Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely Children

Abstract

This series of studies is the first to examine hypervigilance for social threat among lonely children and the first to establish this link using eye-tracking technology. Hypervigilance for social threat was operationalised as hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion in a variation of the hostile attribution paradigm (Study 1), scores on the Children's RejectionSensitivity Questionnaire (Study 2), and visual attention to socially threatening stimuli (Study 3). The participants were 185 children (11 years -7 months to 12 years -6 months), 248 children (9 years -4 months to 11 years -8 months) and 147 children (8 years -10 months to 12 years -10 months) in the three studies, respectively. Regression analyses showed that, with depressive symptoms covaried, there were quadratic relations between loneliness and these different measures of hypervigilance to social threat. As hypothesized, only children in the upper range of loneliness demonstrated elevated hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion, higher scores on the rejection sensitivity questionnaire, and disengagement difficulties when viewing socially threatening stimuli. We found that very lonely children are hypersensitive to social threat.Key words: Loneliness; Children; Hypervigilance; Social Threat; Rejection; Hypersensitivity, Rejection-sensitivity; Eye movement; Attentional bias.Running Head: LONELINESS AND HYPERVIGILANCE TO SOCIAL THREAT 4 Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely ChildrenResearchers have examined the social information processing biases that serve to maintain loneliness. One such bias is conceptualized as the 'hypervigilance for social threat hypothesis' (HSTH), where it is argued that rejection sensitivity contributes to behavioral deficiencies (e.g., withdrawal) that undermine the opportunities to develop and maintain positive social relationships (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Several studies provide support for the HSTH in adults (Jones & Carver, 1991;Jones, Freemon & Goswick, 1981;Sloan & Solano, 1984), but there has been little work on this in children. Confirming the HSTH during childhood is important because it would indicate that this form of social information bias is evident during development and, therefore, a potential contributor to the persistence of loneliness from childhood through to adulthood, which itself predicts mental and physical health. Loneliness and social information processing biasesLoneliness is an unpleasant state that arises from a discrepancy between the interpersonal relationships people want to have, and those they perceive they currently have (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Loneliness is not linked to the number of friends that a person has (Young, 1982;Qualter & Munn, 2005). It is a prevalent problem in children, adolescents and adults (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008; Rotenberg & Hymel, 1999), and is acknowledged in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR: American Psychiatric Association, 2000) because it often causes significant distress a...

Loneliness and implicit attention to social threat: A high-performance electrical neuroimaging study

“…The finding that loneliness is associated with an increase in attention to negative social information mirrors recent findings from behavioral studies (e.g., Attentional Social Threat task: Social Stroop Task: Egidi, Shintel, Nusbaum, & Cacioppo, 2008) and eye-tracker research, where lonely people showed greater visual attention to social threats linked to social rejection or social exclusion (Bangee, Harris, Bridges, Rotenberg, & Qualter, 2014;Qualter et al, 2013). Taken together, the behavioral and neuroimaging research suggests that lonely people show automatic (non-conscious) attentional biases for social threats such as social rejection.…”

Implicit attention to negative social, in contrast to nonsocial, words in the Stroop task differs between individuals high and low in loneliness: Evidence from event-related brain microstates

“…Comparison of source localization estimates for these microstates raised the hypothesis that the negative social, in contrast to nonsocial, words in the Stroop task elicited activation in more brain regions involved in the orienting and executive control aspects of visual attentiondan early brain pattern in line with the evolutionary hypothesis that loneliness is associated with an implicit hyper-attention to negative social stimuli as they are perceived as potential social threats (Bangee et al, 2014;Qualter et al, 2013;Cacioppo, Grippo, et al, 2015 for review). According to the evolutionary model of loneliness, feeling socially isolated (or on the social perimeter) leads to increased surveillance of the social world and an unwitting focus on self-preservation Cacioppo, Capitanio, et al, 2014;Cacioppo, Weiss, et al, 2014;Cacioppo, Grippo, et al, 2015).…”

Perceived social isolation, evolutionary fitness and health outcomes: a lifespan approach

“…Sleep has throughout evolutionary history been a shared experience, in large part because co-sleeping provides a safe surround that promotes restful sleep [93]. Lonely children are implicitly hypervigilant specifically for social threat [94], signifying that they feel implicitly unsafe. A 3-year study that sampled children annually from 8 to 11 years of age found that, in comparison with the low, stable loneliness group, the high but declining loneliness group reported taking longer to get to sleep and more sleep disturbances than the former [27].…”