Loneliness could be contagious!

The study also suggests that, unlike men, women are more likely to become “infected” with loneliness.

Researchers from the University of Chicago, the University of California-San Diego and Harvard examined records of a large-scale-study involving nearly 5000 people.

In order to find out a pattern of subjects’ loneliness, researchers made graphs to record their friendship histories and information about the reports of their loneliness.

Loneliness found to be infectious
Based on the data, it was noted that prior to cutting ties with their closed ones, lonely people infect their remaining friends with similar feelings. Resulting this, those people also cut off ties with their respective social circle.

In the study, the next-door neighbors who experienced loneliness were also found to prompt sad feelings among their close friends who were their neighbors.

The team also noted that lonesome people seem to develop a natural tendency to be less trustful of the other people, which makes it all the more difficult for them to form newer friendships.

Another fallout of this tendency is that such people keep on losing the remaining ties with their closed ones.

Since lonely people have less interactions with others, this in turn prompts others to do the same, and thereby become lonely.

"We detected an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved to the edge of the social network when they become lonely," said University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo, a leading U.S. expert on loneliness.

"On the periphery people have fewer friends, yet their loneliness leads them to losing the few ties they have left. These reinforcing effects mean that our social fabric can fray at the edges, like a yarn that comes loose at the end of a crocheted sweater.”

Revival of social group: Solution
Loneliness is home to many mental and physical diseases. Therefore, loneliness needs to be identified, and all those who experience sad feelings need to be reconnected with their social group, researchers concluded.

"Because loneliness is associated with a variety of mental and physical diseases that can shorten life it is important for people to recognize loneliness and help those people connect with their social group before the lonely individuals move to the edges."

The study appears in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.