I learned something fascinating and deeply sad this week: rejection can literally lower our body temperature, making us feel colder.
I learned this while listening to a Radiolab episode titled Kleptotherms. In the episode, the hosts speak with a man named John, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his twenties. John shared that he came to expect rejection from others, and over time he began wearing many layers of clothing everywhere he went, regardless of the weather. Multiple sweatshirts and jackets. Multiple pairs of pants. He explained that this sometimes gave him a sense of having a shield, helping him feel more protected from the world around him, and especially from the people in it.
It turns out this practice of wearing multiple layers of bulky clothing, even in the summer, is observed across cultures among some people who experience schizophrenia. It even has a name: redundant clothing.
Dr. Tathagata Mahintami discovered through his research that while this behavior may provide psychological comfort for some, people who wear redundant clothing actually have lower body temperature. This is a physical phenomenon as much as a psychological one.
So could rejection, or the perception of rejection, really lower body temperature?
Dr. Hans Rocha IJzerman found something similar. In one study, participants played a game called Cyberball. They began by tossing a virtual ball with two other “players” controlled by the computer. After a short time, however, the other players excluded the participant entirely, passing the ball only to one another. Afterward, participants were asked to estimate the temperature of the room. Those who had been excluded reported that the room felt colder than a control group.
But it wasn’t just perception. Dr. IJzerman also measured participants’ finger temperature using a digital thermometer, and their peripheral skin temperature actually dropped following exclusion.
As I listened to this episode, I had a personal aha moment too. There was a difficult period in my life when I frequently experienced cold chills without a fever. At the time, I wondered whether it might be a trauma response. It may very well have been the kind of phenomenon researchers are describing.
So let me make a turn here:
If rejection can lower body temperature, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that belonging, whether newly formed or consistently sustained, can help regulate it.
We shouldn’t underestimate what inclusion can bring to a person or a community. We have the capacity to make this better.
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 