Neural correlates of social exclusion in fathers with and without a history of intimate partner violence use: an event-related potential study

Intimate partner violence (IPV) impacts individuals, families, and wider society. Sensitivity to rejection is reliably associated with IPV use. Yet with IPV-users often demonstrating reduced emotional clarity, such sensitivity may not always be accessible to verbal reporting. Electroencephalography may circumvent this issue by capturing sensitivity to rejection at the neural level. Using event-related potentials, the neural processing of social exclusion has been explicated and is often linked to reductions in frontal slow wave (FSW) amplitude. This study examined FSW amplitude as elicited by the social exclusion game, Cyberball, to investigate the neural mechanisms of social exclusion processing in 43 fathers with and without histories of IPV use. We further investigate group differences in self-reported ostracism distress and emotional clarity across IPV-using and control fathers. IPV-using fathers displayed significantly lower exclusion evoked FSW amplitude, possibly reflecting stress-induced disruptions to mentalizing. Additionally, IPV-using fathers reported no significant differences in ostracism distress but increased difficulties in emotional clarity. Overall, findings suggest that IPV-using fathers display a profile of heightened neural sensitivity to social exclusion and a reduced ability to access their emotional states. These findings shed light on potential mechanisms of IPV to inform future research and interventions.