Loneliness is associated with a greater self-reference effect in episodic memory when compared against a close friend

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Loneliness is linked to adverse mental and physical health outcomes.
• The cognitive effects of loneliness, particularly on social cognition and memory, are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how trait loneliness influences cognitive distance between the self, close friends, and celebrities.
• To examine the impact of loneliness on memory biases, including self-referential and friend-referential processing.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed a surprise memory task involving adjectives encoded in relation to the self, a friend, or a celebrity.
• Measures included item memory sensitivity, metacognitive sensitivity, metacognitive efficiency, and source memory.
• Trait loneliness and depression levels were assessed.

Main Results:

• A self-referential memory advantage was observed over friend and celebrity encoding.
• A friend-referential advantage was found over celebrity encoding.
• Higher loneliness correlated with a greater self-referential bias and a smaller friend-referential bias, suggesting increased cognitive distance from friends.

Conclusions:

• Loneliness is associated with altered memory biases, reflecting a greater cognitive distance between the self and close social connections.
• These findings highlight the cognitive ramifications of loneliness and its influence on social cognition and memory.