Loneliness, World Beliefs, and Daily Social Interaction

Introduction: Lonely people often crave social connection, but their social interactions fall short of fulfilling their needs. Although loneliness has been associated with negative views of the world, it is not clear whether these world beliefs contribute to the unfulfilling social interaction patterns that tend to sustain loneliness. The current research examined the role of world beliefs in explaining the effects of loneliness on daily frequency and quality of interaction, and the implications for sustained loneliness over time. Methods: Both members of romantic couples (N = 472) completed a measure of world beliefs and daily assessments of social interactions with weak and strong ties over two weeks (daily N = 6,411). Results: Loneliness was associated with perceiving the world as generally worse, dangerous, and dull, and indirectly predicted reduced quality and quantity of social interaction via negative and dull world beliefs. In turn, the quality of interactions with strong ties predicted maintained loneliness a year later. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the negative subjective worlds inhabited by lonely people may partially explain their interaction patterns, which may forecast their continued loneliness.