Social pain: A systematic review on interventions

Author: mycolabadmin
1/10/2025
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Summary

This study reviews different treatments for social pain—the emotional hurt from rejection and social exclusion. Researchers found that regular pain reliever acetaminophen, mindfulness meditation, and the psychedelic compound psilocybin can reduce social pain, while placebo pills also help when people believe they work. Interestingly, combining acetaminophen with forgiveness works better than either alone, suggesting that both physical and emotional pain may use similar brain pathways.

Background

Social pain is emotional distress caused by harm or threat to social connections resulting in social exclusion, rejection, or loss. Research demonstrates that social pain potentiates physical pain and is associated with heightened brain activity in regions including the anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex. Supportive social relationships are crucial for maintaining health and well-being, while social isolation is associated with mortality risk comparable to smoking and obesity.

Objective

This systematic review aims to identify and summarize interventions associated with reducing social pain. The review seeks to evaluate both pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of social rejection and emotional distress from threatened social connections.

Results

Acetaminophen, both deceptive and open-label placebos, mindfulness training, and psilocybin were found to reduce social pain. The combination of acetaminophen and forgiveness yielded superior results compared to either intervention alone. Conversely, oxytocin, duloxetine, pregabalin, and glucose showed no significant impact on reducing social pain. Most studies demonstrated moderate to high quality with some concerns regarding randomization and intervention deviation.

Conclusion

Multiple pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions effectively reduce social pain through various mechanisms. Acetaminophen appears to work by reducing neural activity in brain regions involved in both physical and social pain processing. Future research should examine long-term effects, include larger and more diverse sample sizes, and standardize outcome measures to enable meta-analysis.

Published in:F1000Research,
Study Type:Systematic Review,
Source: 10.12688/f1000research.159561.1, PMID: 40144800