Loneliness, Part I: Being Lonely Around Others
How can we be lonely in the midst of other people, sometimes even among those we love most? Evolution has an answer.
Plenty of people spend time alone and aren’t lonely. Meanwhile, most readers will be able to recall a moment of deep loneliness in the midst of other people—even, sometimes, among loved ones. So what gives?
Loneliness is one of many psychological experiences that results from a difference between expectations and perceived outcomes. (Well-being, in general, is an output of this type of calculation.) Specifically, loneliness measures the difference between how much connection a person has and how much they want to have,1 connection being the kind and quality of their personal relationships. When expectations are greater than perceived reality, loneliness is the difference:
L = E – P
where L is Loneliness, E is Expectation for connection, and P is Perception of connection.2
Perception’s Role in Measurement
Because the feeling of loneliness depends on expectations and perceptions, it cannot be easily predicted by objective measures of social isolation or support, like how many friends a person has, how much time they spend being social, or whether they are in the physical presence of others. As Cacioppo, Hawkley, and Thisted (2010) put it: “Loneliness is synonymous with perceived social isolation, not with objective social isolation.”
As any student of psychology knows, however, perception is riddled with bias. For example, the majority of the time we see people, we see them being social, which probably leads us to believe that they are more social than they really are.3 We also remember social events more than private moments, and in conversation, emphasize what we do with others over what we do alone.4 Such biases collaborate to separate our interpretation of reality from reality. Indeed, when asked how social they are compared to others, people tend to rate themselves below average5—a surprising result, given the tendency for people to overestimate in other domains, such as knowledge,6 height,7 and contribution to household chores.8
While it’s no big deal if someone overestimates their height, it is a big deal if someone underestimates their degree of social connection—and is lonely as a result—due to the mental and physical consequences. Basically, chronically lonely people tend to get sicker and die faster because of the long-term effects of maintaining a stress response (discussed in more detail below).9 Loneliness can also prompt a negatively-filtered view of the world: Lonely people are more likely to interpret social events negatively, remember negative interactions, and behave in ways that alienate them from others (e.g., alcohol abuse, physical inactivity, and so on).10
Expectation’s Role in Measurement
What about the other piece of the equation, expectation? How we arrive at our expectations is a complicated matter, but a simple rule of thumb is that expectations are informed by available models.11 For example, I once moved from New York City to a remote part of Vermont. After a few weeks of adjustment, I noticed that I was far less lonely in Vermont despite having far fewer friends and going out much less often. Why? Because on the rare night I would stay home in the Big Apple, I could still hear merry-makers out my window. (In Vermont, all I heard were owls and those foxes that sound like someone being murdered in the woods.) So, the available model in NYC was one of constant sociality, which is why I felt lonely whenever I stayed in.12
Another ever-present model these days is social media. Everyone is aware that curated accounts establish unrealistic models (no pun intended), yet few seem able to resist the comparison. And given that it’s social media, one would expect that dimension to be among the most curated, and therefore least realistic. As for social media’s effect on loneliness and mental health in general, the data is a bit uneven. Some evidence suggests that simply posting, with no subsequent interaction, can lead to increased feelings of connection.13 Overall, though, it is hard to imagine how social media would not exacerbate feelings of loneliness by pressing on some of the key levers of bias and presenting unrealistic models for comparison.14
Sometimes we can be a part of something, but also apart from it. Have you ever been among thousands of screaming fans at a concert, and felt alone in that sea of humanity? Have you ever been an odd-numbered wheel, and felt your singlehood more poignantly than ever? In these scenarios, we feel disconnected in comparison to the connection around us, which we sense but do not feel. This is how loneliness can occur in the presence of others, when we might otherwise least expect it. The feeling deepens, and lingers, if we cannot think of an equivalent level of connection elsewhere in our life; it is easier to be a third wheel if we have our own wheel, somewhere.
A final model, one that Rob mentions in The Thief of Joy, is our prior self. Thus, one of the more jarring forms of loneliness occurs in the presence of those we used to be closer to than we currently are. This partially explains why loneliness can be strongest among friends and family; they are the people with whom we have the longest histories, and subsequently the most points of comparison. The other part of the answer is that we expect the most from them, and can therefore be the most disappointed.
Why Measure Social Connection at All?
It is clear that loneliness is measuring social connection in a way that is susceptible to many inaccuracies, such as perceptual bias and available models for comparison. It is also clear that if the discrepancy between expected connection and perceived connection is great, loneliness will occur and motivate a person to seek more connection. Before diving into that, though, why would evolution design a system—multiple systems, in fact—to monitor our social standing in the first place?
Because humans are “thoroughly social.”15 Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overstate how important the group has been to individual survival over the course of our history, a fact that many social sciences do not fully, completely, and exhaustively realize—clinical psychology first and foremost, perhaps, with its broad emphasis on prioritizing the individual. Even the process of our own evolution has been shaped at both the individual and group level—by the “selfish gene” on the one hand, and by intergroup differences on the other. Genes don’t survive if a rival group, cooperating better than your own, comes by and wipes everyone out.
The truth of the matter is that individuals need all sorts of things from the group to survive and thrive. We can think of social connection, in particular, as a measure of future support, whether in fending off a lion, raising a child, or settling an interpersonal dispute. Basically, social support is alliance. Loneliness would be a poor measure of alliance if it merely counted bodies in close proximity. Instead, a feeling of connection with someone should accurately predict how much they will help you in the future.
