But that existence is probably not a happy one. With today’s modern conveniences, a person can physically survive a solitary existence. “A solitary human being could not have survived during the six million years of human evolution while we were living out there on the African savannah,” Leary says. Like hunger or thirst, our need for acceptance emerged as a mechanism for survival.

We evolved to live in cooperative societies, and for most of human history we depended on those groups for our lives. “This need is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history and has all sorts of consequences for modern psychological processes.” Pain in the brainĪs clever as human beings are, we rely on social groups for survival. Nathan DeWall, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. Just as we have needs for food and water, we also have needs for positive and lasting relationships,” says C. “Humans have a fundamental need to belong. In 2003 Leary and colleagues analyzed 15 cases of school shooters, and found all but two suffered from social rejection ( Aggressive Behavior, 2003).Ĭlearly, there are good reasons to better understand the effects of being excluded. Ostracized people sometimes become aggressive and can turn to violence. Social rejection can influence emotion, cognition and even physical health. Rejection also has serious implications for an individual’s psychological state and for society in general. “People have realized just how much our concern with social acceptance spreads its fingers into almost everything we do,” he says.Īs researchers have dug deeper into the roots of rejection, they’ve found surprising evidence that the pain of being excluded is not so different from the pain of physical injury. That’s changed over the last decade and a half, as a growing number of researchers have turned their eyes toward this uncomfortable fact of life. “It’s like the whole field missed this centrally important part of human life,” says Mark Leary, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Yet for many years, few psychologists tuned into the importance of rejection. The same hurt feelings bubble up when you are excluded from lunch with co-workers, fail to land the job you interviewed for or are dumped by a romantic partner. Anyone who lived through high school gym class knows the anxiety of being picked last for the dodgeball team.

Cry of fear stranger