The present paper aims to analyze – both from a quantitative and a qualitative perspective – the impact of social relationships over health and longevity in contemporary society. Today human ...interaction is more and more facile thanks to the new technology development. However, despite this facility, many Western countries face the “loneliness epidemic”. Individual-centered cultures promote the atomizing of society to the detriment of strong and quality social relations. Insufficient social relationships and so much the more loneliness and social isolation - according to the psycho-social studies of Holt-Lunstad a.o. - negatively affect health state and significantly increase the risk of premature death. The impact of this risk is so serious that it surpasses the risks posed by most health indicators (food, exercise, etc.). In other words, the absence of social relationships and loneliness are enemies of health and longevity. The present paper aims to comparatively analyze the types of social relationships which one can find in the so-called “blue zones” (where it has been noticed that people have the highest longevity on Earth) in comparison with the Western ones. We intend to identify the differences between ,, the territories of longevity ‘' and Western world concerning the lifestyle, the frequency and quality of social relationships. What type of social relationships encourages a positive attitude towards life, gives life meaning, reduced risk-taking, sustain health and longevity.? In the conditions of recording - in Romania after 1989 - of a lack of frequency and quality of social relations with the consequences, the present paper wants to draw an alarm signal both for the governors and for the governors.
The aims of the study were to examine the predictive value of social and emotional loneliness for all-cause mortality in the oldest-old who do and do not live alone and to test whether these varied ...by functional status and personality.
Participants were 413 older adults from the Berlin Aging Study (M SD = 84.53 8.61 years of age) who either lived alone (n = 253) or did not live alone (n = 160). Significance values for hazard ratios are reported having adjusted for age, sex, education, income, marital status, depressive illness, and both social and emotional loneliness.
Although social loneliness was not associated with mortality in those living alone, emotional loneliness was; with each 1 SD increase in emotional loneliness, there was an 18.6% increased risk of all-cause mortality in the fully adjusted model (HR = 1.186, p = .029). No associations emerged for social or emotional loneliness among those not living alone. Examinations of potential moderators revealed that with each 1 SD increase in functional status, the risk associated with emotional loneliness for all-cause mortality increased by 17.9% (hazard ratiointeraction = 1.179, p = .005) in those living alone. No interaction between personality traits with loneliness emerged.
Emotional loneliness is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality in older adults who live alone. Functional status was identified as one potential pathway accounting for the adverse consequences of loneliness. Emotional loneliness that can arise out of the loss or absence of a close emotional attachment figure seems to be the toxic component of loneliness.
Loneliness: Clinical Import and Interventions Cacioppo, Stephanie; Grippo, Angela J.; London, Sarah ...
Perspectives on psychological science,
03/2015, Volume:
10, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In 1978, when the Task Panel report to the U.S. President's Commission on Mental Health emphasized the importance of improving health care and easing the pain of those suffering from emotional ...distress syndromes including loneliness, few anticipated that this issue would still need to be addressed 40 years later. In 2011, a meta-analysis on the efficacy of treatments to reduce loneliness identified a need for well-controlled randomized clinical trials focusing on the rehabilitation of maladaptive social cognition. We review assessments of loneliness and build on this meta-analysis to discuss the efficacy of various treatments for loneliness. With the advances made over the past 5 years in the identification of the psychobiological and pharmaceutical mechanisms associated with loneliness and maladaptive social cognition, there is increasing evidence for the potential efficacy of integrated interventions that combine (social) cognitive behavioral therapy with short-term adjunctive pharmacological treatments.
Loneliness Across the Life Span Qualter, Pamela; Vanhalst, Janne; Harris, Rebecca ...
Perspectives on psychological science,
03/2015, Volume:
10, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Most people have experienced loneliness and have been able to overcome it to reconnect with other people. In the current review, we provide a life-span perspective on one component of the ...evolutionary theory of loneliness—a component we refer to as the reaffiliation motive (RAM). The RAM represents the motivation to reconnect with others that is triggered by perceived social isolation. Loneliness is often a transient experience because the RAM leads to reconnection, but sometimes this motivation can fail, leading to prolonged loneliness. We review evidence of how aspects of the RAM change across development and how these aspects can fail for different reasons across the life span. We conclude with a discussion of age-appropriate interventions that may help to alleviate prolonged loneliness.
Actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality. In this meta-analytic review, our objective is to establish the overall and relative magnitude of ...social isolation and loneliness and to examine possible moderators. We conducted a literature search of studies (January 1980 to February 2014) using MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstracts, and Google Scholar. The included studies provided quantitative data on mortality as affected by loneliness, social isolation, or living alone. Across studies in which several possible confounds were statistically controlled for, the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively. We found no differences between measures of objective and subjective social isolation. Results remain consistent across gender, length of follow-up, and world region, but initial health status has an influence on the findings. Results also differ across participant age, with social deficits being more predictive of death in samples with an average age younger than 65 years. Overall, the influence of both objective and subjective social isolation on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.
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