2.17 Social rejection and pain. We often describe our emotional reaction to soci rejection as "pain." A clever study asked whether social rejection causes activity in area of the brain that are known to be activated by physical pain. If it does, we really d experience social and physical pain in similar ways. Subjects were first included and the deliberately excluded from a social activity while increases in blood flow in their brain were measured. After each activity, the subjects filled out questionnaires that assesse how excluded they felt. Below are data for 13 subjects. The explanatory variable is "social distress" measured b each subject's questionnaire score after exclusion relative to the score after inclusion. (S values greater than 1 show the degree of distress caused by exclusion.) The respons variable is activity in the anterior cingulare cortex, a region of the brain that is activate by physical pain