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New Study Underscores Link Between Physical Pain and Social Rejection

Physical pain and intense feelings of social rejection “hurt” in the same way, a new study conducted at Columbia University shows. The results, published in the March 28 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , demonstrate that the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense experiences of social rejection.

While earlier research has shown that the same brain regions support the emotionally distressing feelings that accompany the experience of both physical pain and social rejection, this study is the first to establish that there is neural overlap between both of these experiences in brain regions that have long been known to become active when people experience painful sensations in their bodies. These regions are known as the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula.

“We went beyond previous studies of rejection by using a more powerful means of inducing feelings of rejection,” said Edward Smith, the study’s communicating author, professor of psychology at Columbia and director of the division of cognitive neuroscience at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Smith conducted the study with Ethan Kross, lead author of the article, formerly of Columbia and now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan; Marc Berman, now also in the psychology department at Michigan; Walter Mischel, professor of psychology at Columbia; and Tor Wager, now associate professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.