According new study loneliness can be contagious, just like a common cold or other infection. This means that people who suffer from it tend to spread it to others who, in turn, are pushed to the periphery of the social network where they too start infecting other people. The implications of such a thing include marginalization, in the context of society naturally turning its back on these people, Eureka Alert informs, based on the findings of the study.
“We detected an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved to the edge of the social network when they become lonely,” University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo, member of the study team, says of the findings, as cited by the aforementioned publication. “On the periphery people have fewer friends, yet their loneliness leads them to losing the few ties they have left,” Cacioppo adds.
“The data showed that lonely people ‘infected’ the people around them with loneliness, and those people moved to the edges of social circles. The team found that the next-door neighbors in the survey who experienced an increase of one day of loneliness a week prompted an increase in loneliness among their neighbors who were their close friends. The loneliness spread as the neighbors spent less time together. Previous work suggested that women rely on emotional support more than men do, and in this study women were more likely than men to report ‘catching’ loneliness from others. People’s chances of becoming lonely were more likely to be caused by changes in friendship networks than changes in family networks,” Eureka Alert says of the study.
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