ArticlePsychological medicine2025
Cognitive processes and pathways between social isolation, loneliness, and paranoia: findings from a cross-lagged network analysis of population-based data.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Loneliness is linked to reduced calibration of confidence to uncertainty in social decision-making.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Loneliness Biases Social Engagement Decisions: Evidence From Value-Based Choice Models.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- An idiographic network approach to modeling daily loneliness and paranoia in psychosis: implications for personalized interventions.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Resilience and loneliness among older adults: an analysis using decision tree techniques.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Article
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Abstract
backgroundSocial disconnection, covering loneliness and social isolation, might be associated with the development of paranoid thoughts. Differential effects of loneliness and social isolation on the occurrence of paranoia have not been tested so far. Moreover, the role of cognitive mechanisms in these associations remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate differential associations of loneliness and social isolation with paranoid thoughts in the general population, considering the role of cognitive mechanisms.
methodsAltogether, 3,275 individuals, enrolled from the general population, completed baseline and follow-up assessments spanning 6-7 months. Cognitive biases (rejection sensitivity, attributional biases, and safety behaviors), social cognitive problems, and subjective cognitive problems were measured. The cross-lagged panel network (CLPN) analysis was performed, controlling for the effects of sociodemographic characteristics, psychiatric treatment, substance use, depressive, and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, mediation was tested for the CLPN paths linking social disconnection with paranoid ideation, with one intermediary node representing cognitive processes.
resultsLoneliness was the most important node in terms of predicting other network variables. It was bidirectionally associated with paranoid thoughts. Cognitive processes mediated these associations (partial mediation for ideas of reference and full mediation for ideas of persecution). In turn, social isolation predicted paranoid thoughts through the effects on loneliness. It was also predicted by paranoid thoughts through attributional biases.
conclusionsSocial disconnection might be bidirectionally associated with paranoid thoughts. However, loneliness is more closely tied to paranoid thoughts compared to social isolation. Cognitive processes might mediate the association of social disconnection with paranoid thoughts.
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