Raise your hand if you've never heard any of the following lines, in one form or another:
If you've finished reading this list and your hand is raised, please bring it down to face level. Cup your hand to your cheek. Pull it back three to five inches, and, traveling at an increased velocity, slap yourself firmly on the face. Why? If you haven't experienced rejection from a breakup, this exercise serves as a simulation of what rejection feels like. Actually, a slap in the face is much more pleasant than rejection.
Chances are, though, you didn't raise your hand. I'm willing to bet that if you are reading this article, you are, unfortunately, familiar with the pain of rejection from a breakup.
Rejection Is Physiologically Heart-Breaking
"Rejection" comes from Latin, meaning thrown back. When we are rejected, we feel not only halted, but pushed back in the opposite direction of which we were headed. Now consider this: When rejected, how do we describe the event? We tend to say, "I was rejected." Notice what is going on here. We are using passive voice. This indicates how we feel about the part we play in rejection. We view ourselves as passive, as being the victim of an action, as inactive, as non-participative.
Well, studies have found that after rejection not only do we think passively, but also we act passively. Scientists from the University of Amsterdam found that unexpected social rejection is associated with a significant response of the parasympathetic nervous system. Let's take a quick time-out to discuss just what the heck is the parasympathetic nervous system. When the body is active, generally in fight or flight mode, the sympathetic system engages, heart rate quickens, pupils dilate and energy is directed towards allowing the body to react quickly. However, the parasympathetic system is responsible for when the body is at rest.
When faced with unexpected rejection, research has found that "feeling that you are not liked" results in our heart rate actually slowing down, an activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. Thus, feeling rejected results in you reacting both psychologically and physically. It is interesting to mention that in this study, participants' heart rates fell not only when they heard a person's unfavorable opinion of them, but also in anticipation of hearing a person's opinion. If told that the person's opinion of him or her was unfavorable, the individual's heart rate plummeted even further and took longer to return to baseline. Additionally, heart rates slowed even more when individuals expected a positive opinion, but received a negative one. This explains how rejection, especially the kind that blindsides you, literally feels heartbreaking.
We Are Hard-Wired to Fear Rejection
As human beings, we are extremely sensitive to rejection -- especially forms of social rejection. We have a strong motivation to seek approval and acceptance. If we take an anthropological perspective, we can see how back in the day -- I'm talking about back in 10,000 B.C. -- you knew that if you were on your own, your chance of survival was nil. You needed your tribe for food, shelter and protection. Being rejected from others meant imminent death. Evolutionarily speaking, we are hardwired to form relationships and strongly motivated to feel liked and feel like we belong.
Getting Over a Breakup Is Like Getting Over Cocaine
Five out of five neurologists agree: Rejection sucks! And arguably, the worst type of rejection is romantic rejection. Getting over a breakup is like getting over an addiction to cocaine. That isn't just my personal viewpoint; it is also the opinion and the scientific finding of researchers at Stony Brook University. The researchers found that the area of the brain that is active during the pain and anguish experienced during a breakup is the same part of the brain associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings. Brain imaging shows similarities between romantic rejection and cocaine craving. Rejection hurts so acutely because we get addicted to the relationship, only to have it taken away from us. And after, just like a drug addiction, we go through withdrawal.
We Aren't That Good at Dealing With Loss
In general, humans aren't good with dealing with loss. The pain of losing something is much stronger than the joy of gaining something. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize for his work in Prospect Theory. Prospect Theory describes how people make choices in situations where they have to decide between alternatives that involve risk. For example, individuals view the pain of losing $50 as much stronger than the joy of receiving $50. What this means as far as rejection is concerned is that ending a relationship can often hurt much more than the joy of starting a new one. This is because of the psychological fact that our brains view loss as more significant than gain.
Because loss feels stronger than gain, we tend to be loss averse, meaning we will be motivated to avoid risks that involve losing rather than to take risks involved in the potential for gains. Thus, after a breakup, we often say, "That's it for me! No more relationships." We want to avoid the risk of losing, even though there could be a chance for true love.
The More We Fail, the More the Goal Seems Insurmountable
Studies have indicated that as the frequency of rejection increases, the more insurmountable our goal appears to be. Psychologist Jessica Witt at Purdue University found that after a series of missed field goal kicks, players perceived the field post to be taller and narrower than before. However, after a series of successful kicks, athletes reported that the post appeared larger than before. It is easy to witness the power of rejection. The more we encounter rejection and the more we view our efforts as pointless, the less we try and the farther away true love seems.
Breakups and rejections suck! And now science can tell us why. Rejection from a breakup feels heartbreaking and overwhelming because, physiologically, it is.
References:
Bregtje Gunther Moor, Eveline A. Crone, Maurits W. van der Molen. The Heartbrake of Social Rejection: Heart Rate Deceleration in Response to Unexpected Peer Rejection. Psychological Science, 2010; DOI:10.1177/0956797610379236
H. E. Fisher, L. L. Brown, A. Aron, G. Strong, D. Mashek. Reward, Addiction, and Emotion Regulation Systems Associated with Rejection in Love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2010; DOI: 10.1152/jn.00784.2009
Schwartz, Barry (2004). Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Witt, J. K, & Dorsch, T. (2009). Kicking to bigger uprights: Field goal kicking performance influences perceived size. Perception 38: 1328-1340 DOI:10.1068/p6325.
