Getting snubbed really does feel like a kick to the gut. From Images Show a Snub Really is Like Kick in the Gut:
Brain imaging studies show that a social snub affects the brain precisely the way visceral pain does.
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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 — a type of scan that allows the brain’s activity to be viewed “live.” 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.
“It would be odd if social pain looked like the exact same thing as someone-breaking-your-arm pain,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “What it does look like is visceral pain.”
In other words — 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.
None of that is too terribly surprising, but I love the actual experiment:
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 program.“It looked like a ball being thrown around between the three people,” Lieberman said.
Eventually, the game excludes the player. “For the next 45 throws they don’t get thrown the ball,” Lieberman said.
“It 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.”
The functional magnetic imaging verifies the physical basis of this feeling.