Bouncing Back: The Personal Resilience Science Insights Podcast · Life Management Science Labs

Dr. David Oberleitner: The Impact of Social Exclusion on Mental and Physical Health | Bouncing Back #78

·46 min·3 clips

Exclusion is linked to lower self-esteem, pain pathways, and increased cardiovascular risk.

Joanna welcomes listeners with the show’s usual warm setup. She then frames the conversation with recent Australian data on disability and social exclusion. The numbers give the episode its starting point, not its finish. David Oberleitner joins as a professor of psychology and director of the Division of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Bridgeport. The episode stays close to what exclusion does to people over time. It moves between social belonging, health, work, and access. Oberleitner says the comparison between exclusion and smoking can be useful, with caveats. He adds that the comparison only works if listeners keep chronicity in view. One isolated experience of being left out is not the same thing as a long pattern. He keeps coming back to repeated exposure. Joanna asks whether the harm can really be physical, and Oberleitner says yes, especially when the experience repeats. He uses an ordinary classroom example to show the difference between a single moment and an ongoing state. The discussion leaves room for the fact that everyone can have brief experiences of being ignored. It then turns to what happens when that feeling becomes frequent or long term. Oberleitner links that longer arc to stress responses in the body. Cortisol comes up as part of that picture, along with cardiovascular problems. Joanna keeps the interview moving with broad, supportive questions. Oberleitner answers in a measured way and keeps translating the science into plain language. The episode also widens the frame beyond emotion alone. It points to employment, housing, and health care access as areas where exclusion can do real damage. Near the end, the tone shifts toward practical awareness. The emphasis is on noticing the social interactions around us. The close points listeners toward Oberleitner’s University of Bridgeport profile, LinkedIn, and Google Scholar if they want to read further.

As heard by us

A steady case for how repeated exclusion can become a real health burden.

Bouncing Back asks a plain but uncomfortable question: what happens when social exclusion stops being a one-off and starts turning up again and again? David Oberleitner ties that pattern to employment and housing later on, and to greater medical needs with less access to care.

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Why you'd press play

When you want social exclusion explained without hype.

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