The Threat of Loneliness
17-Feb-09
A talk with John Cacioppo
Loneliness also seems to impair people’s self-control, including their ability to stick with a task. In one extraordinary test – in which subjects were asked to taste as many cookies as necessary to rate their flavor – those who were told no one wanted to work with them ate twice as many as those who were told everyone wanted to work with them. Being primed for loneliness also seemed to make the cookies taste better. (The lonely, by the way, eat a fattier diet even outside the lab, although they also substitute pets and computers for human connections.)
Loneliness Associated With Increased Risk Of Alzheimer’s Disease
Lonely individuals may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer’s disease in late life as those who are not lonely, according to a study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. The study is published in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.