Sana Qadar: Ethan and his colleagues had found the brain processed emotional and physical pain in surprisingly similar ways, more so than previously thought.Įthan Kross: And we had no high expectations for this paper but it ended up getting a lot of coverage, I went on national television, and it was really exciting, really fun for a couple of days, until I came into work one day and I found a hand-addressed letter in my envelope, which was a little odd because I never really get hand-addressed mail anymore, I don't know about you, but it always is the email variety. Sana Qadar: What in the world had gotten him to this point? Well, the story starts out straightforward enough.Įthan Kross: We had just published a study showing that when people use the words of physical pain to describe how they feel after being socially rejected, so people often say 'I'm in pain', 'my feelings are hurt', we published a study that suggested that when people are using that language of being in pain, they might actually be referring to physical sensations in their body. At one point I found myself contemplating just terribly irrational things, you know, these bad guys are coming to get us, and at one point in the early morning hours, I actually, as embarrassing as it is to admit, contemplated doing a Google search for bodyguards that specialise in protecting academics, which in retrospect is totally preposterous.

Sana Qadar: About a decade ago, psychologist Ethan Kross found himself doing something totally out of character.Įthan Kross: I'm pacing my house with a baseball bat.

Chatter by Ethan Kross