Social Pain/Hurt

Synonyms

Psychological pain

Definition

The unpleasant experience that is associated with actual or potential damage to one’s sense of social connection or social value (Eisenberger 2012)

Introduction

When individuals are asked to identify their most painful experience, they often pick negative social experiences, such as the loss of a loved one or a painful relationship breakup, rather than physically painful experiences. In fact, individuals tend to label such negative social experiences as “painful” or “hurtful,” drawing a linguistic parallel between physical pain and social pain, the painful feelings that follow from rejection or loss. Indeed, due to the importance of social connection for human survival, it has been hypothesized that, over the course of evolutionary history, the physical pain system, which alerts us to threats to physical safety, may have been co-opted to monitor for threats to social safety. Specifically, given the immaturity of most mammalian infants at birth,...