people do not ﬁnd this type of social exclusion hurtful, as it is justiﬁed by the role of those concerned within the organization. In the same way, the management of a company does not generally ﬁnd it hurtful to be excluded from meetings of the works council.

What is interesting about role-related exclusion is that the excluded individuals feel no pain, even though they have, in fact, been left out. This is where the analogy with putting your hand in a ﬁre breaks down. Social pain is indeed different from physical pain because people have no direct receptors for social exclusion; rather, they have to construct each individual situation in their heads. This construction is inﬂuenced by other ideas-for example, identiﬁcation with certain social roles-which prevents the experience of pain.

Someone who is being ignored feels invisible and, therefore, that their very existence is being called into question.

A fourth reason for social exclusion is ignorance-of a person's existence or abilities, for instance. A temp working at a company may not be invited to a barbecue because the organizers are unaware of their existence; information exchanged in the corridor may not reach a colleague who is working from home; a French-speaking member of staff may feel left out at lunch because her two Bernese colleagues have lapsed into dialect without thinking. Although this fourth form of exclusion is generally unintentional, the ironic thing is that it is particularly hurtful; someone who is being ignored feels invisible and, therefore, that their very existence is being called into question. Against this background, studies show that an impolite rejection is preferable to none at all, for example, as an impolite rejection at least acknowledges your existence as a person and gives you a chance to vent your anger. If you do not receive a rejection, it signals that even this was too much effort in your case.

The key factor in determining the stance of third parties is which of these reasons they see as applying in a particular situation. If they believe that someone's exclusion is motivated by malice, observers will sympathize with the excluded person and want to help them. If, on the other hand, they see exclusion as prompted by a desire to uphold social rules, observers will sympathize with those doing the excluding and withhold support from the excluded person. However, the reasons for social exclusion are seldom that clear-cut. In many everyday situations, observers do not know the reasons for social exclusion, as they may not have been present to witness all that happened, for instance. In such cases, there is a simple rule that often determines who attracts their sympathy and support. If the victim and the perpetrator are similar-for example, in appearance-people will assume that exclusion is being imposed as a punishment. Yet, where there are differences between victim and perpetrator, there will be an assumption of malicious intent.

Anyone who excludes others deliberately should be aware of how much it can hurt. It is particularly important for those, such as parents, who do it in the belief that they are acting in the group's best interests to realize this. Children, like adults, ﬁnd it painful to be sent to "their room" or ignored. It is also a good idea to be aware of the consequences of unintentional exclusion and to take steps to prevent it. Organizations can make a key contribution in this regard by having a transparent information policy and culture, both internally and externally.

More articles in the current issue of UNI NOVA.

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Text: Rainer Greifeneder und Selma Rudert It is painful when other people exclude you. Especially when you don't know why. It is painful to be excluded. Regardless of whether the person who does so is a friend or an enemy, or whether the exclusion is real or imagined, it always hurts when you are shut out, just as it always hurts when you put your hand into a fire.

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For the art piece, I chose two paintings: "Standing Out in a Crowd" (Ronaly Bolokofsky) and "Alone in a Crowd" by Barbara O'Toole. I would plan to do a compare/contrast activity with these paintings because they present "being different" in different ways using color variations, space, and other techniques. Students would be able to dive deeper into how people perceive difference, loneliness, and rejection from the crowd.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/standing-out-in-a-crowd-ronald-bolokofsky.html?product=pouch
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/alone-in-a-crowd-barbara-otoole.html

Found via: fineartamerica.com

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"You are not alone in your loneliness" - TEDTalk

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"You are not alone in your loneliness" - TEDTalk

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I absolutely love bringing TEDTalks into the classroom to spark discussion because they are bite-sized perspectives on big ideas. This talk in particular revolves around social isolation as it is caused by two major factors: mental health stigma and social media. These are two topics that are relevant to most, if not all, high school students. This would be a great lead in to a discussion of why we isolate people who think differently, even when they have little to no control over those thoughts. We would also discuss social media pros and cons - how it can make us feel isolated when we don't relate to things or feel included in what we see, but also how we can use it as a connective medium when we need people to reconnect us to a new community that understands us.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jonny_sun_you_are_not_alone_in_your_loneliness/transcript

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Transcript of "You are not alone in your loneliness"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Being open and vulnerable with your loneliness, sadness and fear can help you find comfort and feel less alone, says writer and artist Jonny Sun. In an honest talk filled with his signature illustrations, Sun shares how telling stories about feeling like an outsider helped him tap into an unexpected community and find a tiny sliver of light in the darkness.

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This song is from the perspective of a young person describing the feeling of being left out, unaccepted, and misunderstood. This is a valuable asset to the text set because it reflects the continuity of this theme in our contemporary art. Many students, by high school, would be able to easily see themselves in this mindset. Because this is a more simple "text" than the main novel, it could be an easier break or entry point for a student struggling with The Scarlet Letter.

