The Loneliness Cure: Six Strategies for Finding Real Connections in Your Life by Kory Floyd

Author:Kory Floyd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2015-04-03T04:30:00+00:00

Disconnection Leads to Cognitive Problems

Even for those who don’t suffer from a mental disease or disorder, social disconnection corresponds to some difficulties with cognitive processes. For example, it impairs people’s ability to think intelligently. In a series of studies, psychologists primed some participants to feel socially excluded by telling them that their answers on a personality questionnaire made them statistically likely to “end up being alone” in life. Compared to participants who didn’t receive the same prediction, those told to expect social exclusion attempted fewer questions on an IQ test and answered a higher percentage of questions incorrectly. They also performed worse on the reading comprehension and analytical portions of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), a standardized test required for admission to most graduate schools in the United States.

The people who were told they would end up alone in life were no less intelligent than the others in the study, yet they performed more poorly on virtually every cognitive task they were presented with. One possible explanation for this difference is that loneliness impairs a person’s ability to concentrate. Especially when presented with novel experiences, lonely people work less hard to stay focused and on track, according to research. As a consequence, they may be less likely to pay attention, particularly when confronted with exam questions they haven’t encountered before.

Being told to expect social exclusion doesn’t just impair people’s ability to concentrate. It also leads them to give up more easily when faced with a challenging task. In one study, people were asked to trace a complex geometrical puzzle on paper without retracing any of their lines and without lifting their pencil from the paper. Once again, some participants had been told beforehand that their personality characteristics made them likely to end up alone in life. That group gave up on the puzzle-tracing activity substantially sooner than anyone else in the study. In other words, anticipating social isolation—even years in the future—reduced their motivation to persevere with a complex cognitive task.

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