It is all in their mind: A review on information processing bias in lonely individuals

doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2017.10.003

Clinical Psychology Review

Volume 58, December 2017, Pages 97-114

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.10.003 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Loneliness is assumed to be associated with a cognitive bias towards threats.
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A wide range of studies on lonely individuals confirms this cognitive bias.
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This bias occurs in all information processing stages.
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The cognitive bias is specific to the social context.
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More research into long-term effects, using multi-informant reports, is needed.

Abstract

Loneliness is a distressing emotional state that motivates individuals to renew and maintain social contact. It has been suggested that lonely individuals suffer from a cognitive bias towards social threatening stimuli. However, current models of loneliness remain vague on how this cognitive bias is expressed in lonely individuals. The current review provides an up-to-date overview of studies examining loneliness in relation to various aspects of cognitive functioning. These studies are interpreted in light of the Social Information Processing (SIP) model. A wide range of studies indicate that lonely individuals have a negative cognitive bias in all stages of SIP. More specifically, lonely individuals have an increased attention for social threatening stimuli, hold negative and hostile intent attributions, expect rejection, evaluate themselves and others negatively, endorse less promotion- and more prevention-oriented goals, and have a low self-efficacy. This negative cognitive bias seems specific to the social context. Avenues for future research and implications for clinical practice are discussed.

Introduction

Loneliness is a distressing emotional state that people experience when they notice a discrepancy in the desired and perceived quality or quantity of their social relations (Perlman & Peplau, 1981). Virtually all people experience loneliness at some point in their life (see Heinrich and Gullone, 2006, Qualter et al., 2015). For most people, this experience of loneliness is transient and tied to specific life events, but for a small group of people loneliness is chronic and not tied to specific events (Vanhalst et al., 2015). In order to explain these different experiences of loneliness, J. T. Cacioppo and Hawkley (2009) proposed a comprehensive model on loneliness, which was recently refined by Qualter et al. (2015). The current review examines the empirical evidence for specific aspects of this model. More specifically, we will focus on the cognitive aspects and interpret them using the social information processing (SIP) model (Crick & Dodge, 1994).

Section snippets

Evolutionary perspective on loneliness

Social relationships with others are assumed to have an evolutionary adaptive value, as they increase the likelihood of reproduction and survival through sharing and collaborating (J. T. Cacioppo, Cacioppo, & Boomsma, 2014). Because of the evolutionary benefits of social relationship, humans have an innate need to belong, which is a strong desire to establish and maintain stable social relations with others (Baumeister and Leary, 1995, Gere and MacDonald, 2010). Loneliness is considered as an

Negative cognitive bias in loneliness

The loneliness model proposed by J. T. Cacioppo and Hawkley (2009), and recently revised by Qualter et al. (2015) suggests that loneliness motivates all people to resolve the negative feelings that result from unmet needs to belong. In order to do so, loneliness causes initial social withdrawal, which would allow effective observation and evaluation of immediate social situations through physical distancing (Qualter et al., 2015). It also activates a series of cognitive processes (J. T.

Encoding of cues

In the encoding stage of the SIP model, stimuli are attended to and identified (i.e., decoded; Crick & Dodge, 1994). It is assumed that lonely individuals use their attentional resources differently than non-lonely individuals (see Fig. 1). More specifically, lonely individuals are expected to have an implicit hypervigilance towards social threats (J. T. Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Hypervigilance towards social threats is characterized by an initial broad attention, which is used to constantly

Interpretation of cues

The interpretational stage concerns all processes that determine the individual's understanding of what is happening. In order to make sense of current situations, individuals use cognitive working models that contain information from past events to efficiently process incoming information. However, these working models contain simplified rules resulting in reasoning and judgement errors (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Due to past experiences of subjective social isolation, lonely individuals use

Goal clarification

The goal clarification stage is used to formulate and clarify goals, which are “focused arousal states that function as orientations toward producing particular outcomes” (Crick & Dodge, 1994, p. 87). It is assumed that lonely individuals are motivated to prevent social isolation from occurring (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). The literature on motivation orientations has distinguished goals focused on positive outcomes (i.e., approach goals) and negative outcomes (i.e., avoidance goals). Approach

Response access and decision

In the response access and decision stage, the individual generates a number of possible actions in response to social stimuli by accessing behavioral responses from memory. The previously discussed interpretation of stimuli, the individual's goals, and available responses in the individual's repertoire in combination with the expected effectiveness of the response (i.e., self-efficacy) determine the eventual response decision (Crick & Dodge, 1994). On the one hand, the modest success of social

