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social dynamics
Your brain registers social rejection as physical pain.
A 2003 study found that the same neural regions that process physical pain light up when you experience social exclusion.
When participants played a virtual ball-tossing game and were suddenly excluded by the other players, their anterior cingulate cortex showed increased activity. Your evolutionary history treats being cast out of the group as a threat to survival. You are wired to find social rejection literal rather than metaphorical.
You do not just feel lonely; you feel injured.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003, Science
- What the check found
- The study successfully demonstrated ACC activation during exclusion, though the interpretation of this as synonymous with 'physical pain' remains a subject of ongoing debate in neuroscience.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.