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Resources

Key Facts About Loneliness and Belonging

Summary

To give context to the issue of loneliness and the importance of belonging, here are some key facts that have helped shape our framework.

  • Loneliness and belonging are subjective states with some objective dimensions.
  • Prevention is key, and quality, not quantity, is what matters more in determining loneliness. Once loneliness becomes chronic and acute, it becomes harder to intervene (Taylor, 2021).
  • Belonging is transitory and varies across relationships, events and experiences (Mahar et al., 2012).
  • Interventions and research that look at increasing belonging to alleviate loneliness “have not been emphasised as a prominent social-solution strategy.” (Allen & Furlong, 2021)
  • Studies recommend cognition as the best area to focus on treating in order to prevent or alleviate chronic loneliness. This seems suspect, however, as it suggests that a population experiencing structural inequities need only think their way out of chronic loneliness.
  • Community loneliness might be more than the aggregate (sum total) of individual loneliness within a community, just as community wellness is theorized to be more than the aggregate of individual wellness. If so, how lonely are people in this community would only be one component of study.
  • According to a meta-analysis study conducted by Masi et al in 2011, multiple sources indicate that loneliness is approximately 50% heritable and 50% environmental. “What appears to be inherited is the level of distress aroused by social disconnection.”
  • Loneliness is ‘functional,’ in that it is believed to be the body’s way of signalling or motivating a person to alleviate the pain they feel “by seeking out the connections they need to feel safe, secure and content with life.” Similar to when we feel hungry, or when we feel pain, the discomfort is intended to spur us to do something about it. (Masi et al., 2011)
  • To avoid further stigmatizing loneliness, it may be useful to reframe community goals in terms of seeking to end debilitating loneliness and seeking to promote understanding of common loneliness as a biological phenomena supports general health through promoting desire for belonging and social connection. Listen to your loneliness.
  • Masi et al suggest that loneliness can operate like a biological contagion – through contact with lonely individuals, people who aren’t lonely may become more lonely over time.
  • Much less is known about belonging. What are the network effects of belonging, inclusion, affiliation, neighbourliness, social acceptance, welcome, etc?
  • Deciphering the conceptual relationship between loneliness and belonging is a challenge for researchers. Some research shows that belonging and loneliness are similar in that they refer to varying degrees of social connectedness, where loneliness and belonging represent opposite ends of a continuum (Russel, 1996). Other researchers, however, have argued that individuals can experience inclusion and exclusion simultaneously and belonging and loneliness along a continuum. (Crisp, 2010).
  • A critical factor in this relationship may be more about the individual differences in the need to belong (Mellor et al., 2008) and/or cultural differences (Rokach, 1999). For example, extroverts are more likely to seek the company of other people and interact more compared to introverts (John, 1990).
  • Our understanding of belonging has been weighted towards literature from highly-developed Western countries. The experience of belonging, however, is highly contextual and affected by culture, race, religion, language, and sociohistorical backgrounds (Stroop, 2011).
  • One German study involving a large data sample, most areas with higher than average levels of loneliness were located in East Germany, even when controlling for individual-level characteristics (Buecker et al., 2021). The authors suggest that more than two decades after reunification, Germany is still impacted by its history.
  • In that same study, “perceived neighbourhood relation, perceived distance to public parks and sport/leisure facilities, as well as objective regional remoteness and population change” were found to be positively correlated with loneliness (Buecker et al, 2021).

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