The human heart is a fragile thing. It desires unconditional, unlimited love and to be loved for who it is, not what it can be made into. However accompanying the search for this love is a great risk, the risk of rejection. The chance that the one chosen to love and who's love is desired will not reciprocate those feelings. If they do return your affection, there is always the chance they may change their mind later on. A breakup then ensues.
Breakups are common things in our world today. Everyone knows someone who just went through a breakup or divorce and many occur in the not so pleasant way of denial. Most people know that this breakup is hard on the emotions and will respond with the gift of sympathy and maybe some chocolate ice cream but after a while, it's expected that the rejected person will get over it. Little do they know that rejection is not only emotionally painful but it is also physically painful. According to a recent study, it is proven that when rejected, the brain registers physical pain. When socially rejected, especially in a romantic relationship, emotional pain is not the only thing experienced.
Pain, an unpleasant feeling, is prevalent in all aspects of life. The brain is all too familiar with the feeling, especially when a romantic relationship is involved. In a lay article by Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic, the scientific paper about this hypothesis is reviewed in a short and understandable manner. First she explains how the study of this new hypothesis was done by the operating scientists. “Smith and colleagues recruited 40 participants via flyers posted around Manhattan and through Facebook and Craigslist advertisements.” (Dell'Amore, 2011) The random choice of subjects for this exp...
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...n. Those dropped from a romantic relationship or left out of the popular group experience these feelings all the time. They have enough evidence to prove this hypothesis true. Now there is scientific evidence to back it up what the majority has already experienced. So next time you think of telling your friend to “get over it”, think again and give them another scoop of ice cream.
Works Cited
Dell'Amore, C. (2011). Rejection really hurts, brain scans show. National Geographic News, Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110328-romantic-rejection-pain-brain-scans-mri-health-science/
Smith, E. (2009, July 14). Variation in the μ-opioid receptor gene (oprm1) is associated with dispositional and neural sensitivity to social rejection. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/106/35/15079.full?sid=8ddb635a-51b6-4705-aa6b-d96c342f190a#sec-6
Many times the love that a person is looking for is the one that a person doesn't realize.
“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection,”Henry J.M Houwen once stated. In the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Jin Wang and the monkey king experiences rejection as they interact with society. In the short story Linh Lai by Rebecca Rosenblum, Linh Lai helplessly suffers rejection as she struggles to meet her uncle and Mr. Koenburg’s expectations. In the short story Tapka by David Bezomozgis, people are rejected because of their differences. Rejection by society exists in Tapka and Linh Lai, whereas American Born Chinese incorporates both rejections by themselves and by society. Stories show that people are rejected by society, people in positions of power, or themselves when they are different from the majority.
The scientific definition of love is "having stimulation that one desires" (5). Recent research by two British neurologists concludes that love is linked to certain brain activities. By conducting tests using a magnetic resonance imager, the scientists measured brain activity in 17 people while they were viewing a picture of their loved one, and while they were viewing a photo of a friend of the same sex as their lover. When the individuals see the picture of the person they love, clear activity occurs in four regions of the brain that were not active when the image of the friend was present. The media insula, which is responsible for instinctual feelings, and the anterior cingulate, which acts in response to euphoria-inducing drugs, such as cocaine, are the two areas of the cortex stimulated by pictures of a lover. The striatum, that is activated when we are rewarded and the prefrontal cortex also increase their activity when shown the same picture.
Because of this step when being in love as well as the dopamine levels raising, musicians and poets are able to be inspired to create more artistic things. There is a particular part of the brain known as the dorsal insula, a part that is also very active when in love with both men and women yet it does different things. For men, this region focuses on penile tumescence and a beautiful face. For women, this region is more focused on romance, memory, and emotion. In Tarlacı, Sultan’s The Brain in Love she talks about a study by Zeki in which he studied the neuron growth(what keeps the brain young) between a group of people who have been in love and another who has never felt it or were rejected. The group who were in love had double the neurons than the other group, which keeps the brain young as well as the mind. A drop in neurons can result in neural degeneration, dementia, depression, autism, and even a sensitivity when it comes to
Vasopressin has long been implicated in the memory of faces and is thus useful for research on recall and recognition of faces. Because of the role vasopressin plays in relationships, it is important to consider its value in affecting romantic relationships and perception of romantic partner's faces. In a study by Thompson and colleagues (2004) researchers looked at how vasopressin administration affects responses to happy, angry and neutral faces in terms of attention, and arousal and physiological measures like corrugator supercilii electromyograms (EMG), heart rate and skin conductance (Thompson, Gupta, Miller, Mills, & Orr, 2004). This was based on previous experiments with the effect of oxytocin on facial perception. Neutral faces were found to elicit higher responses in the EMG. They argued that because the faces were ambiguous having been taken from Paul Ekman's series of faces, vasopressin may have lead participants to view those neutral faces in a more aggressive way causing that increased EMG response. This study demonstrates that there is a link between vasopressin and facial recognition responses and further studies have added on to this. In a follow up study in 2006, they looked at vasopressin effects on perception of friendliness for both men and women on pictures of same sex faces. They found that the results of vasopressin depended on the gender as women were friendlier when presented with same sex faces (Thompson, George, Walton, Orr, & Benson, 2006). Interestingly, they did not repeat the study to see the effect of vasopressin between both sexes seeing opposite sex pictures. In men, however, the familiarity of the romantic partner when combined with insecurity would decrease the per...
