Research Experience

I am currently a psychology major doing research in a university psychology lab.  Our current study has to do with rejection and pain.  Basically, there are two theories about the effects of social rejection.  The one we are studying focuses on the body's physical reaction.  When the body is hurt (a cut, for example), it produces extra neurotransmitters to numb the injured area so that it can heal.  Well, this theory says that the same affects happen when a person encounters emotional pain.  Things like social rejection or just deep emotional pain are thought to induce the same numbness.  We are "rejecting" people and testing their physiological responses to loud noise.  My lab instructor believes that after feeling rejected they will have little or no response to a frightening noise.  I will have to post when we have some data, but of course this is just one experiment in the works to learn more about it.
Anyways, I think this is incredibly interesting because when I was in deep emotional pain during my depression, I was cutting myself often.  I didn't feel the pain like I would now.  It was weird.  I did it because it gave me a rush of good feeling (that would be the neurotransmitters released to protect the wound), but it never really hurt like a normal cut does now.  I can't wait to see the results of this study.  It should be really interesting and I wonder if they have applied it to self-injury and depression's emotional pain.  I think I will look into this more and report if I find anything.