Abstract
People are often advised to engage in social contact to cope with the experience of loneliness and improve well-being. But are the moments of loneliness actually more bearable when spent in other people's company? In this research, we proposed and tested two conflicting theoretical accounts regarding the role of social contact: social contact is associated with a stronger (the amplifying account) or with a weaker (the buffering account) negative effect of loneliness on psychological well-being. Analyses of three datasets collected using ecological momentary assessments (Nindividuals = 3,035) revealed that the negative association between loneliness and well-being was stronger when participants were with others than alone, consistent with the amplifying account. Further, when participants experienced high levels of loneliness, being with others was associated with the same or with even a lower level of well-being than being alone. These findings suggest that simply spending time with others (vs. alone) is not associated with a reduced burden of loneliness and may even backfire.
© The Author(s) 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.