Snubbed? Now we know it hurts

Friday, October 10, 2003

Washington, Oct. 9 (Reuters): The feeling is familiar to anyone who has been passed over in picking teams or snubbed at a party ó a sickening, almost painful feeling in the stomach.

Well, it turns out that ìkicked in the gutî feeling is real, US scientists said today.

Brain imaging studies show that a social snub affects the brain precisely the way visceral pain does. ìWhen someone hurts your feelings, it really hurts you,î said Matt Lieberman, a social psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who worked on the study.

ìI wouldnít want to be quoted as saying that physical pain and social pain are the same thing, but it seems that some of the same things are going on.î

The study may also show why it hurts to lose someone you love, researchers said.

Lieberman, graduate student Naomi Eisenberger and colleagues set up a brain imaging test of 13 volunteers to find out how social distress affects the brain.

They used functional magnetic imaging ó a type of scan that allows the brainís activity to be viewed ìlive.î The 13 volunteers were given a task that they did not know related to an experiment in social snubbing.

Writing in the journal Science, Lieberman and Eisenberger said the brains of the volunteers lit up when they were rejected in virtually the same way as a person experiencing physical pain. ìIt would be odd if social pain looked like the exact same thing as someone-breaking-your-arm pain,î Lieberman said in a telephone interview. ìWhat it does look like is visceral pain.î

In other words ó like being punched in the stomach. The area affected is the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain known to be involved in the emotional response to pain. In the experiment, the volunteers were asked to play a computer game. They believed they were playing two other people, but in fact played a set computer programme. ìIt looked like a ball being thrown around between the three people,î Lieberman said.

Eventually, the game excludes the player. ìFor the next 45 throws they donít get thrown the ball,î Lieberman said. ìIt is just heartbreaking to watch. They keep indicating that they are ready to be thrown to. This really affects the person afterwards. They report feeling social distress.î

The functional magnetic imaging verifies the physical basis of this feeling. It makes sense for humans to be programmed in this way, Lieberman said. Social interaction is important to survival.

ìFor any mammal, all the needs that people typically think of as necessary for survival ó food, shelter, avoiding physical harm ó your caregiver gives you access to those needs,î Lieberman said.

So it would make sense that people would evolve to have a strong emotional response to being included, socially. But there also seems to be a defence mechanism to prevent the pain of rejection from becoming overwhelming. ìWe also saw this area in the prefrontal cortex. The more it is active in response to pain, the less subjective pain you feel,î Lieberman said.