Why should you accept rejection? psychology

RBeing expelled hurts. Whether it’s in a professional, social, or romantic setting, there’s a particularly painful sting to discovering that someone has been judged undesirable in some way. If you’ve ever experienced a proper rejection — which is the case for most of us — that rejection may stick with you for a long time, like a rock lodged in the landscape of memory.

It can literally hurt. The late anthropologist Helen Fisher, who studied human behavior in the context of romantic love, showed that rejection and physical harm have much in common. In 2010, she led a study of people who had recently been romantically rejected. Functional MRI scans of their brains revealed that areas associated with distress and physical pain were more active. The passage of time seemed to reduce the pain response in participants in Fisher’s trial, but for some people, rejection may reverberate for months or years. This overlap in the brain’s response to what we think of as physical and mental pain is not limited to romance. Social psychologist Naomi Eisenberger scanned the brains of people who had been socially excluded from a ball game in an experiment. Their results showed that “social pain is similar in its neurocognitive function to physical pain, as it alerts us when we are exposed to injury in our social relationships.”

From an evolutionary perspective, it’s easy to understand why rejection is so powerful. The realization that one has been socially excluded gives rise to a sudden chill, like being evicted from a Paleolithic campsite and left to the mercy of saber-toothed predators. Being exiled from the warmth of the communal fire would have meant death for our ancient ancestors, so it was something to be avoided at all costs. While outcasts in modern Britain would not normally have to face the dangers that social outcasts did 30,000 years ago, the drive to seek shelter in the company of others is strong and enduring. We look forward to being accepted. But for the 21st century Homo sapiens, holding back on rejection may do more harm than good. In fact, strong and lasting negative emotional reactions to rejection often cause more harm than the rejection itself. In order to live a fulfilling life, and discover what we enjoy and what we’re good at, we have to be willing to try things — and fail at them. Make avoiding rejection a priority and you’ll find yourself more risk-averse and less spontaneous, with a paradoxically narrower social world.

What if, instead of retreating from rejection, we tried to embrace it? What if instead of the wave hitting us, we tried to ride it? Not only is it possible to overcome the fear of rejection, but doing so can also improve our psychological health, leading to better social functioning and greater well-being. The basic steps are acceptance and cognitive reframing: Rejection happens to everyone, and is in fact unavoidable. Not only that, it can be the way you learn and become more resilient. Keep that in mind, and you’ll have already softened the blow. Developing equanimity in the face of disappointment has a long origin: in spiritual traditions such as Buddhism, meditation aims to achieve an attitude of clear openness to the slings and arrows of life. But there are other new ways to fight back, as one American businessman has shown.

In 2012, Jia Jiang received a “no” from an investor which made him feel crushed. Instead of wallowing in his pain, he decided to learn how to embrace his biggest fears by accumulating rejections over the course of 100 days. He uploaded videos of himself making ridiculous requests, and began asking a complete stranger if he could borrow $100. Over the course of his project, Jiang noticed that his anxiety about rejection quickly diminished as he became sensitive. “It reminded me of the ancient iron fist technique in kung fu, where a person repeatedly strikes hard objects with his fist to gain resistance to pain,” he wrote. But in addition to this increased psychological flexibility, he also found that his sense of agency, awareness of possibilities, social skills, and pleasure in interacting with others all flourished. Not only that, but as his outlook and behavior shifted to a more open and positive outlook toward the strangers he was approaching, he found that more and more people were actually saying… Yes For his ridiculous suggestions When a donut chain employee granted his request for a batch of iced donuts arranged to look like the Olympic rings and gave them to him for free, Jiang’s mission went viral.

Throughout history, rejection has been a crucible, helping to shape some of the most extraordinary art movements, from impressionism to punk. The rejected person has a lot to lose and does not have to behave the way the group dictates, and from this can come a delicious freedom to play and create. The most dramatic form of rejection, exile, can generate the greatest innovations. Would the brilliance and influence of the Bauhaus group, or the strange sublimity of the Surrealists, have remained intact had they not been rejected at one point or another? Although there is plenty of evidence that social rejection has harmful cognitive effects, for those with a certain type of self-perception, it can serve as artistic rocket fuel. In 2013, academic Sharon Kim led a study that showed that people with a strong sense of their uniqueness as individuals experienced an increase in creativity after social rejection.

Whatever your mood, rejection is inevitable. No one can completely deviate from this, no matter how rich, famous or beautiful they are. Training ourselves to let go of the tendency to catastrophize after a setback – to act as if we have been hurled from our camp into the frozen tundra, when in reality we are merely non-food items at a birthday party – can change the way we move in the world. Reframing things in a more optimistic way, while exercising, gives us freedom to play. Embracing rejection means embracing rejection. So, let us aim to jump like a rubber ball, perhaps in an unexpected direction, but take comfort in the fact that we are in excellent company.

Further reading

The Rejection Guide: How I Overcame Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang (Harmony, £10.99)

The Courage That Makes You Hateful: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve True Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga (Allen & Unwin, £10.99)

The Power of Letting Go: How to Let Go of Everything That’s Holding You Back by John Purkis (Aster, £16.99)