Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 30, 2026

Quantifying Pain Location and Intensity with Multimodal Pain Body Diagrams
Published on: July 7, 2023
When hurt will not heal: exploring the capacity to relive social and physical pain
Zhansheng Chen1, Kipling D Williams, Julie Fitness
1Purdue University, Department of Psychological Sciences, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. chen@psych.purdue.edu
Abstract:
Recent discoveries suggest that social pain is as real and intense as physical pain, and that the social-pain system may have piggybacked on the brain structure that had evolved earlier for physical pain. The present study examined an important distinction between social and physical pain: Individuals can relive and reexperience social pain more easily and more intensely than physical pain. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people reported higher levels of pain after reliving a past socially painful event than after reliving a past physically painful event. Studies 3 and 4 found, in addition, that people performed worse on cognitively demanding tasks after they relived social rather than physical pain. Implications for research on social pain and theories about social pain are discussed.
Related Concept Videos
Healing I: Introduction
Bonanno's Theory of Grieving
Resilience
The resilience...
Pain
Healing II: Complications
Techniques of therapeutic communication I: Active Listening, Sharing Observations, Validation, and Using Touch
Therapeutic communication is not the same as social interaction. Social interaction has no goal or purpose and consists of casual information sharing, whereas therapeutic communication has a plan or purpose for the conversation. Therapeutic...
Burn Injuries
The damage results in the death of skin cells, which can lead to a massive loss of fluid. Dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and renal and circulatory failure follow, which can be fatal. Burn patients are treated with intravenous fluids to offset...
