Loneliness: Clinical Import and Interventions

By Stephanie Cacioppo, A. Grippo, Sarah London, Luc Goossens, John T. Cacioppo. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2015

1,162 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In 1978, when the Task Panel report to the U.S. President’s Commission on Mental Health emphasized the importance of improving health care and easing the pain of those suffering from emotional distress syndromes including loneliness, few anticipated that this issue would still need to be addressed 40 years later. In 2011, a meta-analysis on the efficacy of treatments to reduce loneliness identified a need for well-controlled randomized clinical trials focusing on the rehabilitation of maladaptive social cognition. We review assessments of loneliness and build on this meta-analysis to discuss the efficacy of various treatments for loneliness. With the advances made over the past 5 years in the identification of the psychobiological and pharmaceutical mechanisms associated with loneliness and maladaptive social cognition, there is increasing evidence for the potential efficacy of integrated interventions that combine (social) cognitive behavioral therapy with short-term adjunctive pharmacological treatments.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/15fc27e830831533a861d9cf41dc95373eda008d

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Citations in the corpus

Advancing Social Connection as a Public Health Priority in the United States (2017, background): “Clear experimental evidence, particularly in animal models, shows that social connections are causally associated with health-relevant biological pathways at multiple levels from gene expression to neural functioning (Cacioppo et al., 2015).”
Why Social Relationships Are Important for Physical Health: A Systems Approach to Understanding and Modifying Risk and Protection (2018, background): “Although there are a variety of approaches, one review determined that interventions that address maladaptive thinking via cognitive behavioral therapy were associated with the greatest success (Cacioppo et al. 2015).”
Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life (2013, neutral): “Many studies have shown that being socially connected to others is positively related to happiness, and indeed being alone in the world or being lonely is generally a strong detriment to happiness (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008; Myers, 1992).”
Belonging: a review of conceptual issues, an integrative framework, and directions for future research (2021, background): “A lack of belonging, in turn, has been linked to an increased risk for mental and physical health problems (Cacioppo et al., 2015; Hari, 2019).”
Loneliness Across the Life Span (2015, positive): “This evidence is more in line with the evolutionary model of loneliness (see J. T. Cacioppo et al., 2015) and the finding that people who experience prolonged loneliness tend to form more negative social impressions of others.”
Loneliness and the Big Five Personality Traits: A Meta–Analysis (2020, neutral): “Cacioppo, S., Grippo, A. J., London, S., Goossens, L., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2015).”
Music May Reduce Loneliness and Act as Social Surrogate for a Friend: Evidence from an Experimental Listening Study (2020, methodology): “Thus, the participants’ loneliness that is conceptualized as perceived social isolation (Cacioppo et al., 2015) was measured with reliable questionnaires (DiTommaso et al., 2004; Russell, 1996).”
Loneliness and social isolation interventions for older adults: a scoping review of reviews (2020, background): “[45], but these review authors labelled this category as ‘models of loneliness interventions’ rather than ‘goal’, and included interventions aimed to: 1) provide social support, 2) increase opportunities for social interaction and 3) teach lonely people to master social skills.”
Gender Differences in Loneliness across the Lifespan: A Meta–Analysis (2016, background): “According to the evolutionary theory of loneliness (Cacioppo, Cacioppo et al., 2015), the social pain of loneliness serves as a warning system that (1) signals to people that something is missing in their social relationships and (2) motivates them to reconnect to significant others.”