For the study, the researchers set up four experiments. In the first two experiments, participants reported the amount of pain they felt while trying to relive a physically or a socially painful experience.

And in the second experiment, after writing detailed accounts of each experience, the participants reported how they felt.

The last two experiments were similar to the first two, except participants were asked to work on some cognitive tasks with different levels of difficulty after reliving a socially or physically painful event.

The psychologists found that participants who had to recall a socially painful experience reported stronger feelings of pain and relived the experience more intensely than those who had to recall a physically painful event.

Moreover, those who only had to recall a physically painful event performed better on the difficult mental tasks in comparison to those who had to relive a socially painful event.

The researchers believe that it could be due to evolution of the human brain, specifically in an area called the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for complex thinking, perception and language processing.