Being cut from a team. Learning on social media how a friend hosted a party and didn’t invite you. Seeing your ex-partner across the restaurant enjoying a romantic dinner with someone new. All these forms of social pain are hurtful, and scientists have found the ache is indeed real.
Studies have identified that the brain processes social pain similarly to physical pain, and they believe it’s an evolutionary response. For early humans, being part of a group meant having access to increased safety and resources. Being rejected by the group left a person alone and vulnerable. Thus, humans evolved to seek social acceptance while perceiving social rejection as a threat to well-being. Associating exclusion with pain served to motivate humans to avoid threats to their social ties.
