The Influence of Loneliness on Perceived Connectedness and Trust Beliefs – Longitudinal Evidence from the Netherlands
Open accessAbstract
While social pluralism and diversity are central characteristics of functioning democracies, civil society and democratic institutions require citizens to perceive themselves as an integral part of society in order to function. This stems from a general sense of unity and cohesion and a mutual understanding of citizens that institutions and other members of the society are trustworthy. While objective aspects of social embeddedness, that is organizational membership and inter-relational contact, are established predictors of these outcomes, perceived loneliness is rarely investigated. This study investigates whether changes in loneliness reduce levels of perceived connectedness and political and interpersonal trust beliefs. By analyzing 12 waves of panel data from the Netherlands gathered between 2008 and 2020 ( n = 41,508 observations from 9954 individuals), the analysis shows that intra-personal variation in loneliness predicts a citizen`s sense of connectedness and interpersonal trust beliefs. Regarding political trust, the relationship was not found with panel fixed effect.
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Lonely individuals are less trusting of others and more anxious and pessimistic than less lonely people.
“Loneliness is consistently associated with withdrawal from social interactions (Qualter et al., 2015), with lonely individuals being less trusting of others and more anxious and pessimistic than less lonely people (Cacioppo et al., 2006;Langenkamp, 2023;Lieberz et al., 2021).”
From Investigating the interplay of loneliness and social isolation across adolescence: Findings from a nationally representative longitudinal study (2026) · cites this paper as Langenkamp, 2023
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References 73 · Cited by 27
- Authors
- Langenkamp, A.
- Affiliations
- Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Langenkamp, Alexander
- Venue
- Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-12-08
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 2298-2322
- ISSN
- 0265-4075 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-3608
- OpenAlex
- W4311936889
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 6.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Capital and Networks
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- loneliness, public trust in government, interpersonal trust, social embeddedness, social cohesion, civil society, Dutch citizens
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