ArticleBrain sciences2021
Opposing Association of Situational and Chronic Loneliness with Interpersonal Distance.
Article in Brain sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Enhancing social functioning using multi-user, immersive virtual reality.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Automatic speech analysis can predict loneliness.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cardiac Synchrony During Collaborative Drawing: A Longitudinal Comparison of Same Generation and Intergenerational Dyads.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- How do consumers perceive virtual agents with behavioral realism? The role of loneliness and trust.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Association between loneliness and hippocampal responses to dynamic social stimuli in psychotic disorders.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Validating the Chinese social network index: network size centrality, loneliness as a bridge, and social motivations.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Loneliness in schizophrenia: Just loneliness.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- The alone team: How an alone mindset affects group processes.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2025Article
- Temporal patterns of loneliness and their associations with mental health outcomes: Observations from a longitudinal study.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- How does loneliness affect satisfaction with life? What is the role of the perception of God in this interaction?Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Regulation of interpersonal distance in virtual reality: Implications for socio-emotional functioning in late adulthood.PloS one · 2025Article
- Effects of Situational Loneliness on Mental Health and Sleep Health Outcomes among White Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2025Article
- Revisiting the cognitive and behavioral aspects of loneliness: Insights from different measurement approaches.PloS one · 2025Article
- The role of meaning in life in the association between loneliness and depression: a mediation study among older adults from 26 European countries.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2024Article
- Childhood maltreatment is linked to larger preferred interpersonal distances towards friends and strangers across the globe.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Loneliness and brain rhythmic activity in resting state: an exploratory report.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Perception of interpersonal distance and social distancing before and during COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Away from the herd: loneliness as a dysfunction of social alignment.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Loneliness corresponds with neural representations and language use that deviate from shared cultural perceptions.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Social Withdrawal, Loneliness, and Health in Schizophrenia: Psychological and Neural Mechanisms.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Loneliness is a prevalent condition with adverse effects on physical and mental health. Evolutionary theories suggest it evolved to drive people to reconnect. However, chronic loneliness may result in a negative social bias and self-preservation behaviors, paradoxically driving individuals away from social interactions. Lonely people often feel they are not close to anyone; however, little is known about their interpersonal distance preferences. During COVID-19, many experienced situational loneliness related to actual social isolation. Therefore, there was a unique opportunity to examine both chronic and situational (COVID-19-related) loneliness. In the present study, 479 participants completed an online task that experimentally assessed interpersonal distance preferences in four conditions-passively being approached by a friend or a stranger, and actively approaching a friend or a stranger. Results show that high chronic loneliness was related to a greater preferred distance across conditions. Intriguingly, by contrast, high COVID-19-related loneliness was related to a smaller preferred distance across conditions. These findings provide further support for the evolutionary theory of loneliness: situational loneliness indeed seems to drive people towards reconnection, while chronic loneliness seems to drive people away from it. Implications for the amelioration of chronic loneliness are discussed based on these findings.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.