Doctoral Dissertation Research: When Social Isolation Leads to Loneliness

在这个项目中，研究了在孤独时加强或抑制孤独感的情境因素，并研究了个体差异（例如，内倾），修改这一进程的标识。 尽管孤独对健康有显著影响，但其原因仍有很多未知之处。具体来说，很少有人知道社交孤立何时会（或不会）引起孤独感。例如，在一天中，人们通常会在社交孤立中进进出出--也许一个人会和他或她的伴侣一起吃早餐，然后独自开车去上班。从现有的研究中，我们还不清楚我们是否应该期望这个人在这种孤独的驾驶中比他或她在吃饭时感到更孤独。 识别孤独的情境和个人风险因素可能会带来广泛的好处。该项目有可能通过指出人们如何最大限度地提高其社会行为的益处，以及通过加强行为干预来减少孤独感，从而促进国民健康和福利。该项目将从人口统计学上多样化的在线工作者群体中抽样收集约700名参与者的数据。每个参与者将使用基于网络的平台完成一项调查和多个时间日记。在时间日记中，参与者将围绕“活动”（例如，睡觉、开车上班、吃午饭），并且他们将记录关于这些时间块的其它信息（例如，和他们在一起的人以及他们经历的情感）。这个时间日记将捕捉社交孤立的时刻，在这种孤立期间的孤独感，以及预期会加剧或抑制孤独感的上下文细节。这些背景细节的重要性将通过适当的统计分析来确定。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In this project, the situational factors that intensify or inhibit feelings of loneliness while alone are investigated and individual differences (e.g., introversion) that modify this process are identified. Despite the significant effect loneliness can have on health, there is still much that is unknown about its causes. Specifically, little is known about when social isolation will (and will not) evoke feelings of loneliness. For example, throughout the day, people typically move in and out of social isolation--perhaps an individual eats breakfast with his or her partner and then drives to work, alone. It is unclear from existing research if we should expect this person to feel any lonelier during this solitary drive than he or she felt while eating. Identifying the situational and individual risk-factors for loneliness may have wide-ranging benefits. This project has the potential to advance national health and welfare by indicating how people can maximize the benefit of their social behavior, as well as by strengthening behavioral interventions to reduce feelings of loneliness.For this project, data will be collected from approximately 700 participants sampled from a demographically diverse group of online workers. Each participant will complete a survey and multiple time diaries using a web-based platform. In the time diaries, participants will report about their daily experiences in chunks of time oriented around "activities" (e.g., sleeping, driving to work, eating lunch) and they will record other information regarding these blocks of time (e.g., who they were with and the emotions they experienced). This time diary will capture moments of social isolation, feelings of loneliness during such isolation, and the contextual details expected to intensify or inhibit feelings of loneliness. The importance of these contextual details will be identified via appropriate statistical analyses.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.