Rejection

Suzanne Ardanowski

Feeling Brain

4-28-08

 

            “Why Rejection Hurts” was really interesting.  The idea of social rejection and physical pain sharing neural mechanisms was intriguing, especially if you consider it in an evolutionary context, as the authors explains.  Eisenberger and Lieberman suggest that human infants are dependent on their mother for an extended time, thus experiencing pain if socially separated from her would be an adaptive mechanism to prevent the negative consequences of maternal separation.

The ACC is involved in the emotionally distressing “components” of physical and social pain. I thought the use of the word “component” was interesting; couldn’t they have used the word “feelings”?  It also was amazing to me that one could feel pain, but not experience the sensory “feeling” of pain.  “Patients who have undergone cingulotomies for chronic pain report that they are still able to feel the pain but that it no longer bothers them [6], highlighting the ACC’s role in the distressing, rather than the sensory, component of physical pain”.

The authors also suggest another way to think about self-esteem.  They suggest that self-esteem is linked to one’s level of social connectedness.  It was particularly interesting how even if one was consciously aware that they were not being excluded, although it did appear that they were, the ACC was activated.  This implicit exclusion highlights the idea that we may have lowered self-esteem, even though we consciously think otherwise.  If a situation resembles rejection, no matter what we may tell ourselves, our self-esteem may suffer (Box p.295).

The studies showed that an enhanced sensitivity to physical pain correlates with sensitivity to emotional pain.  The last few sentences of the article mentions anti-depressants link to alleviating psychological and physical pain. I always thought that prescribing antidepressants for physical pain was due to the idea that if people psychologically felt better, than they would feel better physically in a cause and effect type way. However, this article suggests that the neurology is actually connected, thus providing more neurological support for the practice of prescribing such medication for physical pain.