Social rejection activates the same brain regions involved in physical pain, such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula. Studies using a virtual ball-tossing game found these regions had increased activity in participants who were excluded from the game. Social rejection can influence emotions, cognition and physical health by increasing negative feelings, impairing cognitive performance, and impacting sleep, immune function, and aggression. While rejection may cause people to overgeneralize the experience and feel excluded in other situations, recognizing that social rejection attacks basic psychological needs can help people avoid rejecting others.

1. SOCIAL REJECTION
Domina Petric, MD

2. The pain of
being excluded
is not so
different from
the pain of
physical
injury.
Social
rejection can
influence
emotions,
cognition and
physical
health.

3. Pain in the brain
Humans rely on social groups for survival.
We evolved to live in cooperative societies.
Our need for acceptance emerged as a
mechanism for survival.

4. Cyberball (designed by Williams) and
fMRI (Eisenberger, DeWall) study
◦ Cyberball: the subject plays an online game of catch with two
other players.
◦ Eventually the two other players begin throwing the ball only to
each other, excluding the subject.
◦ Compared with volunteers who continue to be included, those who
are rejected show increased activity in the dorsal anterior
cingulate and the anterior insula.
◦ Dorsal anterior cingulate and anterior insula are two of the regions
that show increased activity in response to physical pain.

5. Anterior
cingulate
cortex
https://qph.ec.
quoracdn.net/
main-qimg-
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6. Anterior
insula
http://www.ijpm.info/
articles/2012/34/2/ima
ges/IndianJPsycholM
ed_2012_34_2_133_1
01778_u4.jpg

7. Effects of social rejection
◦ Social rejection increases anger, anxiety, depression, jealousy and
sadness.
◦ It reduces performance on difficult intellectual tasks.
◦ It can also contribute to aggression and poor impulse control
(DeWall, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2011).
◦ People who routinely feel excluded have poorer sleep quality, their
immune system do not function as well as in people with strong
social connections.
◦ People often respond to rejection by seeking inclusion elsewhere.
◦ Some people respond to rejection with anger and lashing out.

8. Overgeneralising
The major problem is that one rejection in our lifes can be crucial
and after that rejection people tend to generalise and feel excluded
in other situations.
˝Very often we have that one rejection, maybe we didn’t get hired
for this job we really wanted, and it makes us feel just lousy about
our capabilities and ourselves in general˝ (Leary).
˝If people could stop overgeneralizing, it would take a lot of the
angst out of it˝ (Leary).

9. Discrimination
and social
rejection hurt!
Our responsibility as
society is to built
inclusive democratic
environment to prevent
social discrimination and
rejection.
Understanding that social
rejection is attack on
someone´s basic
psychological need, can
help us stop doing things
that we would not like to
be done to us.

10. Literature
◦ http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection.aspx (Kirsten Weir)
◦ http://www.losgatosneuropsychology.com/images/stories/tears.jpg
◦ https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net
◦ Virupaksha Harve Shanmugam, Kalmady Sunil V, Shivakumar Venkataram,
Arasappa Rashmi, Venkatasubramanian Ganesan, Gangadhar Bangalore N.
Volume and asymmetry abnormalities of insula in antipsychotic-naive
schizophrenia: A 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging study, Indian Journal of
Psychological Medicine, 2012.