Lonely – Sources
Large publishers tend to shy away from long bibliographies, which was why I included only a “selected sources” section at the end of Lonely. If you’re interested in more detailed information, here is a more comprehensive list of the sources I consulted.
p. 29 – “Loneliness is related to depression, but it’s not the same thing”: For work that’s been done to separate loneliness and depression, see David G. Weeks et. al., “Relation Between Loneliness and Depression: A Structural Equation Analysis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39:6 (1980)1238-1244, and John T. Cacioppo, Louise C. Hawkley, et. al., “Loneliness Within a Nomological Net: An Evolutionary Perspective,” Journal of Research in Personality, 40 (2006) 1054-1085. For a less technical discussion, see Robert Weiss, Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1974).
p. 36 – “Studies suggest that close to 10 percent”: There are various studies about the prevalence of long-term loneliness. The Canadian psychologist Vello Sermat, working with hundreds of statements, interviews, and questionnaires concerning loneliness, estimated that between 10 – 30 % of his sample group experienced pervasive feelings of loneliness; see: Vello Sermat, “Some Situational and Personality Correlates of Loneliness,” The Anatomy of Loneliness, Joseph Hartog, J. Ralph Audy, and Yehudi A. Cohen, eds. (New York: International Universities Press, 1980). In a study conducted by the New York-based researchers Carin Rubenstein and Phillip Shaver in the late 1970s, 16% of people responding to a newspaper advertisement described themselves as being “lonely most or all of the time.” See: Rubenstien and Shaver, “Loneliness in Two Northeastern Cities,” The Anatomy of Loneliness. The 10 percent figure I site is set out by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health in Letitia Anne Peplau and Stephen E. Goldston Preventing the Harmful Consequences of Severe and Persistent Loneliness (Washington: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1983).
p. 39 – “lonely people have more trouble recalling things“: Robert A. Bell, “Conversational Involvement and Loneliness,” Communication Monographs, 52 (1985) 218-235.
p. 75 – “What researchers at UCLA did in the late 1970s“: A description of the birth of the UCLA Loneliness Scale can be found at: Dan Russell, Letitia Anne Peplau, and Mary Lund Ferguson, “Developing a Measure of Loneliness,” Journal of Personality Assessment, 42:3 (1978) 472-480. Efforts leading to the revision and refinement of the Scale are set out at: Dan Russell, Letitia Peplau, and Carolyn Cutrona, “The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and Discriminant Validity Evidence,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39:3 (1980) 472-480. The most recent version of the Scale is at “UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3),” Journal of Personality Assessment,66:1 (1996): 20-40.
p. 75 – “high loneliness scores held steady“: For a summary of the correlations between loneliness scores at two month, seven month, and year long intervals, see Phillip R. Shaver and Kelly A. Brennan, “Measures of Depression and Loneliness,” Measures of Personality and Social Psychological Attitudes (Academic Press, 1991) 195-282.
p. 84 – “In 2003, Cacioppo decided to equip“: Louise C. Hawkley, Mary H. Burleson, Gary G. Bernston, and John T. Cacioppo, “Loneliness in Everyday Life: Cardiovascular Activity, Psychosocial Context, and Health Behaviours,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85:1 (2003) 105-120.
p. 89 – “Loneliness…is there“: Robert Weiss, “Issues in the Study of Loneliness,” in Letitia Peplau and Daniel Perlman, eds. Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research, and Therapy (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1982).
p. 90 – “proximity promoting mechanism“: This phrase is from Robert Weiss, in Loneliness, ibid. The idea of loneliness within an evolutionary framework has been developed more fully by John T. Cacioppo and Louise Hawkley, in “Loneliness Within a Nomological Net,” ibid.
p. 90-93 – The restlessness, anxiety, and inability to concentrate that I discuss are detailed by Weiss in Loneliness, especially in his chapters on emotional and social isolation. For the notion of the lonely as distractible, see Daniel Perlman and Letitia Anne Peplau, “Towards a Social Psychology of Loneliness,” in S. Duck and R. Gilmour, eds. Personal Relationships in Disorder (London: Academic Press, 1981) pp. 31-56, and John T. Cacioppo, John M. Ernst, et. al, “Lonely traits and concomitant physiological processes: the MacArthur social neuroscience studies,” International Journal of Psychophysiology, 35 (2000) p. 143-154. The idea that loneliness might correlate with measures of anxiety has been noted by many researchers; see, for example: Ami Rokach, “Loneliness and Psychotherapy,” Psychology: A Journal of Human Behaviour, 35:3 (1998) 2-18
p. 93 – “broken sleep“: In the UK, sleep patterns among the lonely have been studied by Andrew Steptoe; see: A. Steptoe, Natalie Owen, et. al., “Loneliness and Neuroendocrine, Cardiovascular, and Inflammatory Stress Responses in Middle-Aged Men and Women,” Psychoneuroendocrinology, 29 (2004) 593-611. In the US, sleep patterns have been studied by John Cacioppo, who was the researcher who wired lonely students up to sleep monitors; see: John T. Cacioppo, Louise C. Hawkley, et. al., “Loneliness and Health: Potential Mechanisms,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 64 (2002) 407-417.
p. 95 – “headaches, digestive problems, chest pains, and heart disease“: Rubenstien and Shaver, “Loneliness in Two Northeastern Cities,” The Anatomy of Loneliness.
p. 95 – “lonely and non-lonely adults in Glasgow“: Anne Ellaway, Stuart Wood, and Sally MacIntyre, “Someone to talk to? The role of loneliness as a factor in the frequency of GP consultations,” British Journal of General Practise, 49 (1999) 363-367.
p. 96 – “doctors admitted providing less complete and less attentive care“: John T. Cacioppo, et. at., “The Anatomy of Loneliness,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12:3 (2003) 71-74.
p. 96 – “a Swedish study emerged“: J. Herlitz, I. Wiklund, et. al., “The Feeling of Loneliness Prior to Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Might be a Predictor of Short- and Long-Term Postoperative Mortality,” European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, 16 (1998) 120-125.
p. 97 – “a Dutch team based at Vrije University“: Brenda Penninx, Theo van Tilburg, et. al., “Effects of Social Support and Personal Coping Resources on Mortality in Older Age: The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam,” American Journal of Epidemiology, 146:6 (1997) 510-519.
