Loneliness is a universal experience that has inspired countless songs. It’s a feeling that resonates with many people, as it is a common part of being human. However, what may deeply touch one lonely person may mean nothing to another who feels isolated and misunderstood.
As social creatures, human beings often feel left out and experience loneliness. To gain insight into the minds of lonely individuals, a team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles conducted noninvasive brain scans. The results were surprising. The scans revealed that lonely people not only interpret the world differently from their non-lonely peers, but they also see it differently from each other.
“Our results suggest that lonely people process the world idiosyncratically, which may contribute to the reduced sense of being understood that often accompanies loneliness,” explained psychologist Elisa Baek, the lead researcher of the study published in Psychological Science.
Feeling Misunderstood
Prior studies have hinted at Baek’s findings. Feeling understood by others activates specific regions of the brain associated with social connections and reward processing. Conversely, those who feel misunderstood show increased activity in regions linked to negative emotions.
For example, the ventral striatum contains neurons that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that boosts pleasure. Feeling connected can have positive effects through the release of dopamine. On the other hand, the anterior insular cortex is highly involved in social interactions and emotions, including loneliness.
These previous studies led Baek to explore the “Anna Karenina principle,” which suggests that happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. To investigate this idea, Baek and her team conducted functional MRI scans on 66 UCLA college freshmen. The participants watched video clips associated with social interactions, and their brain activity was measured.
Advertisement
Before the scans, the students had filled out a survey about their social lives. It’s important to note that feeling disconnected and misunderstood can still occur even if someone has many friends and a busy calendar. Loneliness is subjective and can affect survey results. Participants who scored above a certain level were categorized as “lonely,” while those who scored below were categorized as “non-lonely.”
The fMRI scans were analyzed in pairs to identify similarities and differences in brain activity between lonely and non-lonely individuals, as well as between different lonely individuals and non-lonely individuals.
The results confirmed Tolstoy’s observation. The brain activity of non-lonely individuals in response to the videos was remarkably similar. In contrast, lonely individuals not only had significantly different brain activity compared to non-lonely individuals, but their brain activity also varied greatly from each other. This suggests that each lonely person perceives the world in a distinct way.
Baek suggests that having a unique perspective can intensify feelings of loneliness, as it reduces the likelihood of feeling understood. However, it remains unclear whether this distinct processing of the world is a cause or effect of loneliness, or perhaps both. Loneliness is not solely dependent on social activity, as some lonely individuals reported having an active social life. Even those with many friends and social engagements exhibited neural characteristics that differed from non-lonely individuals.
“Lonely individuals process the world in a way that is dissimilar to their peers and to each other,” Baek stated. “Future research can further explore this possibility and examine the specific aspects of lonely individuals’ interpretations that are particularly idiosyncratic.”
So, if you’re feeling lonely, take comfort in knowing that there is likely someone out there who feels just as isolated, albeit in a completely different way.
Psychological Science, 2023. DOI: 10.1177/095679762211453
A groundbreaking study has just revealed that lonely individuals perceive the world differently. The study, conducted by a team of international scientists from England, Switzerland and Germany, and published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, used a combination of brain scanning and questionnaires to study brain activation in lonely people.
The scientists recruited a group of lonely and non-lonely individuals to take part in the study. They used brain scanning technology to measure the activity of each volunteer while they were shown images of people and social situations. The researchers then asked the volunteers to rate how much the images made them feel connected or disconnected.
Their findings showed that lonely individuals displayed less activity in areas of the brain responsible for evaluating important social cues. This suggests that, because of their lonelier outlook on the world, they had difficulty recognizing when social situations had positive or negative implications.
The study also found that lonely people were more likely to perceive neutral social situations as negative. This difference in perception could explain why people who are in a social context may be less likely to reach out to others as they may be operating under a pessimistic assumption as to what will happen when they do.
In addition to the brain scans, the team of researchers also presented the participants with a questionnaire to measure feelings of social connection. The results showed that lonely individuals reported lower levels of social connectedness than non-lonely individuals.
These findings suggest that the way in which people who struggle with loneliness view the world have an observable and measurable impact on their brain activity. The results of this study could have implications for improving strategies to help those who are feeling lonely.
Future studies are needed to better understand the relationship between the brain and loneliness. Nevertheless, this study provides an important insight into how loneliness and our perception of the world around us are linked.
