Something for the weekend

We are all familiar with the pain of rejection – not being invited to a party, or being excluded in a conversation. Now a psychology academic and an assistant professor of management and organisation have examined the impact of social rejection.

They have concluded that even if individuals are sympathetic to the social snubs experienced by another, they do not understand how upset the person concerned actually feels.

Loran Nordgren, an assistant professor of management and organisations at the Kellogg School of Management and Geoff MacDonald, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, with Kasia Banas, at the time a masters student at VU University Amsterdam looked at what is described as the empathy gap. Previous research has identified how although an individual can see that someone is suffering from physical pain, they underestimate just how painful an injury really is.