How does loneliness impact emotion perception? A systematic review
Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, is linked to significant long-term consequences for health. One mechanism through which loneliness contributes to health risk is via shifts in social cognition, particularly increased vigilance for social threats. While evidence suggests loneliness is assoc...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Current Research in Behavioral Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666518225000142 |
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| Summary: | Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, is linked to significant long-term consequences for health. One mechanism through which loneliness contributes to health risk is via shifts in social cognition, particularly increased vigilance for social threats. While evidence suggests loneliness is associated with changes in how individuals interpret others’ intentions within social interactions, the specific cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying these effects are less clear. Expressions of emotion represent a unique and significant source of information about others’ intentions; being able to successfully understand and use these expressions to make inferences about others’ mental states guides effective decision-making and social behavior, and has consequences for health. This systematic review of literature on loneliness and emotion perception examines whether loneliness is linked to how individuals understand emotions in others, and whether patterns are consistent with increased vigilance to social threat. In contrast to theoretical predictions, the majority of studies found that loneliness demonstrated a lack of a relationship with emotion perception, or was associated with decreased accuracy in the recognition of emotion expressions in faces. It was not clear whether these effects occur across emotion states or are specific to certain emotion categories. We highlight the need for more research incorporating measures of chronicity of loneliness experiences and measures of emotion perception that generalize to naturalistic social interactions to better understand how loneliness shapes these processes. Identifying how links between loneliness and emotion perception impact long-term maintenance of social relationships, emotion regulation, and health risk is critical to elucidating specific mechanisms that can be used to inform more targeted and effective loneliness interventions. |
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| ISSN: | 2666-5182 |