Loneliness is associated with unstable and distorted emotion transition predictions.

Abstract

Loneliness is associated with disruptions in socio-cognitive processes, including altered self-other representations and atypical processing of external stimuli. Here, we examine whether loneliness is characterized by altered expectations of emotion transitions for both oneself and others, which may contribute to the observed disruptions in socio-cognitive processes and pose challenges for social connection. Drawing on data from seven studies (total N = 1730; N_Study1 = 113; N_Study2 = 185; N_Study3 = 376; N_Study4 = 91; N_Study5 = 68; N_Study6 = 41; N_Study7 = 856) using a validated emotion transition task, we found that lonely individuals hold atypical expectations about both their own and others' likelihoods to transition between emotions and are less accurate at predicting others' emotion transitions. While lonely participants relied less on their own emotion transition patterns when predicting others' emotions, they also showed a response pattern that may reflect reduced confidence, suggesting they use a less stable or altered strategy for predicting others. Furthermore, lonely individuals perceived others as more volatile, expecting them to switch emotion valence states more frequently and be less likely to maintain the same emotion state. At the same time, they viewed themselves as more likely to shift away from positive states. Altogether, these findings suggest that loneliness is associated with unstable, inaccurate expectations of emotion continuity in others and a bias against sustaining positive emotions in the self-patterns that may contribute to challenges in social interactions and reinforce feelings of isolation.