Comments on: How do you explain heartbreak?

Question: How do you explain heartbreak?

playtragic — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:47:51 -0800

What is the psychology/biology/(insert)-ology behind what we commonly refer to as "heartbreak?"

By: edgeways

edgeways — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:20:45 -0800

off the top of my head I think it would be a combination of factors, including unmet expectations, realization of rejection at some level (failure figures in here). Sometimes, overdependence on the other individual.
Such issues act as system depressants, I don't know about the precise biology, but thinking of heartbreak and other situations where one feels like a failure it seems a similar physical feeling.

By: LittleMissCranky

LittleMissCranky — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:26:25 -0800

My best guess is that experiencing or thinking about emotionally stressful things is stimulating your sympathetic nervous system, which will increase your heart and respiratory rates, which can feel like constriction in your heart area. Depression and anxiety can also cause this, and I don't think they're dissimilar, although depression can go the other way as well.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:27:27 -0800

this economist article goes into the neurochemistry of love.

By: russilwvong

russilwvong — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:32:27 -0800

Comments so far have discussed how; what about why?

Steven Pinker discusses evolutionary explanations for human emotions from the point of view of evolutionary psychology in How the Mind Works. Pinker describes grief as a deterrent: if you know that losing someone will be extremely painful, you'll do whatever you can to try to keep it from happening.

By: milkrate

milkrate — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:43:56 -0800

Some papers at the 'Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab' at UCLA - probably try Why rejection hurts: a comon neural alarm system for physical and social pain or Broken hearts and broken bones: The neurocognitive overlap between social pain and physical pain (both are PDF - may have to do a "Save As")

"Social pain" looks like it would be the appropriate keyword, if searching journals.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:47:10 -0800

on the why, the tangled wing has a long discussion (it may also include details about how - unfortunately my copy is in la serena and i'm now at home).

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:53:46 -0800

I smell a great FPP in these answers, if playtragic would be kind enough to compile it.

By: Tlogmer

Tlogmer — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:42:53 -0800

It's worth noting that hunter-gatherers are rarely alone. Anthropologists saying they're going to go over there (20 meters away, for example) to go to the bathroom have been met with comments like "by yourself? why would you want to do anything so dangerous?" Americans are individualistic, but generally people function constantly as components of larger systems. Studies of divorcees have found that the individuals had "outsourced" certain cognitive tasks to their partners and had trouble re-learning them on their own.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:44:38 -0800

Tlogmer writes "Studies of divorcees have found that the individuals had 'outsourced' certain cognitive tasks to their partners and had trouble re-learning them on their own."

Cite please?

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:15:29 -0800

orthogonality: anecdotal support for the outsourcing, and difficulty. In my case, it was grief that made the difficulty, my first partner died quite unexpectedly (heart disease).

By: plainfeather

plainfeather — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 06:11:43 -0800

The best psychological explanation I have seen is that heartbreak is an obsessive reaction to or displacement of reawakened childhood abandonment fears, for example when an infant wakes up alone and imagines itself deserted by its parents. Personally I found zen meditation an effective, if slow-working antidote, which I should think would prove helpful for other kinds of obsessive complaints as well.