2025/02/13 by Micaela Rodriguez, Kathryn E. Schertz, Ethan Kross · 2 voices · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction #Health disparities and outcomes #Aging and Gerontology Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-56764-3
Loneliness is a widespread issue routinely targeted by the media and public health campaigns. We propose that these efforts, though well-intentioned, may exacerbate this problem by negatively influencing a potential driver of loneliness: people’s beliefs about being alone. Supporting this thesis, we show that contemporary U.S. news articles are 10 times more likely to describe being alone as harmful than beneficial (Study 1, N = 144 articles) and that exposure to such articles causally impacts people’s beliefs about being alone (Study 2, N = 456). Further, a 2-week experience-sampling study (Study 3, N = 161) demonstrates that people with negative beliefs about being alone experience a steep increase in loneliness after spending time alone in daily life, whereas those with positive beliefs feel less lonely after spending time alone. Finally, multi-national studies demonstrate the generalizability of these results across nine countries spanning six continents (Studies 4 and 5, N = 2930). Together, these findings reveal the critical role of beliefs about being alone in shaping loneliness. Loneliness is a widespread problem that the media and public health campaigns frequently address. Here, the authors show that negative media portrayals of being alone may inadvertently make matters worse by shaping people’s beliefs, which in turn exacerbate loneliness.