Loneliness hurts, young people who live isolated do not recognize happy faces – breaking latest news

There is a link between solitude and memory and, more specifically, among young people who feel lonely and have difficulty remembering the happy faces of unknown peers but have met before. In practice, those with few social contacts would be less receptive to those who would be willing to have them. Risking never to get out of the state of solitude in which it is. what was observed in a study conducted by the Psychology department of the Sapienza University of Rome in collaboration with the English University of Bournemouth and published in the journal Scientific Reports. The sample examined included 235 university students, 42 males and 192 females, aged between 18 and 30 years. A high level of loneliness affects the ability to recognize unfamiliar people who, by their smiling expression, invite you to come closer and therefore could be important for establishing a new relationship explains Anna Peckinendaprofessor of Emotional Psychology at the Roman University, leading the team of researchers.

Isolation

This research was born during the lockdown for the Covid pandemic, considering the difficulties that students who lived alone had – Pecchinenda points out -. While I was teaching remotely they complained of a lower ability to concentrate due to the isolation, but at the same time they were refractory to find solutions to their condition. The study starts from an assumption, already demonstrated in the literature, namely that we are better at memorizing the faces of people of our own age. A phenomenon that in psychology known as own age bias. Very similar to another tendency, that of recognizing the faces of people who are part of our ethnic group more easily (own race bias). The second premise behind the study is that people who feel they don’t have (or don’t have enough) important links you can count on they are in turn more inclined to pay attention to the signs of rejection and danger that come from society. First, let’s clarify what is meant by loneliness.

Faces already seen

a feeling that does not depend so much on the number of social relationships that a person has in absolute terms but by how satisfying these relationships are for her, i.e. whether they satisfy the need to belong to the group with which she identifies. You can meet many people, but not feel connected with anyone, Pecchinenda points out. Researchers have proven that loneliness affects the human brain’s ability to recognize the faces it has already seen of people of the same generation. In particular, by modifying the memory for smiling faces, which convey an emotion with which subjects without significant social contacts do not identify. The study (conducted in online mode) involved two phases. In the first participants viewed photos of young and old subjects with happy, angry, and neutral expressions. The aim was to memorize the faces taking into account the different ages. In the second half of the faces already proposed were shown together with new ones, always characterized by expressions of happiness, anger, neutrality.

Loneliness calls for loneliness

The result? In the one hundred students who report feeling a high level of loneliness (about 50 percent of the sample analysed) a 35.6 percent lower ability was found in keeping in mind the happy faces of young subjects (therefore of the same age) compared to students who experience a lower sense of loneliness. While there was no relevant difference between the two groups in the recognition of angry or neutral faces. Loneliness calls for loneliness: what the outcome of this survey suggests. That is, the risk of a chronicisation of the state of isolation. Since remembering the people you just met send a signal of openness at the basis of establishing new bonds, the fact that this does not happen in those with a high level of loneliness can partly explain the mechanism that determines the perpetuation of social isolation. To which the representation that this feeling generates towards others undoubtedly contributes, underlines the teacher.

social interactions

Which warns: In the elderly, chronic loneliness is associated with an increase in mortality of more than 20 percent. At this point one might be thinking of a remedy to prevent or break the loneliness. Giving generic prescriptions, such as “go out more often“, it does not work. It is rather about creating opportunities for social interaction in line with the interests of the person. In fact, it is not enough for those who hear alone to talk to many people, but to be able to have a feeling with their peers concludes Pecchinenda.