In the Eye of the Beholder: Individual Differences in Perceived Social Isolation Predict Regional Brain Activation to Social Stimuli
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Prior research has shown that perceived social isolation (loneliness) motivates people to attend to and connect with others but to do so in a self-protective and paradoxically self-defeating fashion. Although recent research has shed light on the neural correlates of social perception, cooperation, empathy, rejection, and love, little is known about how individual differences in loneliness relate to neural responses to social and emotional stimuli. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that there are at least two neural mechanisms differentiating social perception in lonely and nonlonely young adults. For pleasant depictions, lonely individuals appear to be less rewarded by social stimuli, as evidenced by weaker activation of the ventral striatum to pictures of people than of objects, whereas nonlonely individuals showed stronger activation of the ventral striatum to pictures of people than of objects. For unpleasant depictions, lonely individuals were characterized by greater activation of the visual cortex to pictures of people than of objects, suggesting that their attention is drawn more to the distress of others, whereas nonlonely individuals showed greater activation of the right and left temporo-parietal junction to pictures of people than of objects, consistent with the notion that they are more likely to reflect spontaneously on the perspective of distressed others.
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Isolated individuals showed greater Stroop interference for negative social versus negative non-social words, with no difference for positive social versus positive non-social words.
“Using a modified emotional Stroop task, individuals who felt isolated, relative to those who felt connected, showed greater Stroop interference, specifically for negative social relative to negative non-social words.47 No differences were found in Stroop interference for positive social relative to positive non-social words.”
From Social isolation (2011) · cites this paper as [47]
In an fMRI study, individual differences in perceived isolation predicted visual cortex activation to unpleasant social versus nonsocial pictures.
“In an fMRI study, we found that individual differences in perceived isolation predicted the activation of the visual cortex to the presentation of unpleasant social, in contrast to nonsocial, pictures”
From Social isolation (2011) · cites this paper as [47]
In that fMRI study, perceived social isolation was inversely related to temporoparietal junction activation when viewing unpleasant pictures of people versus objects.
“TPJ activation was observed when participants viewed unpleasant pictures of people versus objects and, as would be expected if isolation increases a focus on predator evasion and self-preservation, individual differences in perceived social isolation were inversely related to the amount of activation observed in the TPJ.”
From Social isolation (2011) · cites this paper as [47]
Behavioral and fMRI evidence suggests social isolation increases attention to negative social stimuli and motivation to reconnect.
“Evidence from behavioral and fMRI studies suggest that social isolation increases attention to negative social stimuli (e.g., social threats) as well as increased motivation to reconnect.”
From Social isolation (2011) · cites this paper as [47]
Perceived isolation predicted weaker ventral striatum activation to pleasant pictures of people than to equally pleasant pictures of objects.
“We found that perceived isolation predicted weaker activation of the ventral striatum to pleasant pictures of people than of equally pleasant pictures of objects.”
From Social isolation (2011) · cites this paper as [47]
Findings from two longitudinal health surveys suggest that loneliness predicts decrements in subjective sleep quality, which in turn feed forward to further exacerbate subsequent loneliness, suggesting a bidirectional causal relationship.
“findings from two longitudinal health surveys of older adults [27, 28] suggest that loneliness predicts decrements in subjective sleep quality, which, in turn, feed forward to further exacerbate subsequent loneliness, suggesting a bidirectional causal relationship.”
From Loneliness and health in older adults: a mini-review and synthesis (2016) · cites this paper as [28]
More lonely humans show greater activation of the ventral striatum in response to familiar social cues but reduced activation in response to unfamiliar social cues.
“In support of this concept, functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans has revealed that more lonely individuals show greater activation of the ventral striatum in response to familiar social cues223, but contrastingly reduced activation in response to unfamiliar social cues224.”
From Neural mechanisms of social homeostasis (2019) · cites this paper as [224]
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Ellwardt, L., Van Tilburg, T. G., & Aartsen, M. J. (2015) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.05.007 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Loneliness in adolescence: Insights from Cacioppo's evolutionary model
Goossens, L. (2018) · Child Development Perspectives · doi:10.1111/cdep.12291 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Decoding the invisible forces of social connections
Cacioppo, S., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2012) · Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnint.2012.00051 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Self-citationOxytocin and socioemotional aging: current knowledge and future trends
Ebner, N. C., Maura, G. M., MacDonald, K., Westberg, L., & Fischer, H. (2013) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00487 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Cognitive and Neural Correlates of Loneliness and Wisdom during Emotional Bias
Grennan, G., Balasubramani, P. P., Alim, F., Zafar-Khan, M., Lee, E. E., Jeste, D. V., & Mishra, J. (2021) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/bhab012 · Cited by 57 · see citing works
A developmental social neuroscience model for understanding loneliness in adolescence
Wong, N. M. L., Yeung, P. P. S., & Lee, T. M. C. (2018) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2016.1256832 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
van Roekel, E., Goossens, L., Scholte, R. H. J., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Verhagen, M. (2011) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02424.x · Cited by 44 · see citing works
The support needs of high-risk antenatal patients in prolonged hospitalisation
Kent, R. A., Yazbek, M., Heyns, T., & Coetzee, I. (2015) · Midwifery · doi:10.1016/j.midw.2014.08.003 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Well-Being: An Important Concept for Psychotherapy and Psychiatric Neuroscience
Hasler, G. (2016) · Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics · doi:10.1159/000447268 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Poli (2020) · PubMed · doi:10.36131/cn20200216 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cacioppo, J. T., Norris, C. J., Decety, J., Monteleone, G., & Nusbaum, H.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Dartmouth College (US)
- 1University of Chicago
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2009-01-01
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 83-92
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- PMC
- PMC2810252
- OpenAlex
- W2148773423
- Cited by
- 322
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 8.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- John Templeton Foundation
- National Institute on Aging (P01AG18911, P01AG018911, R01AG034052)
- National Institute of Mental Health (P50 MH-72850, P50MH072850)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Keywords
- loneliness, perceived social isolation, individual differences, social perception, neural correlates, ventral striatum, visual cortex, temporoparietal junction, emotional attention, reward processing, empathy, social stimuli
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Basal Ganglia, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neural Pathways, Parietal Lobe, Photic Stimulation, Reference Values, Social Isolation, Social Perception, Temporal Lobe
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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