Lonely – Sources
p. 204: Carol Shields, Unless (London: Fourth Estate, 2003).
p. 204: “loneliness rates have tended to be the same“: Carin Rubenstein and Phillip Shaver, “The Experience of Loneliness,” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook, and Raymond F. Paloutzian and Craig W. Ellison, “Loneliness, Spiritual Well-Being, and the Quality of Life,” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook.
p. 204: “the city of Amsterdam and the rural area of Binnemaas“: Roelof Hortulanus, Anja Machielse, and Ludwien Meeuwesen, Social Isolation in Modern Society.
p. 205: “encouraging comments…about ours as a lonely age“: See, for example, the reference to us as “a profoundly lonely people living isolated lives,” in Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, March 2005.
p. 206: “peer reviewed articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association“: Gerald L. Lerman and Myrna Weissman, “Increasing Rates of Depression,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 261:15 (1989) 2229-2235, and The Cross-National Collaborative Group, “The Changing Rate of Major Depression,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 268: 21 (1992) 3098-3105.
p. 206: “the rate edging up slightly“: The British data is at “Not Alone? Isolation and Mental Distress,” www.mind.org.uk. The Australian data is at William Lauder, Siobhan Sharkey, and Kerry Mummery, “A Community Survey of Loneliness,” Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46:1 (2004) 88-94.
p. 207: “researchers at St. George’s Hospital“: Christina V. Victor, Sasha J. Scrambler, et. al., “Has Loneliness Amongst Older People Increased? An Investigation into Variations Between Cohorts,” Ageing & Society, 22 (2002) 585-597.
p. 208: “loneliness doesn’t increase with age“: The inverse relationship between age and loneliness was discovered very early on, as soon as the UCLA Scale began to be used. See, for example, Daniel Russell, “The Measurement of Loneliness,” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook. There have been many studies exploring the relationship between loneliness and age; for an overview of the findings, see ‘Age Trends in Loneliness,’ in Preventing the Harmful Consequences of Severe and Persistent Loneliness. For a discussion of why the elderly might test as less lonely than the young, see Robert Weiss, “Reflections on the Present State of Loneliness Research,” in Loneliness: Theory, Research, and Applications.
p. 210: “26 percent of his or her waking hours alone“: Reed Larson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Ronald Graef, “Time Alone in Daily Experience: Loneliness or Renewal?” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook.
p. 210: “34 percent of waking hours“: Unpublished data, referenced in “Home Alone,” University of Toronto Magazine, Autumn 2004.
p. 211: “Yale University political scientist Robert Lane“: Robert Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
p. 212: “British Social Attitudes Survey“: Francis McGlone, Alison Park, and Ceridwen Roberts, “Kinship and Friendship: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britian, 1986-1995,” in Changing Britain: Families and Households in the 1990s, Susan McRae, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
p. 213: “work year having increased by approximately 150 hours“: There are various analyses available on work hours: most of them show the number of hours increasing. The data I cite is from the Work Hours Fact Sheet, Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org. For a detailed discussion of the rise in work hours, see Juliet Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York: Basic Books, 1991).
p. 216: “people younger than 65“: For UK data, see Jim Bennett and Mike Dixon, Single Person Households and Social Policy, 2006, Joseph Rowntree Foundation: http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/ebooks/bennett-9781859354759.pdf. For US data, see Frank Hobbs and Nicole Stoops, Demographic Trends in the 20th Century, 2002, U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/censr-4.pdf.
p. 217: “persistence of aloneness among men in their 30s“: Jim Bennett and Mike Dixon, Single Person Households and Social Policy.
p. 217: “My friends see me as a family“: Cynthia Brouse, “Lessons from Adele,” Chatelaine, April 2007.
p. 218: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984).
p. 218: “27 percent of the people surveyed“: Miranda Lewis, Unilever Family Report 2005: Home Alone?: http://www.unilever.co.uk/Images/Family%20Report%202005_tcm28-23036.pdf.
