![]()
Part 1
Inter and intrapersonal loneliness
![]()
Chapter 1
Loneliness
An overview
Philip S. Morrison and Rebekah Smith
Introduction
Humans are inherently social beings who possess a fundamental need to belong, and when they fail to satisfy this need, loneliness occurs. If sustained, loneliness can have severe consequences for mental and physical health as well as undermine community functioning and social inclusion (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006) p. 711. As Dahlberg has reminded us,
To be involuntarily lonely and not belonging to anyone or anything is to lack participation in the worldâŚ. Loneliness can disappear with a sense of belonging.
(Dahlberg, 2007, p. 195)
There is, therefore, a strong subjective dimension to loneliness. It is not just being alone, but feeling alone, emotionally. More bluntly, loneliness is being alone and not liking it (Rogers, 1961).
The intense interest in loneliness in the early decades of the 21st century appears to stem from an uncomfortable feeling that its incidence might be increasing â from being a relatively rare condition in the past to being more pervasive and widespread â concentrated among the young and the old, the less educated and those on lower incomes. However, the origins of the current wave of interest in loneliness are probably several: the fragmentation of the family, the growing number living alone, a rising proportion of elderly, much higher levels of female labour force participation and the proliferation of the Internet both at work and at home.
While the popular press continues to advance the thesis of an increasing lonely society, the scientific community is in far less agreement, partly due to the difficulty in measuring a stigmatised condition which only individuals can report but also because the longitudinal studies required to monitor trends are sparse.1
Outline
As is the case for many concepts in social science, loneliness is difficult to define, and yet the definition is crucial in order to ascertain its presence, intensity and prevalence. Loneliness as an integral feature of the human condition was well recognised in antiquity; Greek mythology and drama often referred to feelings of being alone, and references to loneliness are replete throughout fiction, art and music (Dumm, 2010; Houellebecq, 2005; Mijuskovic, 2012).2 By comparison, as noted by Cacioppo and Hawkley (2000), scientific studies of loneliness only reach back to the 1930s.
There are several literature reviews across the social sciences (Andersson, 1998; Fromm-Reichmann, 1959; Heinrich & Gullone, 2006; McWhirter, 1990; Perlman & Peplau, 1998). While most books are quite recent, a number go back several generations (Beach & Bamford, 2013; Brennan & Auslander, 1979; Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2000; Cacioppo & Williams, 2009; Dykstra, 2006; Flood, 2005; Griffin, 2010; Hunt, 2013; Margalit, 2010; Moustakas, 1961; Packard, 1972; Peplau & Goldston, 1985; Peplau & Perlman, 1982; Richards, Spira, & Lynch, 2013; Rokach, 2013; Shulevitz, 2013; Stoddard, 1932; Weiss, Bowlby, & Parkes, 1973; Willcock, Bohm, & Curtis, 2012).
This overview raises a number of points we think are important in the contemporary debate. Some will emerge in other chapters in this volume, but we do not seek to privilege any particular view. Nor do we touch upon many of the quite separate points made by others. Rather, it is up to the reader to piece together a wide variety of perspectives on loneliness captured by these narratives. Our own overview simply reflects our own reading of the contemporary social science literature.
Following this introduction, section two introduces definitions of loneliness on which estimates of the prevalence of loneliness are based. Section three turns to the main conceptual frameworks. In section four, we address relationships with partners, family, friends and the community. These interactions condition the emergence of loneliness in both the traditional face-to-face form and electronically at a distance as discussed in section five. In section six, we return to the evidence behind the widespread view that loneliness is increasing. Our conclusion draws attention to the importance of understanding the behaviour of the group as an integral generator of loneliness in the individual. Space constraints prevent us from addressing the demographics of loneliness â how its incidence and intensity is distributed by age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic position. Such accounts are well covered in the cited literature, however.
Definitions and prevalence
As most writers point out, there are real challenges to defining and measuring loneliness. One of the reasons is that loneliness is a largely invisible condition which can only be exposed to others by oneself. However, admitting to being lonely is problematic because loneliness is stigmatised in many cultures. For this same reason, it often goes under-reported, remains clinically undiagnosed and is difficult to quantify (Baker, 2012). While some studies draw on third-party assessment and use observational techniques, they are rare. Many contemporary studies in the social sciences are now based on large omnibus surveys which require self-identification of one or more conditions, or circumstances that analysts then define as loneliness.3
Probably the most scientifically honest definition of loneliness is that it is, âan abstract summary of a cluster of specific feelings, thoughts, and behavioursâ (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006, p. 704). Since every personâs experience of loneliness is unique, these authors construct prototypes of common affective, cognitive and behavioural features (Horowitz, French, & Anderson, 1982). As noted earlier, people have to perceive themselves as lonely for it to be measured (West, Kellner, & Moore-West, 1986), but measurement is complicated by the multidimensional nature of loneliness, and to complicate matters, different social relationship deficiencies give rise to different forms of loneliness.
Measures of loneliness have focussed almost solely on the individual. However, the question of the prevalence of loneliness invites a wider view and the shifting of attention away from the lonely person to loneliness as a characteristic of the society. Here we can draw on the sociologist Ămile Durkheim, who noticed that suicide rates stayed the same across time and across groups, even though the individual members of those groups came and went. He concluded that whether people took their own lives depended on the kind of society they inhabited (Cacioppo, Fowler, & Christakis, 2009, p. 12). If the same observation can be made about loneliness, then we must not only examine the characteristics and behaviour of the lonely individual but also the behaviour of communities and the societies to which they try to connect.
The relevance of the wider social network in which individualsâ relationships are embedded has been demonstrated by tracing the evolution of lonely individuals within social networks. By drawing on the panel constructed as part of the Framingham Heart study, an interdisciplinary team of researchers has been able to show the way in which the lonely are gradually moved to the outer edges of social networks.
