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Being rejected hurts, really. It’s painful. Whether it’s losing out at love, being fired, being having one’s application for membership of a club turned down or losing a friend we feel the agony. We are social beings, the vast majority of our biology is geared to surrounding ourselves with supportive relationships.
Psychologists have long been aware that social rejection is the greatest fear of most human beings. Studies by Professor Roy Baumeister and his team at Florida State University, and others, have shown that most of us fear rejection more than we fear death
There has been a lot of research lately on the subject of freewill and a lot of controversy in psychology and neuroscience circles.
It may be, as some researchers attest, that free will is an illusion. Yet it is undeniable that we persist in believing we are the masters of our fates—and that belief affects how we act. If you think you determine the course of your life you're likely to work harder toward your goals and also feel better about yourself. Think you don't, and you're likelier to behave in ways that fulfil that prophesy.
“When a man’s a little bit poorly
Makes a fuss, wants a nuss
Thinks he’s going to die most surely
Sends for a doctor, who makes him wuss.”
I have noticed a few interesting tidbits in the press recently, for example your mood affects your symptoms, low voiced men are deemed to be less faithful, as are high pitched females, all you need is love is true and miscarriages can lead to years of depression.
A lot has been written over the last few years about the benefits of happiness to individuals, organizations, the heath system and just about anything and anybody else. There is a whole positive psychology movement which has swept the globe.
Unfortunately, up until very recently, there has been no conclusive proof of the supposed benefits of happiness. Most of what we relied on was hearsay, anecdotal evidence and people’s gut feelings. Many studies had shown, for example, that happy people were healthier and that happy people were more productive at work. However these findings showed nothing causal—put another way saying healthy people are happier is not to say, necessarily, that happiness causes good health. Or that happy people are more productive is not to say that happiness necessarily increases productivity.
Even when people know they’re dummy pills.
According to a 2008 report in the British Medical Journal 50% of physicians in the US have prescribed placebos to their patients without telling them that they were just dumb pills. They do this for a variety of reasons— for example when the regular treatments might not be working, or there was no known treatment available.