If all this sounds rather dry and unromantic, consider that there is a democratization to social support that, personally, I find quite wonderful. People tend to value their friends to the extent that their friends value them back,16 meaning there are some natural checks and balances against the rich getting richer, socially speaking, since each person can only have one best friend. I also find comfort in the thought that maybe what my best friend likes about me most is that the feeling is mutual. On phone calls, we actually tend to one-up each other in terms of how much we value the other—a ritual that might be explained by the above (or collaborative narcissism).
Conclusion
Loneliness is one of many emotions that monitor our social standing—along with envy, shame, self-esteem, and others—and despite the idiotic notion floating around that “you shouldn’t care what others think of you,”17 the fact of the matter is that if someone were to ignore this set of emotions, they’d be in prison by the end of the year—or worse. The danger of social isolation was even more prevalent for ancient humans, which is why we still desperately care about what other people think of us, even if we affect something to the contrary.
We can understand the intensity of our response to loneliness, in fact, as an indication of just how dangerous having little or no social support was for our ancestors, many of whom, upon finding themselves with less connection than they expected, wouldn’t have had the luxury of dying of a heart attack 30 years down the road. The problem was much more imminent. Thus, we can add loneliness to the long list of stress responses that, in being designed for a different world, cause long-term health consequences now.18
This discussion of loneliness also provides a straightforward answer for why therapy works regardless of therapeutic method. If a client comes in feeling lonely, or otherwise isolated from their social group, then the simple act of establishing a connection with a therapist could be enough to alleviate their stress response. Not only would this make the client feel better, but it could also allow them to transition from loneliness’ negative cycle to a more positive one, in which the client gradually begins interpreting social interactions positively, having optimism for future interactions, and regulating emotions. All this could be accomplished without the therapist solving any of the problems the client brings to the table, other than, of course, the one of not having enough social support.
Finally, something has been left unexplained: If humans are inescapably social, then how do we account for the fact that some people enjoy, even prefer, solitude? I’ll try to answer this in Part II.
References
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., & Thisted, R. A. (2010). Perceived social isolation makes me sad: 5-year cross-lagged analyses of loneliness and depressive symptomatology in the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study. Psychology and aging, 25(2), 453.
Deri, S., Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2017). Home alone: Why people believe others’ social lives are richer than their own. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(6), 858.
DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2009). The alliance hypothesis for human friendship. PloS one, 4(6), e5802.
DeScioli, P., Kurzban, R., Koch, E. N., & Liben-Nowell, D. (2011). Best friends: Alliances, friend ranking, and the MySpace social network. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 6-8.
Deters, F. G., & Mehl, M. R. (2013). Does posting Facebook status updates increase or decrease loneliness? An online social networking experiment. Social psychological and personality science, 4(5), 579-586.
Dunning, D. (2011). The Dunning–Kruger effect: On being ignorant of one's own ignorance. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 44, pp. 247-296). Academic Press.
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). Loneliness matters: A theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Annals of behavioral medicine, 40(2), 218-227.
Lee, Y. S., & Waite, L. J. (2005). Husbands’ and wives’ time spent on housework: A comparison of measures. Journal of marriage and family, 67(2), 328-336.
Merrill, R. M., & Richardson, J. S. (2009). Peer reviewed: validity of self-reported height, weight, and body mass index: findings from the National Health and nutrition examination survey, 2001-2006. Preventing chronic disease, 6(4).
Technically, there is a difference between expectation and aspiration, but teasing these apart isn’t necessary here. We can simply say that expectation is a more modest form of aspiration, and that if one has less connection than they expect, they will feel worse than if they have less connection than they want.
Technically, it should be Loneliness is a function of (~), instead of equals (=), because we cannot measure any of the quantities involved. Heck, we don’t even know the units. But I won’t tell if you don’t.
Only in very close relationships do we observe people being nonsocial, like when we watch TV in our PJs with a friend. The more of these experiences we have, perhaps the better our sense of how social the average person is.
I don’t have cites for these claims, and am therefore rely.ing on my own perception of things, which, as we know, is riddled with bias. If anyone has cites (for or against), please let me know.
Deri, S., Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2017)
Dunning, D. (2011).
Merrill, R. M., & Richardson, J. S. (2009).
Lee, Y. S., & Waite, L. J. (2005).
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010). “A growing body of longitudinal research indicates that loneliness predicts increased morbidity and mortality.”
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010).
When people want to know what is normal, proper, or desirable, they usually just look around them. And this works for a lot of stuff. How many arms should I have? Should I keep my eyes open while walking? Should I run in the direction everyone else is running? Generally, what the majority is doing is a good heuristic, centuries of philosophy aside. See, e.g., work by Boyd and colleagues on “conformist transmission.” Henrich, J., & Boyd, R. (1998). The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between-group differences. Evolution and human behavior, 19(4), 215-241.
Importantly, this was an inaccurate model, given that I was hearing a different group of merry-makers each time, most of whom probably spent other nights in. But that’s not how it seemed.
Deters, F. G., & Mehl, M. R. (2013).
Jean Twenge and Jon Haidt have pretty much cornered the market on the effects of social media on mental health, especially that of teenagers.
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2010).
DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2009); DeScioli, P., Kurzban, R., Koch, E. N., & Liben-Nowell, D. (2011).
Sometimes even peddled by therapists, who should know better.
I’d recommend Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky for a great exploration of what ancient stress responses are doing to modern humans.