On the periphery, people have fewer friends ⌠but it also drives them to cut the few ties that they have left. But before they do, they tend to transmit the same feeling of loneliness to their remaining friendsâŚ. These reinforcing effects mean that our social fabric can fray at the edges.
(Cacioppo et al., 2009, p. 12)4
The evidence assembled by Cacioppo et al. is reminiscent of an observation made elsewhere by epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose, again in connection with suicide â namely, âThe essential determinants of the health of society are to be found in its mass characteristicsâ and âthe deviant minority can only be understood when seen in its societal contextâ. Effective prevention, therefore, ârequires changes which involve the population as a wholeâ (Rose, 1985, p. vii). In light of both these observations, it is worth identifying the dominant conceptual frameworks developed in social science to interpret loneliness.
Conceptual frameworks
Although the definition and scope of loneliness is problematic, there is now a reasonable consensus over the most useful conceptual frameworks, at least as they relate to the individual: social needs, interaction and cognitive discrepancy, as ordered clockwise in Figure 1.1. According to the social needs approach (Fromm-Reichmann, 1959), loneliness is caused by the absence of a needed relationship or set of relationships â attachment, social integration, nurturance, reassurance of worth, reliance alliance and guidance (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006; Weiss, 1974; Weiss, 1987). The roots lie in attachment theory, which argues that children form attachment bonds with their parents which are necessary for developing the capacities of warmth and closeness in social bonding later in life (Bowlby, 1969).5 Disruptions of early attachment are often associated with loneliness in young adulthood (Hecht & Baum, 1984).
Loneliness can also arise from an interplay of personal, cultural and situational factors (Weiss, 1982). According to this interactionalist perspective, âfactors such as shyness, introversion, social anxiety, and poor social skills interact with cultural and situation forces to hinder the establishment and maintenance of social relationshipsâ (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006, p. 708). The North American cultural emphasis on individual achievement and competitiveness, for example, magnifies social alienation, leading to an increased risk of loneliness (Rokach, Lackovic-Grgin, Penezie, & Soric, 2000). How one interprets both cultural and situational influences also depends on oneâs personal characteristics.
Figure 1.1 Conceptual frameworks in the study of loneliness
Cognitive discrepancy theory proposes that loneliness arises out of the discrepancy between the types of interpersonal relationships the person would like to have and those the person perceives he or she presently has (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Cognitive discrepancy draws on attribution theory in which people attempt to understand the behaviour of others by attributing feelings, beliefs and intentions to them. Peopleâs thoughts about themselves and others influence the likelihood of their forming satisfying relationships because those cognitions impact on how they interact as well as how they interpret interpersonal situations (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006, p. 708). In explaining the causes, lonely people are likely to blame themselves and view the social situations as being beyond their control, in a kind of learned helplessness. At the same time, lonely individuals often hold very high expectations of the interpersonal relationships they wish to engage in (Ibid, p. 708).
Relationships
In his book Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation, Robert Weiss (1973) argued that there are two types of loneliness: emotional and social. Those people who experience emotional loneliness are lacking close emotional relationships with one other person. His interviews with people who had lost a spouse, for example, suggested that this type of loneliness does not disappear, even if they are surrounded by other family and friends, and that they could only heal when a new relationship is formed. Social loneliness, on the other hand, is the lack of integration into a social network and can be felt even while in a loving relationship (Holt-Lunstad, Birmingham, & Jones, 2008; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010; Stack, 1998; Stancliffe et al., 2007). Weiss studied several couples who moved and found that the wives felt homesick despite having support from their husbands. In other words, people not only need to be in a stable loving relationship but also need to feel as though they are part of a wider social group.
In our own work in New Zealand, we confirm the relationship between loneliness and social connection documented elsewhere (Berscheid & Reis, 1998). The main emotional and social connections we identified are represented in Figure 1.2. We find that the most significant in terms of reducing emotional loneliness was the physical presence of a partner and face-to-face connection with immediate family. Social loneliness, on the other hand, is dependent on the degree of local access to friends and the wider community, including colleagues (Morrison & Smith, 2016; Smith, 2015).6
In terms of the relationships identified in Figure 1.2, there is an almost universal agreement that partnered individuals report lower levels of loneliness. For example, Wood (1978) found that loneliness rates were the highest for non-married individuals, especially single women, and Russell (1982) consistently found that loneliness scores were lower for those college students who were married or in a stable relationship. In Rubenstein and Shaverâs (1982) US study, 44% of participants highlighted that the reason why they felt lonely was because they were not in a relationship. Similarly, Perlman, Gerson and Spinner concluded that widowed men feel lonelier than married men, although there was no apparent difference between widowed and married women (Perlman, Gerson, & Spinner, 1978).
Figure 1.2 Domains of social connection
At the same time, partnership is not a panacea or a guarantee. Perlman, Gerson and Spinner measured loneliness for older Canadians and found that low marital satisfaction was associated with higher levels of loneliness. Similarly, Knoke, Burau and Roehrle (2010) found that emotional forms of loneliness were associated with marital dissatisfaction in a sample of 126 German couples. One relationship can condition or even preclude others; for example, the continued presence of a child is no substitute for lack of adult company, as many single mothers will testify.
On the periphery of Figure 1.2, we have added social relationships initiated or maintained in non-face-to-face mode. While non-face-to-face contact has existed for several generations, by telegram and then the telephone (Abler, 1977; Baym, Zhang, & Lin, 2004), it is the presence of the Internet which features in much of the current debate over loneliness.
The Internet
The contact necessary to prevent loneli...
