Open Collections

Grocott, Bronwen

University of British Columbia

Loneliness is common and, while generally transient, persists in up to 22% of the population. The rising prevalence and adverse impacts of chronic loneliness underline the need to understand its underlying mechanisms. Evolutionary models implicate negative interpretation biases towards social information in chronic loneliness, but not in transient or state loneliness. Yet little research has compared these constructs, investigated whether biases are specific to social stimuli, or examined the roles of anxiety or depression in these associations. The present study examined negative interpretation biases towards socially relevant and non-social stimuli in chronic and state loneliness and tested whether anxiety and depression moderate these associations. These aims were explored in 563 undergraduate students who participated in a two-hour online session. First, participants completed an interpretation bias task where they rated socially relevant and non-social ambiguous images as positive or negative. Interpretation bias was calculated as percent negative ratings. Next, participants underwent a state loneliness induction and completed the interpretation bias task a second time. Finally, participants self-reported chronic loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Linear mixed models were used to test hypotheses that chronic, but not state, loneliness would predict more negative ratings of social stimuli, with associations moderated by anxiety or depressive symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, only state loneliness was associated with more negative ratings of social stimuli, with greater anxiety symptoms predicting more negative ratings of non-social stimuli. Implications of these findings for present theoretical models of loneliness are discussed.

Text

2023-08-15

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85486

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/