South Korea, Japan, and China are struggling with loneliness in their respective societies. As prolonged feelings of loneliness can have large and lasting consequences for one’s health, it should...Show moreSouth Korea, Japan, and China are struggling with loneliness in their respective societies. As prolonged feelings of loneliness can have large and lasting consequences for one’s health, it should be avoided at all costs. People found solace in watching livestreams; the streams are very personal and it feels like the hosts are in the room with you. In South Korea, mukbangs became popular as more and more people are living in single-person households and therefore more frequently eat alone as well. VTubers made it possible for Japanese people to interact with anime characters, giving life to large communities as a growing number of people are looking at technology to fulfill their social needs. Nǚ zhǔ bō streams provided young Chinese men that are unable to find real girlfriends a virtual girlfriend experience. Livestreaming is a breeding ground for parasocial relationships, as the relationship between streamer and viewer feels very intimate and real. Ideally would viewers find comfort in the company not of the streamers, but in the community as a whole, in which actual meaningful relationships can be formed.Show less
Up to a third of children experience childhood maltreatment (CM), which is abuse and/or neglect by a caregiver. CM is a robust risk factor for depression, and adolescent depressive symptoms seem to...Show moreUp to a third of children experience childhood maltreatment (CM), which is abuse and/or neglect by a caregiver. CM is a robust risk factor for depression, and adolescent depressive symptoms seem to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study therefore investigated whether childhood maltreatment was associated with a further increase in adolescent depression in response to the pandemic, and what role self-esteem and loneliness play in this association. We examined depressive symptoms before (up to March 2020) and during the pandemic (April 2020), in a sample of 79 adolescents (16-26 years old) of which 67.1% were female and non were non-binary (REACT study; Smith et al., 2021). We found that CM was predictive of depression during the pandemic, but not of depression before the pandemic, nor of an increase in depressive symptoms. Furthermore, we found that loneliness was a significant mediator of the relationship between CM and depression during the pandemic, whereas self-esteem was found to be an independent predictor of depression increase. Based on these findings depression prevention/intervention programs are advised to identify CM survivors and to target loneliness and low self-esteem.Show less
Autistic children tend to experience difficulties in interaction with peers, which makes them vulnerable to experience feelings of loneliness. This study investigates quantitative and qualitative...Show moreAutistic children tend to experience difficulties in interaction with peers, which makes them vulnerable to experience feelings of loneliness. This study investigates quantitative and qualitative variables related to friendship in relation to self-evaluated feelings of loneliness in both autistic and non-autistic children. Questionnaires and sensor data were used to examine the differences in quantity of friendships (network size, time spent in interaction, number of interaction partners and network centrality) and quality of friendship (reciprocal nominations and acceptance) between autistic and non-autistic children in special education as well as how the variables related to self-evaluated feelings of loneliness. No differences were found between feelings of loneliness in autistic and non-autistic children. Autistic children had fewer interaction partners and spent less time in interaction, but did not have a less central position in their networks or a smaller network size. Besides, autistic children might not have had a lower quality of friendships, as they did not have fewer reciprocal nominations than non-autistic children. Concerning the relationship between feelings of loneliness and quantitative variables, only a significant relationship was found between feelings of loneliness and network size for autistic children. No relationship was found for feelings of loneliness and quantitative variables for non-autistic children. No relationships were found between feelings of loneliness and qualitative variables for both autistic and non-autistic children. Further research should involve examining the differences in feelings of loneliness between autistic children in special and mainstream education.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Background: Loneliness is widely experienced by the population and is related to several negative health effects. These effects may be partly due to enhanced activation of the stress response,...Show moreBackground: Loneliness is widely experienced by the population and is related to several negative health effects. These effects may be partly due to enhanced activation of the stress response, despite the lack of frequently occurring stressors in loneliness that are commonly believed to explain stress responses. However, according to a new stress theory (GUTS), the stress response is a default response, which is only turned off when safety cues are present. In loneliness the primary source of social safety is missing, which might explain an increased stress response, which can be measured by looking at the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Purpose: Testing, using meta-analysis, the positive effect of loneliness on the CAR and whether this is moderated by age or duration of loneliness. Methods: Eligible studies were sought using a keyword profile in Web of Science. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to study the relationship between loneliness and the CAR, meta-regression analyses were performed to study the effect of possible moderators. Results: Six studies (n = 1,396) were included in the meta-analysis. No significant positive relationship between loneliness and the CAR was found. Also, no moderating effect of age on the relationship was found. The moderating effect of duration of loneliness could not be studied due to missing information. The results suggested a negative relationship between loneliness and the CAR. Conclusion: Although the hypotheses were not confirmed, several important implications for future research are given, such as the need to incorporate duration of loneliness and conformation to general guidelines in assessing the CAR. Further research is needed to draw definite conclusions about the relation between loneliness and the CAR and about what it means for the GUTS.Show less