p. 218: “Singles’ rights advocates such as Bella De Paulo“: Bella De Paulo, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored and Still Live Happily Ever After (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
p. 219: “loneliness rate was 10 to 20 percent higher among those who were living by themselves“: Early writers on loneliness (such as Rubenstien and Shaver) stressed that living alone did not equal loneliness. However, this statement is generally most true when applied to people who have actively chosen to live alone. Other studies, which capture respondents who haven’t necessarily chosen to be alone, generally show higher loneliness rates among solo-dwellers. See, for example, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Linda J. Waite, et. al., “A Short Scale for Measuring Loneliness in Large Surveys: Results from Two Population-Based Studies,” Research on Aging, 36:6 (2004) 655-672, and Jenny de Jong-Gierveld, “Developing and Testing a Model of Loneliness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The NIMH analyses are in Preventing the Harmful Consequences of Severe and Persistent Loneliness.
p. 221: “researchers with the Department for Works and Pensions“: Matt Barnes, Maxine Willetts, et. al., Families and Children in Britain: Findings from the 2002 Families and Children Study, Department for Works and Pensions:v http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2003-2004/rrep206.pdf.
p. 222: “When the survey was readministered in 2004″: Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew Brashears, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,” American Sociological Review, 71 (2006) 353-375, and Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew Brashears, “The Ties That Bind Are Fraying, Contexts, 7:3 (2008) 32-36.
p. 225: “the commodity frontier“: Arlie Russell Hochschild, “The Commercial Spirit of Initimate Life and the Abduction of Feminism” and “The Commodity Frontier,” in The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
p. 226: “two authors remind store owners“: Youn-Kyung Kim, Jikyeong Kang, et. al., “The Relations Among Family and Social Interaction, Loneliness, Mall Shopping Motivation, and Mall Spending of Older Consumers,” Psychology & Marketing, 22:12 (2005) 995-1015.
p. 227: “declined by a rate of 30%“: See the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008, at: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report_2008.pdf.
p. 228: “Biophilia is essentially the emotional counterpart“: For a fuller discussion of biophilia, see: E.O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), and Peter Kahn, The Human Relationship With Nature (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999). The reference to the “Age of Loneliness” is taken from E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).
p. 230: “It was the late Susan Sontag who noted“: Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977).
p. 231: “our need for others is basic“: R. F. Baumeister and M. R. Leary, “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin, 117 (1995) 497-529.
p. 234: “when someone like Tolkien writes“: This quotation is taken from the Foreword to The Lord of the Rings (London: HarperCollins, 1999).
p. 242: “one scholar, writing in Canadian Counsellor“: Joseph Moore, “Relationship Between Loneliness and Interpersonal Relationships,” Canadian Counsellor, 8 (1974) 84-89. For another stigmatizing, academic take on loneliness, see Patricia Hanley-Dunn, Scott E. Maxwell, and John F. Santos, “Interpretation of Interpersonal Interactions: The Influence of Loneliness,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11:4 (1985) 445-456. Hanley-Dunn notes that experiments with the lonely are “hard” to conduct, because the lonely themselves are “often hostile and deficient in social skills.”
p. 242: “if someone is told that their conversational partner is lonely“: Ken J. Rotenberg, Jamie Gruman and Mellisa Ariganello, “Behavioural Confirmation of the Loneliness Stereotype,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 24:2 (2002) 81-89.
p. 243: “at Purdue University and Lakehead University“: S. Lau and Gerald E. Gruen, “The Social Stigma of Loneliness: Effect of the Target Person’s and Perceiver’s Sex,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18:2 (1992) 182-189, and Ken J. Rotenberg and Jane Kmill, “Perception of Lonely and Non-Lonely Persons as a Function of Individual Differences in Loneliness,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 9 (1992) 325-330. The description of Michelle is from the Lau and Gruen paper.
p. 244: “Dahmer’s feelings of loneliness“: Willem Martens and George Palermo, “Loneliness and Associated Violent Antisocial Behaviour,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 49:3 (2005) 298-307.
