Solitude as Opportunity for Rest in Everyday Life of Adults across the Lifespan

一项针对世界各地成年人的跨文化调查表明，独处对日常休息的好处——这是现代社会继续忽视的心理健康的重要工具。我在博士培训期间的研究表明，仅仅15分钟的独处就能帮助我们摆脱激动的情绪，并提供安静反思的机会。然而，尽管有充分的证据表明孤独的好处，我们似乎无法摆脱孤独是消极的和具有挑战性的想法。把享受独处归因于个人喜好是很直观的。这反映在我们经常听到的信息中，即内向的人更喜欢独处。现代社会也继续强化悲伤孤独者的突出形象。这种对孤独的狭隘看法产生了两个问题。首先，它在我们的日常孤独经历中描绘了负面的一面。其次，它阻止了我们考虑环境和社会因素，这些因素可能会阻碍我们追求独处，并因为它的监管好处而拥抱独处。对成年人的观察表明，对独处的渴望以及从中受益的能力取决于生活环境。对于刚成年的人来说，在从父母照顾中独立出来的过渡期间，独处的时间会出现明显的挣扎，比如那些刚上大学一年级的人。对于这一群体来说，新的社会环境给他们带来了社交的压力和对错过的恐惧，使独处的时间变得更加孤立和难以忍受。因此，初显期的成年人不太想独处，尽管他们发现独处有利于提高工作效率和调节情绪。另一方面，随着人们年龄的增长，承担了更多的责任，他们独处的机会越来越少，独处变成了一种渴望的奢侈品。对于有年幼孩子的职业母亲来说尤其如此，因为女性在全职工作的同时仍然不成比例地承担着更多的照顾责任。许多母亲报告说，她们找不到自己的时间或享受个人爱好和活动。这种没有足够时间留给自己的挣扎在另一个过渡阶段发生了巨大的变化，当成年人离开工作岗位，有更多的时间属于自己。退休前几年的人经常报告说，不知道如何处理时间的增加。对于这一群体来说，孤独的挣扎表现为缺乏有意义地在孤独中挣扎的策略，这可能会增加无聊和孤独的风险。生活转型中的变化为调查态度和规范如何影响成年人一生中应对孤独的能力创造了独特的背景。本研究将招募三个过渡阶段的参与者：过渡到大学，过渡到母亲，过渡到退休。确定我们孤独经历的障碍将阐明为什么有些人不喜欢独处或无法从中获得监管利益的问题，并将为有针对性的干预提供信息。将采用混合的定性和定量方法进行三项研究。研究1将对来自三个过渡群体的成年人进行访谈，以了解人们通常如何看待孤独，以及他们的社会环境或生活环境是否允许他们有意地参与孤独。研究2将追踪人们在日常生活中独处的经历，以确定有助于改善情绪和幸福感的活动。最后，我将设计并测试一种干预措施，通过解决态度和规范，并建议让不同阶段的成年人更好地享受独处的活动，来提高独处时间的质量。研究结果将引起心理健康专家、大学辅导员以及与父母和老年人一起工作的组织的兴趣，以促进积极利用独处时间来调节情绪和心理健康。

A cross-cultural survey of adults around the world demonstrates the benefit of solitude to daily rest - an essential tool to mental health that modern society continues to ignore. My research during Ph.D. training showed that only 15 minutes of solitude can help us rid of rousing emotions and offer opportunities for quiet reflection. Yet, despite the well-documented benefits of solitude, we cannot seem to shake off the idea that solitude is negative and challenging. It is intuitive to attribute enjoyment of solitude to a matter of individual preference. This is reflected in the messages that we hear often that introverts enjoy solitude better. Modern society also continues to reinforce salient image of a sad loner. This narrow perspective on solitude creates two problems. First, it paints a negative light around our daily experiences of solitude. Second, it prevents us from considering environmental and social factors that might create barriers to pursue solitude and embrace this time for its regulatory benefits. Observations across adulthood suggest that the desire for solitude and the ability to benefit from it depend on life situations. For emerging adults, salient struggles around time spent alone emerge during transition into being independent from parental care, such as for those in their first year at university. For this group, new social environment creates pressure to socialise and fear of missing out, making time spent alone more isolating and intolerable. As a result, emerging adults have less desire for solitude despite that they find it beneficial for productivity and emotion regulation. On the other hand, as people grow older and acquire more responsibilities, they have less opportunities for time alone and solitude becomes a craved luxury. This is particularly true for working mothers with young children as women still disproportionally take on more care responsibilities while working full time. Many mothers report not being able to find time for themselves or to enjoy personal hobbies and activities. This struggle of not having enough time for oneself changes drastically at another transition phase when adults leave the workforce and have more time on their own. Not knowing what to do with increase in time alone is frequently reported by those in the earlier years of retirement. For this group, struggles of solitude manifest in the lack of strategies to struggle empty time in solitude meaningfully, risking increase in boredom and loneliness. Changes during life transitions create unique contexts for an investigation of how attitudes and norms shape ability to cope with solitude across an adult's lifespan. This proposed research will recruit participants at these three transition phases: transition to university, transition to motherhood, and transition to retirement. Identifying barriers around our solitary experiences will shed light on the question of why some people do not like to be alone or are unable to gain regulatory benefits from it, and will inform targeted interventions. Three studies will be conducted using a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Study 1 will use interviews with adults from three transition groups to understand how people often view solitude and whether their social environments or life circumstances allow them to engage meaningfully with solitude. Study 2 will track people's experiences with solitude in their daily life to identify activities that contribute to improved moods and well-being. Finally in , I will design and test an intervention to improve quality of time alone through tackling attitudes and norms and suggesting activities that allow adults at different stages of life enjoy their solitude better. The research findings will be of interest to mental health professionals, university counsellors, and organisations that work with parents and older adults, to foster positive uses of time alone for emotion regulation and psychological well-being.