Research Hit: The Life Factors that Make Lonely People Lonely

You may assume, logically at first glance, that not having contact to people is the most important factor in loneliness. And obviously this does have a large impact — but there are a number of paradoxes because we know some people can be alone and feel very good with themselves — this is also known as the wisdom loneliness paradox.

In this paradox we know that people who rate highly on wisdom seem to be pretty immune to the negative sides of loneliness and can be alone and happy. There are a number of reasons that we know influence this, one is a sense of meaning and purpose in life but also of being connected to the greater good. Another intriguing factor is that of our gut microbiome which correlates to loneliness, or not — yes you read that correctly. Read more here.

We also know from brain scanning that lonely people also feel more threatened. So, it is more complicated than just having contact to people — which is obviously still very important.

And this is where this newly released research out of the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria led by Sophie Buthmuller, is very interesting. What Guthmuller did is analyse data from individuals (from SHARE — a cross-national Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement) to see which factors correlated highest with loneliness in those over 50. And the results may surprise you — to a degree: