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. 2019 May;45(5):780-793.
doi: 10.1177/0146167218796793. Epub 2018 Sep 28.

Lonely Alone or Lonely Together? A Cultural-Psychological Examination of Individualism-Collectivism and Loneliness in Five European Countries

Luzia C Heu  1 , Martijn van Zomeren  1 , Nina Hansen  1
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Lonely Alone or Lonely Together? A Cultural-Psychological Examination of Individualism-Collectivism and Loneliness in Five European Countries

Luzia C Heu et al. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2019 May.

Abstract

Average levels of loneliness have been suggested to differ between collectivistic and individualistic countries. However, we know little about how individual-level collectivism (i.e., perceiving the self or one's social environment as collectivistic) is related to loneliness. As individualism and collectivism imply different ideals about how individuals should be embedded in social relationships, they may imply distinct risks for loneliness. Specifically, less demanding ideals in individualism should imply the risk of lower actual social embeddedness; more demanding ideals in collectivism should imply the risk of higher perceived discrepancies from such ideals. Two cross-sectional survey studies in five European countries (Study 1: Austria, N = 239; Study 2: Italy, Portugal, Sweden, The Netherlands, total N = 860) revealed that higher collectivism was related to lower loneliness. Individualism indeed implied lower social embeddedness, but collectivism did not imply higher discrepancies from ideal embeddedness. We discuss implications for reducing loneliness in different cultural contexts.

Keywords: culture; individualism–collectivism; interpersonal relationships; loneliness; social embeddedness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Risk factors for loneliness implied in individualism and collectivism. Note. Ideal–actual social embeddedness refers to the perceived discrepancy between an individuals’ ideal and actual social embeddedness.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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