The Life Factors that Make Lonely People Lonely

You may assume, logically at first glance, that not having contact to people is the most important factor in loneliness. And obviously this does have a large impact — but there are a number of paradoxes because we know some people can be alone and feel very good with themselves — this is also known as the wisdom-loneliness paradox.

In this paradox we know that people who rate highly on wisdom seem to be pretty immune to the negative sides of loneliness and can be alone and happy. There are a number of reasons that we know influence this, one is a sense of meaning and purpose in life but also of being connected to the greater good. Another intriguing factor is that of our gut microbiome which correlates to loneliness, or not — yes you read that correctly. Read more here.

We also know from brain scanning that lonely people also feel more threatened. So, it is more complicated than just having contact to people — which is obviously still very important.

And this is where this newly released research out of the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria led by Sophie Buthmuller, is very interesting. What Guthmuller did is analyse data from individuals (from SHARE — a cross-national Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement) to see which factors correlated highest with loneliness in those over 50. And the results may surprise you — to a degree:

• The largest influencing factor that related with loneliness in older age accounting for 43.32% of the variance was ill health. This could be for many reasons but obviously it means people are unable to take control of their lives and get out and about
• The next highest factor was social support, and this would include having social support networks such as family and friends or social services. I have reported previously on the benefits of friendships for your brain, cognitive functioning, and general wellbeing here.

There are however two other factors that contribute to risk of loneliness, and these are

• Personality which may be no surprise. Loneliness was highest in those high on neuroticism, and lowest on those who rated higher on conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness.
• The other factor that contributes to loneliness is childhood circumstances this is, maybe, surprising and could also be interrelated with the above-mentioned personality factors. Those people that had the best relationships as children i.e. comfortable friendships were at lower risk of loneliness.

So, the research confirms some of the obvious that social support is important but also that ill-health is a key contributing factor and that there are other risk factors which could allow earlier identification of those at risk and mitigation actions.

My personality at least should offer me some protection and my modest wisdom!