The article '' love: the right chemistry'' by Anastasia Toufexis efforts to explain the concept of love from a scientific aspect in which an amateur will understand. Briefly this essay explains and describe in a scientific way how people's stimulation of the body works when you're falling in love. The new scientific researches have given the answer through human physiology how genes behave when your feelings for example get swept away. The justification for this is explained by how the brain gets flooded by chemicals. The author expresses in one point that love isn't just a nonsense behavior nor a feeling that exhibits similar properties as of a narcotic drug. This is brought about by an organized chemical chain who controls different depending on the individual. A simple action such as a deep look into someone's eyes can start the simulation in the body that an increased production of hand sweat will start. The tingly feeling inside your body is a result of a scientific delineation which makes the concept of love more concretely and more factually mainly for researchers and the wide...
Staats, P.S., Hekmat, H., & Staats, A.W. (2004). The psychological behaviorism theory of pain and the
Barbara Lee Fredrickson, a psychologist, introduces a new conception of love to the readers. She tries to simplify the perception of love most people have known for their entire life. The special bonds and magical bond that continues the love for eternity are all myths and lies. Something that poisons our minds to be committed to one another. The definition of Fredrickson’s conception of “love” is more scientific than emotional. When defining love, it is more dependent on the activity of the brain, “positivity resonance”, and love hormones. The claim that Fredrickson makes in Love 2.0 does give a critical point of love, that it is simpler than you think. However, not every conception of love does Fredrickson explain it to be biological. The
A crucial concept in the definition of pain is that it is indeed a perception, therefore involving the brain's rumination and elaboration on corresponding input. This may be paralleled to another sensory perception, vision. Although the optic nerve head should cause a "hole" in an individual's...
The Brain in Love by Daniel G. Amen; just from the introduction of the book I was already able to tell the book was going to be a great read. Amen starts the book by giving statements which to me sounded like statements of when a person is in love with another. Some example, “You beat in my heart. I crave you. I need you next to men.” (Amen, The Brain in Love, pg 1). Amen states that the brain is the largest sex organ and that size does matter when it comes to sex. Our brains help us with everything like who we find attractive, how well we do on a date or how to even deal with a breakup. He also explains the while in a relationship you brain will work either good or bad. When the brain is working go within a relationship a person tends to be more playful, thoughtful, and loving to his/her partner. When the brain is “acting up” in a relationship a person may be impulsive, hateful, and angry. Also, since the brain is known as the “largest sex organ” the size of the brain does matter and, as male/females get older the brain active and size begins to decrease; with the decrease of both brain active and size which was why sexual desire will decrease within age and in men 40% of men in their forties and 70% of men in their seventies had Erectile Dysfunction. Aging within women menopause was the negative affect of sexual interest and performance.
...that one's entire perception of pain may be conscious in origin and simply correlate to the mechanisms of the brain, rather than stem from just the brain entirely.
...l Abuse and Victimization in Dating Relationships: The Role of Experiential Avoidance." Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 5.6 (2013): 562-9. ProQuest. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.< http://search.proquest.com/docview/1284279418/1388FF77C50D4C33PQ/4?accountid=28502>
Physical pain doesn’t have much of a trigger for a repeat, while emotional pain leaves numerous amounts of reminders and triggers. When we have a cut we apply medicine for it to feel better and help your body heal-(positive).As physical pain can also be used as a distraction from emotional pain. Some of you may know teens and or adults have used ‘cutting’ their skin with a sharp object causing physical pain, to distract the emotional pain. In the long run that’s not going to fix your problem-the pain can tend to get worse the more you decide not to deal with the issue. Emotional pain we do little to protect our self- esteem when it's low. A Lot of the time people do not use positive results for distraction in the long run. We’ve grown into a world where others begin to ignore the situation, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and or use drugs. In the long run that’s not going to fix your problem-the pain can tend to get worse the more you decide not to deal with the issue. Positive ways to deal with emotional pain and or problems with the connection of physical pain would be- therapy, focusing on your strengths, apologizing and or forgiving yourself in times of guilt, and don’t forget to remind yourself that you are more aware of your mistakes than someone else
Love is ubiquitous and universal, and we have all encountered and relished in the power of love. Many people associate the meaning of love with feelings of strong affection and personal attachment. While this is very accurate, there are several different aspects of love that we neglect to acknowledge. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson steps up and takes up this challenge in convergence with the magic of science. In doing so, she concludes that the things in which our brain thinks love is, are actually just the products of love. Love itself is something much greater and it is worth figuring out what this supreme emotion is all about. Fredrickson’s work primarily centered around the broaden-and-build theory, in which states “positive emotions
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins,. 349. The. “Psychological Theories About the Dynamics of Love (I).” 01 Mar. 2005 http://psychology.about.com/library/weekly/aa022000a.htm Richmond, Raymond Lloyd.