Behavioral enactment

All previously discussed cognitive processes will eventually result in some sort of behavior. The behavioral enactment stage of the SIP model concerns the actual performance of the selected response (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Lonely individuals are expected to show behaviors that elicit negative responses from interaction partners, thereby confirming their initial negative interpretation bias (J. T. Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). The confirmation of the negative interpretation bias, in turn, may

Memory

Memory is the central component of the social information processing model, as it is accessed during every cognitive processing phase. Despite its importance, memory has seldom been examined in relation to loneliness. Two studies indicated that loneliness was related to remembering both positive and negative social events better (Gardner et al., 2005, Harris, 2014). This finding is in line with the loneliness model which states that loneliness is related to an increased focus on social

Integrative account and implications

The loneliness model suggests that lonely individuals suffer from a negative cognitive bias, which is assumed to influence attention, interpretation, and memory of social stimuli (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009, Qualter et al., 2015). In the current review, we used the Social Information Processing (SIP) model to interpret the findings of various studies examining these claims. In line with the predictions of J. T. Cacioppo and Hawkley (2009), the current review suggests that lonely individuals

Conclusion

Loneliness is an important indicator of threatened belongingness needs and motivates the individual to renew and maintain social contact. Current models on loneliness (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009, Qualter et al., 2015) suggests that lonely individuals suffer from biased social information processing. The current review showed that loneliness is indeed consistently associated with a negative cognitive bias in all phases of information processing. More specifically, lonely individuals seem to have

Role of funding sources

Funding for this study was provided by the ‘BOF’ (Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds, KU Leuven) Grant GOA/12/009 (‘STRATEGIES’ project). BOF had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Contributors

Author AS conducted literature searches and provided summaries of previous research studies. Author AS wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Sofie Danneel, Dr. Marlies Maes, Dr. Stefanie Nelemans, and Dr. Janne Vanhalst for their thoughtful feedback and remarks.

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ReviewIt is all in their mind: A review on information processing bias in lonely individuals

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Evolutionary perspective on loneliness

Negative cognitive bias in loneliness

Encoding of cues

Interpretation of cues

Goal clarification

Response access and decision

Behavioral enactment

Memory

Integrative account and implications

Conclusion

Role of funding sources

Contributors

Conflict of interest

Acknowledgements

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Cortex

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Journal of Research in Personality

Journal of Adolescence

Personality and Individual Differences

Clinical Psychology Review

Frontiers in Psychology

Current Biology

Journal of Research in Personality

Journal of Research in Personality

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Journal of Adolescence

Journal of Adolescence

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Journal of Adolescence

Loneliness in children

Child Development

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation

Psychological Bulletin

Loneliness, attachment, and the perception and use of social support in university students

Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science

Coping with loneliness in childhood

The European Journal of Developmental Psychology

Adolescents' experiences of victimization: The role of attribution style and generalized trust

Journal of School Violence

Social skills, family conflict, and loneliness in families

Communication Reports

Loneliness and implicit attention to social threat: A high-performance electrical neuroimaging study

Cognitive Neuroscience

Evolutionary mechanisms for loneliness

Cognition and Emotion

Loneliness: Clinical import and interventions

Perspectives on Psychological Science

Neural and behavioral bases of age differences in perceptions of trust

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Cognitive mediators of the effect of peer victimization on loneliness

British Journal of Educational Psychology

Alone is a crowd: Social motivations, social withdrawal, and socioemotional functioning in later childhood

Developmental Psychology

A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment

Psychological Bulletin

A social-information-processing approach to children's loneliness

Measurement and validity characteristics of the short version of the social and emotional loneliness scale for adults

Educational and Psychological Measurement

Prosocial development

Approach and avoidance motivation in the social domain

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Anxiety: The cognitive perspective

Associations of parental and peer rejection with preadolescents' loneliness: Emotional sensitivities as mediators

Journal of Relationships Research

Approach and avoidance social motives and goals

Journal of Personality

On the outside looking in: Loneliness and social monitoring

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

An update of the empirical case for the need to belong

Journal of Individual Psychology

Direct and indirect effects of attachment orientation on relationship quality and loneliness in married couples

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Review
It is all in their mind: A review on information processing bias in lonely individuals