Toward a sociological theory of social pain

Abstract

A serious consideration of pain has largely been absent in sociology, especially physical pain's close neurobiological relative, social pain. Social pain is the process by which rejection and exclusion recruits similar neural circuits as physical pain, generating an affectual response that mirrors the response one feels from physical trauma. Pain is essential to any sociological analysis of motivation and action because, like many affective responses, it is a necessary ingredient in cognition and behavior; and, in many cases, it preconsciously commands and even controls how we think and act. While exploring this concept, it becomes apparent that sociology has an entire set of distantly related concepts that can be classified as different processes of social pain that reveal the structural, cultural, and situational conditions shaping the distribution of social pain. The paper concludes by thinking through the implications social pain portends for neuroscience and sociology.

Mediation effect of anxious attachment on relationship between childhood trauma and suicidal ideation sensitive to psychological pain levels

“…In situations of heightened stress, for example, induced through psychological pain or triggered through circumstances that resemble the original context, fast-associative processes guide perception [ 67 , 68 ], attention, and cognition [ 23 , 69 , 70 ]. In the case of anxious attachment, those associative processes are based on care-related schemata that stem from experiences of inconsistent, impulsive, frightening, or insensitive care [ 41 , 49 ] and entail a self-perception as helpless, incompetent and dependent [ 49 , 71 ]. Similar maladaptive personal schemata (e.g.…”

Wanting, liking, and the sociology of motivation

“…This system evolved to protect mammals from harmful, noxious stimuli that could lead to death. Not surprisingly, sociologists unwittingly emphasize the aversive system more than the seeking system, focusing on affective states like ANGER and PANIC/GRIEF (Abrutyn, 2023; Collett & Lizardo, 2010; Scheff, 2000) when they emphasize pragmatist habit theory (Gross, 2009). While these approaches rightfully consider aversive stimuli motivating, they rarely examine efforts to avoid aversive stimuli before they emerge (Summers‐Effler, 2004b).…”

A Social Disorganizational Theory of Suicide1

“…When the self is humiliated, routinely and/or ritually, it is mortified socially, and when it is separated from the expected autonomy over its extensions, it is mortified culturally and situationally (Goffman 1961). In turn, this social pain borne of rejection and exclusion motivates individuals and, in some cases, collectives to develop defensive strategies designed to protect ego, dignity, and respect (Abrutyn 2023); unfortunately, defensive strategies very often are (or invite pathology that is) harmful to the self and sometimes others (Summers‐Effler 2004). Thus, while beliefs may act as Weber's proverbial “switchman” in determining the course of action a given individual or set of individuals experiencing pain are likely to take, it is the underlying affective neurophysiological response (Kringelbach and Berridge 2016), innate yet conditioned by the environment (Rotolo 2022), that helps explain why some places condition people to respond to similar crises in exceedingly different ways.…”

“…When we receive what we expected our desire for the object is reinforced and we actually get a reward in the pursuit or anticipation of the object (Miller Tate 2019); when it gives a surprising reward, its salience and value grow (Di Domenico and Ryan 2017), while our predictive model must be further altered. Denial of access to a social object we want or have liked in the past, especially when this denial is objectively or subjectively understood as rejection, exclusion, or isolation, hurts (Abrutyn 2023); not in the metaphorical sense, but in the literal sense as the same affective neural circuits associated with physical pain are activated by social separation (Eisenberger 2012). Likewise, we can be conditioned to be hyper sensitive, through particular structural and cultural environmental conditions, to certain negative affect that encourage anti‐social, self‐harm, and other harm responses to crises (Rotolo 2022).…”