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Snubbing Scars

Aired October 10, 2003 - 13:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Pick me! Pick me! Flashback to your school days for a moment. Remember what it felt like when you didn't get picked? Pick me, please. Or maybe recently you got snubbed at the office. You listening on the sixth floor? Anyway, new research suggest the pain of rejection can affect more than your ego.
Dr. Matt Lieberman worked on this study. He's a social psychologist at the University of California Los Angles, and we picked him first for this interview.

Good to see you, sir.

DR. MATT LIEBERMAN, UCLA SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST: It's good to be here. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right, I always want to know where a researcher gets an idea for a study. Is there any personal story you want to relate, or is this just something you observed?

LIEBERMAN: Well, really, the first author, Naomi Eisenberger (ph), this is something that she's been think about a long time, and I think she's just observed a lot of things to lead her to look at this. But we've all thought about this kind of idea.

O'BRIEN: All right, so we're talking about kickball or baseball, or whatever the case may be, on the playground. You know, I think some people can relate to being the last picked, and I think, as you hearken back to those days on the playground scene here, you almost can feel the pain when you're in your 40s.

LIEBERMAN: yes.

O'BRIEN: Why is it so seared in our memories?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I think it is something we evolve to be sensitive to. If you think about young children, it's critical for them to stay connected to their caregivers and to the social group. And if you lose that social connection, you're not going to get access to the other things you need -- food, shelter, water. And so it's that social connection that provides all those other needs. As a result...

O'BRIEN: So there is some kind of Darwinian thing going on here.

LIEBERMAN: Well, we certainly haven't proved that, but we certainly think that's the case. It's a basic need, and so we evolve to be sensitive to when that need is being violated. O'BRIEN: Survival of those who picked first kind of thing.

LIEBERMAN: Well, survival of those who are still connected. You don't have to be picked first, you just have to be picked.

O'BRIEN: Without getting too much further down the road here, give us a little brief overview of your methodology on this. You used kind of a computer game to get some data. Explain how it works.

LIEBERMAN: Yes, it's a little computer game where the individual is playing a game of catch with what they believe are two other people that are really computer-controlled characters. And for a while, they're just playing catch, and then at some point, the other two players, the computer players, stop throwing the ball to them, thus excluding them.

O'BRIEN: And what did you observe as they were excluded? Was it almost sort of heartbreaking almost?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it certainly feels heartbreaking when we're watching from the control room and the subjects report that they feel distressed afterwards, and then what we see is that there is a part of the brain that's associated with physical pain and other kinds of conflict that we experience that was very active, and it was active to the extent that these people experienced distressed.

O'BRIEN: How serious is this pain? And did your study go far enough to come up with, perhaps, some ways people can confront and deal with it, even as they grow older?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I don't know if I can speak to how serious the pain is. I can say that I don't know how different it is from physical pain, and we certainly think that's very serious and out of an individual's control. But we did also see that there was another mechanism in the brain that was active, that suggested it was helping to regulate and get us beyond the pain that we're experiencing. And this part of the brain, the more it was turned on after exclusion, the less distress the person reported feeling. So we do think that there is sort of a set of checks and counterbalances that are at play here.

O'BRIEN: How do you flip the switch on that part of the brain?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it turns out when you start thinking about your experience or if you write it down in poetry or a diary, that's one of the things that seems to set this buffering process in motion and help protect you from the negative emotion you're feeling.

O'BRIEN: All right, kids, start a diary. Adults, that counts for you, too. Dr. Matt Lieberman, with UCLA, coauthor of the study on how snubbing really, really hurts.

Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you. My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired October 10, 2003 - 13:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Pick me! Pick me! Flashback to your school days for a moment. Remember what it felt like when you didn't get picked? Pick me, please. Or maybe recently you got snubbed at the office. You listening on the sixth floor? Anyway, new research suggest the pain of rejection can affect more than your ego.
Dr. Matt Lieberman worked on this study. He's a social psychologist at the University of California Los Angles, and we picked him first for this interview.

Good to see you, sir.

DR. MATT LIEBERMAN, UCLA SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST: It's good to be here. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right, I always want to know where a researcher gets an idea for a study. Is there any personal story you want to relate, or is this just something you observed?

LIEBERMAN: Well, really, the first author, Naomi Eisenberger (ph), this is something that she's been think about a long time, and I think she's just observed a lot of things to lead her to look at this. But we've all thought about this kind of idea.

O'BRIEN: All right, so we're talking about kickball or baseball, or whatever the case may be, on the playground. You know, I think some people can relate to being the last picked, and I think, as you hearken back to those days on the playground scene here, you almost can feel the pain when you're in your 40s.

LIEBERMAN: yes.

O'BRIEN: Why is it so seared in our memories?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I think it is something we evolve to be sensitive to. If you think about young children, it's critical for them to stay connected to their caregivers and to the social group. And if you lose that social connection, you're not going to get access to the other things you need -- food, shelter, water. And so it's that social connection that provides all those other needs. As a result...

O'BRIEN: So there is some kind of Darwinian thing going on here.

LIEBERMAN: Well, we certainly haven't proved that, but we certainly think that's the case. It's a basic need, and so we evolve to be sensitive to when that need is being violated. O'BRIEN: Survival of those who picked first kind of thing.

LIEBERMAN: Well, survival of those who are still connected. You don't have to be picked first, you just have to be picked.

O'BRIEN: Without getting too much further down the road here, give us a little brief overview of your methodology on this. You used kind of a computer game to get some data. Explain how it works.

LIEBERMAN: Yes, it's a little computer game where the individual is playing a game of catch with what they believe are two other people that are really computer-controlled characters. And for a while, they're just playing catch, and then at some point, the other two players, the computer players, stop throwing the ball to them, thus excluding them.

O'BRIEN: And what did you observe as they were excluded? Was it almost sort of heartbreaking almost?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it certainly feels heartbreaking when we're watching from the control room and the subjects report that they feel distressed afterwards, and then what we see is that there is a part of the brain that's associated with physical pain and other kinds of conflict that we experience that was very active, and it was active to the extent that these people experienced distressed.

O'BRIEN: How serious is this pain? And did your study go far enough to come up with, perhaps, some ways people can confront and deal with it, even as they grow older?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I don't know if I can speak to how serious the pain is. I can say that I don't know how different it is from physical pain, and we certainly think that's very serious and out of an individual's control. But we did also see that there was another mechanism in the brain that was active, that suggested it was helping to regulate and get us beyond the pain that we're experiencing. And this part of the brain, the more it was turned on after exclusion, the less distress the person reported feeling. So we do think that there is sort of a set of checks and counterbalances that are at play here.

O'BRIEN: How do you flip the switch on that part of the brain?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it turns out when you start thinking about your experience or if you write it down in poetry or a diary, that's one of the things that seems to set this buffering process in motion and help protect you from the negative emotion you're feeling.

O'BRIEN: All right, kids, start a diary. Adults, that counts for you, too. Dr. Matt Lieberman, with UCLA, coauthor of the study on how snubbing really, really hurts.

Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you. My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com