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This very brief fable comes from Aesop's collection. It tells the story of a jackdaw who wants to steal the food of the visually distinct doves. He is able to change himself to look like them, but when they hear him "chatter," he is rejected and the jackdaws will not take him back because he no longer looks like them. I included this specific story because it reflects the idea that society has strict norms, and if you stop fitting in with your community you may end up feeling alone. Students can reflect on what it feels like to try very hard to fit in or stay under the radar and still not make it into into the group. Practically, I think this could be a good intro to a longer class period that would start discussion on the theme.

Active link to story: https://aesop.thefreelibrary.com/Fables/2-201

via: https://www.thoughtco.com/childrens-stories-about-being-yourself-2990482

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Clare's poem functions in this text set because it is a dramatic interpretation of the internal challenges faced when someone feels unimportant or rejected. It is brief but opens a lot of avenues for literary analysis and poetic techniques that can then relate back to the main theme. This immediate and emotional perspective draws readers nearer to the mind than something with a long narrative or something more distant like the articles.

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/03/a-short-analysis-of-john-clares-i-am/

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'I am-yet what I am none cares or knows'. As opening lines go, it teeters on the edge of self-pity, and it's a brave poet who will risk that charge - and a fine poet who can pull the rest of his poem back from the brink of such self-indulgent wallowing that might be expected to follow.

John Clare's 'I Am' manages this, making it a fine and especially interesting example of Romantic poetry, exploring the individual self and the poet's own place in the world. Before we offer a few words of analysis, here's a reminder of one of John Clare's best-known poems. For a good edition of John Clare's poetry, we recommend John Clare: Major Works from Oxford University Press.

I Am

I am-yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes-
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live-like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange-nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below-above the vaulted sky.

The first thing to say about this poem is how that two-word title unfolds and subtly alters its meaning across the course of the poem. 'I am', opens the poem, only to be immediately followed by a dash, marking it as a self-sufficient statement about the self. Not 'I am this' or 'I am that ': simply 'I am'.

But then, once we reach the third line, 'I am' is being pressed into its more usual service: 'I am the self-consumer of my woes'. Self-pity is self-destructive, no matter how good it sometimes (perversely) feels. Clare brilliantly captures this through the slightly double-edged hyphenation of 'self-consumer'. It eats away at oneself: we consume our woes, but they consume us, are self-consuming.

Such doubling is also, curiously, present in John Clare's collected works, which contain not one but two poems called 'I Am': a sonnet titled 'I Am', and the poem quoted above (often referred to as 'Lines: I Am' to distinguish it from the sonnet).

This other poem takes a somewhat more positive view of the poet's sense of self, although it was composed at around the same time, in the 1840s when John Clare was incarcerated in the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum:

I feel I am - I only know I am,
And plod upon the earth, as dull and void:
Earth's prison chilled my body with its dram
Of dullness, and my soaring thoughts destroyed,
I fled to solitudes from passions dream,
But strife persued - I only know, I am.
I was a being created in the race
Of men disdaining bounds of place and time:
A spirit that could travel o'er the space
Of earth and heaven - like a thought sublime,
Tracing creation, like my maker, free -
A soul unshackled - like eternity,
Spurning earth's vain and soul debasing thrall
But now I only know I am - that's all.

As Clare's biographer Jonathan Bate points out, in his analysis of Clare's 'I Am' (i.e. the one quoted at the beginning of this post, rather than the sonnet) in his John Clare , 'He longs at once for both childhood and the grave.' Clare longs for a place where he can 'abide with my Creator, God, / And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept'.

As with many great Romantic poems, the poet views childhood as an almost sacrosanct period of his life (compare Wordsworth's 'The child is father of the man'), but the twist here is that Clare is looking forward to death as a return to those days when he was 'untroubled'.

Since he struggled with madness and depression for much of his adult life, Clare knew what it was to be troubled. In 1864, he was granted the wish which 'I Am' so eloquently expresses.
The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.

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On Clare's great poem about the self - analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle 'I am-yet what I am none cares or knows'. As opening lines go, it teeters on the edge of self-pity, and it's a brave poet who will risk that charge - and a fine poet who can pull the rest of his...

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What happens to someone who is rejected for not fitting with societal norms?

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This main text centers on social isolation and what can happen when a whole community actively torments a person they no longer accept in their society due to some "difference." We see Hester Prynne removed from the social sphere, only later being used for her abilities even as people continue to think of her as "other." This Literary Text Set, therefore, centers on the idea of "difference" and what it can feel like to be exiled - literally or metaphorically - from the "in group."