海角大神

If you feel alone, you鈥檙e not alone.

Chronic loneliness has become so commonplace that some US public health experts say it is reaching crisis levels. Breaking free from loneliness can be difficult,听a study suggests,听because the very desperation for human contact that it creates can actually encourage people to focus more on themselves,听thus leading to further isolation.

The听,听published Tuesday in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, explains how this feedback loop is consistent with a model that could explain the origins of this complex emotion.

But the research also points to ways in which this cycle can be broken, and at the same time reveals the redeeming value of loneliness as an evolutionary adaptation for social animals.

鈥淟oneliness contributes to our humanity,鈥澨齭ays John Cacioppo,听a social neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study. 鈥淚t makes us not want to live a life alone.鈥�

Even loneliness鈥檚 tendency to make people retreat inward and become self-centered may have served an evolutionary purpose, as hunter-gatherers who suddenly found themselves alone in the wild would have benefited from a heightened sense of self-preservation.

This emotion also sustains our species鈥檚 sociality, Professor Cacioppo says. It pushes people who find themselves isolated back into the social fold. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 its evolutionary power.鈥�

When loneliness served a purpose

Over 11 years, Cacioppo听and his colleagues conducted annual physical exams and gathered听psychological questionnaires from 229 subjects born between 1935 and 1952. They found that those who reported lacking companionship in a given year were more likely to score higher on a self-centeredness scale the following year. And those who scored higher on self-centeredness one year would report greater feelings of loneliness the following year.

鈥淚 think what鈥檚 so interesting about the Cacioppo study is that it catches the way in which loneliness is both adaptive and maladaptive and can split in either direction,鈥� says Richard Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who, along with his wife, fellow psychiatrist Jacqueline Olds, authored the 2009 book, 鈥�.鈥�

In 2014, Cacioppo, his wife, University of Chicago psychologist Stephanie Cacioppo, and Dutch psychologist Dorret Boomsma听. Under their model, loneliness 鈥撎齦ike many of our social emotions 鈥� evolved when our ancient ancestors lived in small groups whose members relied on each other for survival. When an individual separated from that group, he or she would have to work harder to stay alive.

Loneliness, under this model, is an expression of that self-preservation instinct. For instance,听research led by Stephanie Cacioppo has shown that loneliness听听a heightened response to social threats.

鈥淭o the extent that loneliness, like pain, triggers us to do something to set it right, it is very adaptive,鈥� says Dr. Schwartz. 鈥淏ut there is this other quality about听loneliness听that seems to become circular and lead to more and more withdrawal, and that is extremely maladaptive.鈥�

Where do they all come from?

As ancient as the emotion of loneliness may be, it is widely seen as arising from the dislocations of modernity. Indeed, the word 鈥渓onely鈥澨齠irst appeared in print at the dawn of Europe鈥檚 scientific revolution, in William Shakespeare鈥檚听鈥淐oriolanus.鈥�

Research has shown that chronic loneliness is rising in the United States, driven by a host of social and cultural changes. The听, a longitudinal project sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, suggests that more than a quarter of Americans are lonely, a percentage that has increased by three to seven points over the past two decades. In听2015, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy听

Schwartz and Dr. Olds place some of the blame on American culture鈥檚 enthusiasm for rugged individualism. 鈥淧eople sort of step back, falling in with an old American tradition of听kind听of admiring self-sufficiency too much,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd in their stepping back, they start to essentially notice that the rest of the world is going on without them. And sometimes they feel left out and sort of shafted, even though they did it to themselves.鈥�

In Britain, the听听estimates that there are 1.1 million people over the age of 65 who are chronically lonely. 鈥淟ong working hours and a culture of constant 鈥榖usyness鈥� means people do not prioritize reaching out to lonely older people,鈥� says Laura Alcock-Ferguson, the campaign鈥檚 executive director.

Later this year, her organization plans to launch a major campaign calling for people to commit to acts of kindness for this 鈥淢issing Million.鈥�

鈥淚t will be challenging 鈥� but we believe that loneliness is everyone鈥檚 business,鈥� says Ms. Alcock-Ferguson. 鈥淟oneliness is not inevitable.鈥�

Previous analysis by Cacioppo and his colleagues suggests that targeting social cognition 鈥撎齮hat is, retraining the way lonely people think about others 鈥撎�听at combating loneliness than targeting shyness, building social skills, or increasing opportunities for social contact.

Simply putting lonely people in the same room as other people isn鈥檛 terribly effective, says Cacioppo. Even enhancing social support for lonely people has limitations. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about mutuality,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 person isn鈥檛 actually satisfied if they鈥檙e just getting.鈥�

The most effective known interventions are ones that shift lonely people鈥檚 attention and concern away from themselves and toward mutual welfare.

鈥淭he advice I usually give is听volunteer听for a group that you enjoy being a part of anyway,鈥� says Cacioppo. 鈥淏ecause when you start handing food to others, let鈥檚 say on a soup line, all of a sudden you find out others are grateful. There are actually decent, nice people in the world, and the way we find them is we treat them decently.鈥