Loneliness and Social Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered people’s lives. Loneliness and social isolation were publicly discussed as possible psychological consequences of the measures taken to slow the virus spread. These public discussions have sparked a surge in empirical studies on loneliness and social isolation. In this study, we first provide a systematic review synthesizing recent literature on the prevalence and correlates of loneliness and social isolation during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic ( k = 53 studies). We found that most quantitative studies included in the systematic review were cross-sectional. The few longitudinal studies mainly reported increases in loneliness, especially when the pre-pandemic measurement occasions were months or years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies with pre-pandemic measures weeks or days before the pandemic reported relatively stable or even decreasing loneliness trends. Second, we enrich the systematic review with an empirical investigation on daily changes in the perceived quality and quantity of social relationships during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic ( N = 4,823). This empirical investigation showed that, on average, the quality of social relationships was perceived worse during the pandemic than before. This perception got slightly stronger over the first 2 weeks of the pandemic but stagnated thereafter. Regarding the quantity of social relationships, participants reported on average that they had fewer social interactions at the beginning of the study than before the pandemic. This perceived reduction in the quantity of social interactions linearly decreased over time.Peer Reviewe

Lonely Today, Lonely Tomorrow: Temporal Dynamics of Loneliness in Everyday Life and its Associations With Psychopathological Symptoms

This publication is with permission of the rights owner (Sage) freely accessible.Although theory emphasizes that loneliness fluctuates in everyday life, most previous studies focused on the general and stable tendency of feeling lonely. In the present study, we used daily diary data collected over two 4-week periods (N1 = 3,309; N2 = 907) to examine different indicators of temporal dynamics of loneliness in everyday life and compare them with temporal dynamics of positive and negative affect. Moreover, we examined associations between temporal dynamics of loneliness and psychopathological symptoms (i.e., stress, anxiety, depression). We found large similarities in the variability, instability, and inertia of loneliness and affect. Moreover, all indicators of temporal dynamics of loneliness were related to psychopathological symptoms. However, these indicators had little added value above the average state and trait level of loneliness in predicting psychopathology. We discuss the potential of assessing the short-term dynamics of loneliness for the early detection of mental health issues.Peer Reviewe

Relations of the German almost perfect scale-revised and short almost perfect scale with the big five personality facets

The Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R) and its short form (SAPS) are among the most-established multidimensional perfectionism measures. Yet, investigations into the APS-R/SAPS nomological networks have mainly been limited to the level of broader personality traits. This reliance on trait-level associations hampers the conceptual understanding of perfectionism traits by masking more complex relations with specific cognitive, emotional, and behavioral tendencies (personality facets). In this study, we validated German versions of the APS-R and SAPS and assessed their relations with the Big Five personality facets in two samples (NSample 1 = 305 university students; NSample 2 = 467 community adults). Both scales displayed satisfactory psychometric properties, convergent and criterion-related validity. Analyses on the level of the Big Five personality facets revealed complex and nuanced patterns of relations. These findings provide new insights into the APS-R and SAPS nomological networks and facilitate the conceptual distinction between the APS-R subscales

Subjective Well-Being and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

Is the subjective well-being (SWB) of high achieving students generally higher compared to low achieving students? In this meta-analysis, we investigated the association between SWB and academic achievement by synthesizing 151 effect sizes from 47 studies with a total of 38,946 participants. The correlation between academic achievement and SWB was small to medium in magnitude and statistically significant at r = .164, 95% CI [0.113, 0.216]. The correlation was stable across various levels of demographic variables, different domains of SWB, and was stable across alternative measures of academic achievement or SWB. Overall, the results suggest that low-achieving students do not necessarily report low well-being, and that high-achieving students do not automatically have high well-being

Loneliness and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review enriched with empirical evidence from a large-scale diary study

The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered people’s lives. Loneliness and social isolation were publicly discussed as possible psychological consequences of the measures taken to slow the virus spread. These public discussions have sparked a surge in empirical studies on loneliness and social isolation. In this study, we first provide a systematic review synthesizing recent literature on the prevalence and correlates of loneliness and social isolation during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (k = 53 studies). We found that most quantitative studies included in the systematic review were cross-sectional. The few longitudinal studies mainly reported increases in loneliness, especially when the pre-pandemic measurement occasions were months or years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies with pre-pandemic measures weeks or days before the pandemic reported relatively stable or even decreasing loneliness trends. Second, we enrich the systematic review with an empirical investigation on daily changes in the perceived quality and quantity of social relationships during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic (N = 4,823). This empirical investigation showed that, on average, the quality of social relationships was perceived worse during the pandemic than before. This perception got slightly stronger over the first two weeks of the pandemic but stagnated thereafter. Regarding the quantity of social relationships, participants reported on average that they had fewer social interactions at the beginning of the study than before the pandemic. This perceived reduction in the quantity of social interactions linearly decreased over time

Loneliness and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review enriched with empirical evidence from a large-scale diary study

The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered people’s lives. Loneliness and social isolation were publicly discussed as possible psychological consequences of the measures taken to slow the virus spread. These public discussions have sparked a surge in empirical studies on loneliness and social isolation. In this study, we first provide a systematic review synthesizing recent literature on the prevalence and correlates of loneliness and social isolation during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (k = 53 studies). We found that most quantitative studies included in the systematic review were cross-sectional. The few longitudinal studies mainly reported increases in loneliness, especially when the pre-pandemic measurement occasions were months or years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies with pre-pandemic measures weeks or days before the pandemic reported relatively stable or even decreasing loneliness trends. Second, we enrich the systematic review with an empirical investigation on daily changes in the perceived quality and quantity of social relationships during the pandemic compared to before the pandemic (N = 4,823). This empirical investigation showed that, on average, the quality of social relationships was perceived worse during the pandemic than before. This perception got slightly stronger over the first two weeks of the pandemic but stagnated thereafter. Regarding the quantity of social relationships, participants reported on average that they had fewer social interactions at the beginning of the study than before the pandemic. This perceived reduction in the quantity of social interactions linearly decreased over time

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary materials are included in this component that are referenced in the manuscript