Adoree Durayappah, M.A.P.P., M.B.A., is a writer and psychologist with an addiction to academia. Her passion is helping people understand themselves better by bringing academic research into the public domain in an entertaining and relevant fashion. You can learn more at AdoreeDurayappah.com.
Follow Adoree Durayappah, M.A.P.P., M.B.A. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/adoree
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I find this "slap yourself" opening a ridiculous and insulting generalisation. I raised my hand because I am in the one and only relationship I have had, which has lasted thirty years. So your suggestion that anyone who hasn't been through rejection is lying, disgusts me. A psychologist should know better than to make such sweeping generalisations. If you had not limited this to romantic relationships, you would have been on firmer ground.
And why does there need to be "scientific" reasons for something many people have lived and know perfectly well? Sounds close to an "if it hasn't been proven in the lab it isn't valid" mindset.
I submit that the people who do the breaking up also suffer and that the reason is subtle energy connections that form between people in relationships. We typically develop as children being loved by one or more adults, and that love includes energetic connections that help the brain develop. The brain enjoys and functions better with those connections and that is why we enjoy love. I will not explore the negative connotations here, but many people understand them.
Even when a person is in a bad relationship and chooses to leave, they suffer from the loss of those energy connections. I have been there, and I bet that many readers have also.
I think that western psychology still has a great deal to learn from eastern disciplines. Fortunately, change is starting with more use of meditation and mindfulness by psychologists and its being taught in psychology schools.
In addition to western myopia, I think there is also so much commercial branding that is used in the all of our social patterns that it obscures our underlying connectedness and much that competing disciplines have in common. Why do we hate competing sports teams when we all love the sport? Would we have religious wars if different religions shared their energy healing secrets?
My first relationship fell apart after a few months because he didn't want his friends to find out that he was gay. Later, after I'd gotten over being rejected for his friends, I realized what a weasel he was and I was glad I didn't stay. The second relationship near the end of my college career I had no desire whatever to fall in love with him, an artistic, not terribly handsome, sweetly sexy, born again evangelical Christian, with whom I had endless discussions about God, what the Bible did or didn’t say about homosexuality and religion. I was agnostic by that age. I remember the day I fell in love with him, the very moment in fact, I still remember what the air looked like, what his voice sounded like, what he smelled like, where he was sitting, the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, the dust motes visible in the light, the way he was propping his head against his hand, all of it, I remember. I didn't want to fall in love, but I realized at that moment that I was falling in love with him.
It was a year of pure hell. The more we talked and argued about God and sexuality and religion, the more promiscuous he became, the more he broke my heart until I had to get out of the relationship. I had to take all those sweet, loving feelings I had for him and stuff them back into my heart. I had to survive. It was the first time I ever felt depression as a real thing, a weight, that come from nowhere. I swore I’d never give my heart to anyone else in the same way ever again.
Several years later, after college, I moved to NYC and met the love of my life, except that I didn’t so much fall in love with him as I did fall in love with my life there. We were together for 17 years. He was better to me than anyone had ever been. We grew together and loved and fought and laughed and had a lot of fun and cried and argued and became adults together. The sex just as wild and fulfilling after 17 years as it was the first time. We lived in the moment together. If he hadn’t died of AIDS ten years ago when we was 49, we would have gotten old together, two crotchety old curmudgeons taking care of each other.
I’ve not been in a relationship for 10 years since my partner’s death. Whenever I think of going out, of starting again with someone, I get a sickening nausea in the pit of my stomach that keeps me alone. All those things you have to get through to establish a relationship in which the work of love is being done. All the energy you have to pour into it, with no guarantees of course. I don’t want to start another relationship. What I want is to wake up beside someone that I’ve been with for 20 years, tickle him awake, make love and then help each other to fix the sink, get the oil changed in the car, mow the lawn, go shopping. I don’t think my heart can take anymore grief.
BTW, it’s the same, gay or straight, love is the same, relationships have a different dynamic, but love is the same. It doesn’t have a gender or an orientation. It doesn’t have a religion and it doesn’t belong to any political party. Love is the same.
I had moved 2,000 miles and closed a business to plan our wedding which was happening a few months later. He insisted that I leave our home immediately (get on a plane that day.) On the drive to the airport he told me he had been texting his ex girlfriend. The one he never missed. The one whose voice reminded him of nails scratching a chalk board.
Thanks for the science!
1- Love produces soothing chemicals in the brain. We get used to them. Not having them anymore makes us go cold turkey
2- Men get accustomed to having regular sex and good meals being cooked by their lady. If said lady leaves, frequency of sex and meal quality declines
3- It makes men insanely jealous when their ex-girlfriend or wife finds another guy. We men are territorial. The idea of another man intruding on what was once ours (and psychologically always will be ours) is too much.
2- Regular sex is boring, and nothing is greater than a new kitty. And I'm a good cook.
3- Speak for yourself. No woman is or was ever mine. When I break up with a woman, I rarely ever bump into them or care about their future relationship.
2. I had pretty regular sex when I was single, not as often but not really a complainable offense. Also, I do all the cooking in my relationship.
3. Of course it makes people jealous, not necessarily insanely, and the phrase "psychologiÂcally always will be ours" reminds me of some of the worst people in our gender.
SOOOOO when you make your theories from the perspective of your gender, can you try not to make us all sound like overly macho neanderthals.