ArticleNature communications2025
How people think about being alone shapes their experience of loneliness.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 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
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- The social environment and cognitive aging over the life course: laying out critical concepts and research gaps.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Social connection and cognitive health: A review of concepts, measures, and research priorities.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Personality moderates associations between personal time and parental well-being.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- "Scientific or democratic?" Bridging the implementation gap of citizen science through the study of social-symbolic objects.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Personal agency and social connection are associated with loneliness over time.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Beliefs about god buffer against the health risks of loneliness and social isolation in five major religions and 22 countries.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effects of physical activity on academic burnout among rural left-behind children in China: the chain-mediated roles of loneliness and general self-efficacy.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Loneliness is a widespread issue routinely targeted by the media and public health campaigns. We propose that these efforts, though well-intentioned, may exacerbate this problem by negatively influencing a potential driver of loneliness: people's beliefs about being alone. Supporting this thesis, we show that contemporary U.S. news articles are 10 times more likely to describe being alone as harmful than beneficial (Study 1, N = 144 articles) and that exposure to such articles causally impacts people's beliefs about being alone (Study 2, N = 456). Further, a 2-week experience-sampling study (Study 3, N = 161) demonstrates that people with negative beliefs about being alone experience a steep increase in loneliness after spending time alone in daily life, whereas those with positive beliefs feel less lonely after spending time alone. Finally, multi-national studies demonstrate the generalizability of these results across nine countries spanning six continents (Studies 4 and 5, N = 2930). Together, these findings reveal the critical role of beliefs about being alone in shaping loneliness.
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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.