Lonely People’s Brains Work Differently

Lonely People’s Brains Work Differently

(Link): Lonely People’s Brains Work Differently

Excerpt:

• One of the saddest things about loneliness is that it leads to what psychologists call a “negative spiral.” People who feel isolated come to dread bad social experiences and they lose faith that it’s possible to enjoy good company. The usual result, as Melissa Dahl recently noted, is more loneliness. This hardly seems adaptive, but experts say it’s because we’ve evolved to enter a self-preservation mode when we’re alone. Without the backup of friends and family, our brains become alert to threat, especially the potential danger posed by strangers.
• Until now, much of the evidence to support this account has come from behavioral studies. For example, when shown a video depicting a social scene, lonely people spend more time than others looking at signs of social threat, such as a person being ignored by their friends or one person turning their back on another. Unpublished work also shows that lonely people’s attention seems to be grabbed more quickly by words that pertain to social threat, such as rejected or unwanted.

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Related:

(Link): Why Lonely People Stay Lonely 

(Link):  Why Do We Feel So Lonely (via USA Today)

(Link):   Lonely People’s Brains Work Differently

(Link):   Sick of Being Single / Sick and Tired of Being Single Alone Unmarried Lonely

(Link):   The Biggest Threat To Middle-Aged Men: Loneliness

(Link):   When You Are Lonely In Your Marriage by K. Parsons

(Link):  Asking Too Much Of Marriage – Married People are Lonely

(Link):   Married Woman Says She’s Lonely Because Her Husband Works All The Time

(Link):   When You’re Married and Lonely by J. Slattery

(Link):   Settling Vs Being Lonely (letter to advice columnist)

(Link):   Why is it So Hard For Women to Make New Friends? by G. Kovanis

(Link):   Women Who Dump Women Friends As Soon As They Get A Spouse or Boyfriend (Letter to Advice Columnist)

(Link): Dear Abby: Teen Gets a Boyfriend, Snubs Her Old Pal 

(Link):  Do Married Couples Slight Their Family Members as Well as Their Friends? / “Greedy Marriages”