p. 245: “difference in disclosure between men and women“: Shelley Borys and Daniel Perlman, “Gender Differences and Loneliness,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11:1 (1985) 63-75.
p. 246: “keep the fact of their loneliness to themselves“: For a study on the reluctance of the lonely to disclose their loneliness, see Daniel Perlman and Purushottam Joshi, “The Revelation of Loneliness,” in Loneliness: Theory, Research and Applications. Perlman and Joshi had been working with several sets of dorm mates at the University of British Columbia, and asked them to predict each others’ loneliness scores. The dorm mates couldn’t do it-not because none of them were lonely, but because no one had mentioned their loneliness.
p. 248: “hard for others to spot“: For an experiment that tried to spot differences between lonely and nonlonely individuals, see Brian H. Spitzberg and H. Thomas Hurt, “The Relationship of Interpersonal Competence and Skills to Reported Loneliness Across Time,” Loneliness: Theory, Research, and Applications. Spitzberg and Hurt had observers look on as the lonely and nonlonely talked and interacted; the observers couldn’t tell which subjects were the lonely ones.
p. 250: “measure popularity“: Jari-Erik Nurmi, Sare Toivonen, et. al., “Optimistic, Approach-Oriented, and Avoidance Strategies in Social Situations: Three Studies on Loneliness and Peer Relationships,” European Journal of Personality, 10 (1996) 201-219.
p. 251: “were asked to rate each person on the basis of looks“: Warren H. Jones, J. E. Freemon, and Ruth Ann Goswick, “The Persistence of Loneliness: Self and Other Determinants,” Journal of Personality, 49:1 (1981) 27-48.
p. 251: “in an experiment at Texas A & M University“: Niels Christensen and Deborah Kashy, “Perceptions of and by Lonely People in Initial Social Interaction,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24:3 (1998) 322-329. Similar findings are at Warren H. Jones, J. E. Freemon, and Ruth Ann Goswick, “The Persistence of Loneliness: Self and Other Determinants,” Journal of Personality, 49:1 (1981) 27-48, which found the lonely and the nonlonely receiving the same ratings (among a group of peers) on the basis of intelligence and friendliness.
p. 260: “the late Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman“: Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963).
p. 261: “premature weaning“: Gregory Zilboorg, “Loneliness,” The Atlantic Monthly, January 1938.
p. 261: “a state of simply not having one’s emotional needs met“: Harry Stack Sullivan, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (New York: Norton, 1953).
p. 262: “the byproduct of just being kept apart“: Karl Menninger, The Human Mind, (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1945).
p. 262: “blockbuster“: David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950). Despite its terrific title, Riesman’s text is concerned mostly with the shift from an production to a consumption-oriented culture; loneliness as a mood isn’t central to his text, though it’s still an excellent piece of work.
p. 262: “the tone around a trait can change“: John Davidio, “Stigma: Introduction and Overview,” in Todd F. Heatherton, ed. The Social Psychology of Stigma (New York: Guilford Press, 2000). For the notion of stigmatization increasing as anxiety increases, see Edward Jones, Social Stigma: The Psychology of Marked Relationships (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1984).
p. 263: James Lynch, The Cry Unheard: New Insights into the Medical Consequences of Loneliness (Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 2000).
p. 263: David D. Burns, Intimate Connections: The New and Clinically Tested Program for Overcoming Loneliness (New York: W. Morrow, 1985).
p. 263: Laura Pappano, The Connection Gap: Why Americans Feel So Alone (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
p. 272: “governments need to get involved“: For statements on the need to see loneliness from a policy perspective, see: Helen McCarthy and Gillian Thomas, Home Alone: Combating Isolation with Older Housebound People, 2004, www.demos.co.uk, and Help the Aged, “Isolation and Loneliness: Policy Statement 2007,” http://policy.helptheaged.org.uk/_policy/default.htm.”
p. 272: “need to incorporate loneliness into public health plans“: William Lauder, Siobhan Sharkey, and Kerry Mummery, “A Community Survey of Loneliness,” Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46:1 (2004) 88-94.
p. 273: “too private for the government to interfere with“: Roelof Horulanus, “Towards a New Policy Vision on Social Isolation,” in Social Isolation in Modern Society.
p. 274: “proposed or adopted public health plans“: For the inclusion of loneliness reduction as a stated public health goal, see:
World Health Organization, Active Ageing: A Policy Framework, 2002:
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/WHO_NMH_NPH_02.8.pdf
National Institute of Public Health, The New Swedish Health Policy, 2000: http://www.fhi.se/shop/material_pdf/newswedish.prn.pdf.
Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Goals for Canada, 2004:
www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/hgc-osc/new-1-eng.html;
New Zealand Ministry of Health, The Health of Older People Strategy, 2002:
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/0/13CF7B014CE29D44CC256AD30076D0BB/$File/OlderPleBB.pdf.
p. 274: “Dutch psychologist Nan Stevens“: Nan Stevens, “The Practise of Interventions: Can We Combat Loneliness?” (unpublished paper), and Nan Stevens, “Combatting Loneliness: A Friendship Enrichment Program for Older Women,” Ageing and Society, 21 (2001), 183-202.
p. 276: “‘the intervention program I do‘”: For more information, see Sean Seepersad, “Understanding and Helping the Lonely.” Program outline posted at: www.webofloneliness.com.
p. 276: “Lars Andersson organized discussion groups“: Lars Andersson, “Intervention Against Loneliness in a Group of Elderly Women: An Impact Evaluation,” Social Science & Medicine, 20:4 (1985) 355-364.
p. 277: “first social isolation and loneliness resource kit“: Leeds Older People’s Forum, Older People and Social Isolation: A Resource Pack: http://www.opforum.webeden.co.uk/#/socialisolation/4522666178.
p. 278: “within self-help“: A few of the self-help books I consulted were: Rae André, Positive Solitude: A Practical Program for Mastering Loneliness and Achieving Self-Fulfillment (New York: HarperCollins, 1991); Rueven P. Bulka, Loneliness (Toronto: Guidance Centre, University of Toronto, 1984); David D. Burns, Intimate Connections: The New and Clinically Tested Program for Overcoming Loneliness (New York: W. Morrow, 1985); Erika J. Chopich and Margaret Paul, Healing Your Aloneness: Finding Love and Wholeness Through Your Inner Child (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990); Jayne V. Clark, Loneliness (Greensboro, N.C.: New Growth Press, 2005); Mary Ellen Copeland, The Loneliness Workbook: A Guide To Developing and Maintaining Lasting Connections (Oakland CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2000); John Hritzuk, The Silent Company: How to Deal With Loneliness (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1983); David Jeremiah, Overcoming Loneliness (San Bernardino: Here’s Life Publishers, 1991); Jean Rosenbaum and Veryl Rosenbaum, Conquering Loneliness, (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1973).
p. 289: “as income declines, self-reported rates of loneliness rise“: William Lauder, Kerry Mummery, Siobhan Sharkey, “Social Capital, Age, and Religiousity in People Who are Lonely,” Journal of Clinical Nursing, 15 (2006) 334-340.
p. 289: “lonely at the top“: Robert A. Bell, Michael E. Roloff, et. al., “Is it Lonely at the Top? Career Success and Personal Relationships,” Journal of Communication, 40:1 (1990) 9-23.
p. 289: “more likely to be confronted with…objective aloneness“: Reed Larson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Ronald Graef, “Time Alone in Daily Experience: Loneliness or Renewal?” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook.
p. 289: “less education are more likely to lack confidants“: Claude S. Fischer and Susan L. Phillips, “Who is Alone? Characteristics of People with Small Networks,” in Loneliness: A Sourcebook.
p. 290: “network rich” “network poor“: For the idea of social networks becoming increasingly polarized, see Helen McCarthy and Gillian Thomas, Home Alone.
p. 292: “hormone associated with feelings of isolation“: “Effects of social isolation traced to brain hormone,” ScienceDaily, November 2007: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071114121316.htm.
