Procedures and materials
pain
The study took place in different rooms on the campus of the University of Basel, Switzerland. First, participants were asked to read and sign the informed consent. The experimenter then informed all participants about the study’s purpose and the way placebo treatments are thought to work. Then, the experimenter randomly assigned participants to the OLP group or the no-treatment group by drawing lots. In the OLP condition, participants received an OLP intervention. This included a rationale (please see Participants started by indicating the level of social pain they expected in case of social exclusion (a detailed description and results of this variable is reported in the Then all participants were asked to indicate their levels of need threat during the game, which was assessed by means of a 4-item need threat scaleAdditionally, the participants were asked to indicate to what extent they currently feel hurt by the other players with a single 9-point Likert-type item (“