Loneliness as “contagious”?

I want to comment on the recent study by John Cacioppo and colleagues about loneliness being “contagious.” This study, which can be viewed at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34209727/ns/health-behavior/ makes the case that loneliness can spread: if you’re lonely, you’re more likely to withdraw, and thereby increase feelings of loneliness in those around you.

This study—for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me—has gotten a lot of press. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since it means that loneliness is making the news, and talk of loneliness in big public forums like MSNBC is welcome.

But you need to understand that there are countless studies of loneliness out there that haven’t been covered this way. There’s something about this study in particular that’s fascinating people, and I think it has to do with the word “contagious.”

John Cacioppo has stressed that he’s using the word “contagious” to mean that the state can spread; he doesn’t mean it’s linked to germs, or infection, or disease. But I think the word is a dangerous one. We already see lonely people as having something wrong with them, as being less attractive, less intelligent, and needier than the nonlonely.

And I think this is why the “contagious” study is spreading (pardon the pun) through the news: because it ties in with stereotypes, and buttresses stigma. It lets us think of the lonely as sick, as dangerous—and these are old and tired ways of thinking.