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Social Isolation or Loneliness? positive social relationships are lost. Each
Social isolation is not quite the same as of these missed opportunities provide
loneliness. Social isolation describes further evidence for what the person
an objective situation in which social experiences as the hopelessness of ever
connections are limited or absent. It is arriving at a positive social exchange. It
about… there being friends, or just one has the potential of creating the deepest of
special person, who is around when grooves, the walls of which ultimately defy
needed. Loneliness, by contrast, is a scaling.
subjective feeling of distress - when The second aspect is perhaps even more
an individual feels the potential for pernicious, but harder to explain. The
connections available to them are social nature of our beings has made
inadequate or unfulfilling. Loneliness humans unique amongst species in
is about feeling that one lacks efficiently passing knowledge from one
companionship, or feeling left out, feeling generation to the next, enabling us to
isolated from others, feeling alone, or accumulate a store of knowledge called
feeling we are missing out. While isolation culture. Each generation can learn from
and loneliness often co-occur, importantly, the last. Humans need to be able to learn
they can be experienced independently off and benefit from their social context if
one another (Matthews et al., 2016). they are to thrive (Wilson et al., 2014). But
in a social network as complex as ours,
Cognitive Changes: vigilance is advisable (Sperber et al., 2010).
Cognitive changes are equally important. We need to be able to work out quickly
Lonely individuals are more likely to lack who to trust so they can help us learn the
trust, to look at those around them with ropes. How does this happen? To protect
suspicion, to see people more negatively, the naive learner from acquiring inaccurate
to be less hopeful about the outcomes of information, evolution has equipped us
social interactions, and to prioritise self- with a gating mechanism, a capacity to
protection by being defensive or even open our minds to learning only when
hostile upon entering a social encounter. learning new knowledge is safe. This is
These strategies may be understandable called epistemic trust.
as ways of minimising potential risks from Epistemic trust means a person’s ability
social interactions, but they bring with to trust appropriately in social sources
them two major life-limiting consequences. of new knowledge (Fonagy, Luyten,
& Allison, 2015). There is a need for
Two Major Life-Limiting Consequences: vigilance to ensure that we are only open
First, obviously these strategies are likely to learning when the source of knowledge
to ensure that nothing changes, that is trustworthy. Humans - in order to
positive social relationships continue learn about the world, about themselves
to evade them. There is a self-fulfilling and about what they need to know - need
quality in this anxious and pessimistic to trust the knowledge which is being
stance towards social relationships. communicated to them. It is a person’s
Loneliness becomes the cause of further openness to the social context that enables
isolation, as opportunities to develop change and adaptation to circumstance,
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