Research Repository

• Strong social connections can help people handle stress better by offering support and changing how they experience difficult situations
• The key resilience factor associated with social fitness is social support.
• Support from family, friends, coworkers, and community members—whether emotional, practical, or informational—has been shown to boost mental, physical, and social well-being. At the same time, not all social relationships are beneficial. Perceived conflicts within relationships can contribute to stress and harm psychological health. It’s the presence of strong, positive connections and meaningful support that truly helps people cope with challenges and buffer the harmful effects of stress

• Perceived sense of loneliness increases brain inflammation and lead to neural changes associated with increased sensitivity to social threat, disrupted emotion regulation, mood disorders and cognitive decline
• People who felt lonely were quick to spot negative social words and images

• The study looks at how social activity, isolation, and loneliness among adults with mobility disabilities compared to those with other disabilities, and to understand the factors associated with social connectedness among people with mobility disabilities
• It found that people with mobility disabilities were less likely to feel isolated, but being unemployed and in poor health made them feel lonelier. Noting the distinction between social isolation and feelings of loneliness
• The study suggests having a career network and good health can improve social well-being for people with mobility disabilities
• Males reported greater social isolation than females (17.4% v. 12.5%), while females were more likely to report less satisfaction with their social activities than males (26.4% v. 16.7%)

• While there is still much to discover about attachment throughout life, it is increasingly believed that people can change and that early experiences are not as definitive in shaping adult relationships as once assumed

• AI excel at providing information for users with clear health-related goals.
• AI struggle to support users who are uncertain about behavior change in health-related contexts. There is a need to combine psychological theories and natural language processing into AI to effectively promote preventive health behaviors

• The study examined how group identification among Black Americans
  influences coping beliefs and psychological well-being. Higher levels
  of racial group identification were associated with more positive well-being

• Systemic oppression creates a context in which Latinx LGBTQ+ youth experience social isolation. Social isolation has been associated with mental and physical health disparities, including disproportionate levels of depression, substance use, self-harm, and attempted suicide
• Critical to shifting experience is the importance of tapping into core values and intersectional identities to build solidarity among and within marginalized groups to dismantle oppressive systems

• The Harvard study, spanning almost 80 years, found that embracing community contributes to longer and happier lives. Tracking 268 Harvard sophomores since 1938, researchers collected data on physical and mental health, showing the importance of relationships over money or fame/notoriety, two elements often regarded of top social importance
• Marital happiness and strong social support were linked to better mental and physical health outcomes
• The study finds a direct correlation between healthy aging and sustaining healthy relationships showing that nurturing connections throughout life is key to well-being

• Loneliness, labeled as an epidemic and public health crisis, poses numerous risks to physical and mental well-being.
• Balancing social interaction is crucial, as both excessive isolation and overwhelming social engagements can lead to negative outcomes; Diverse social connections and recognizing personal social needs are essential for lessen loneliness.

• Interpersonal Influence on Health Goals: The article examines how social interactions and relationships can significantly impact an individual's pursuit of health goals. It emphasizes that supportive social
  environments can enhance motivation and goal achievement through mechanisms like social support, shared goals, and social influence.
• Integration of Theories: The study integrates concepts from social cognitive theory and self-determination theory to explain how social factors affect health behaviors. Key elements include the role of perceived social support in boosting self-efficacy and the importance of intrinsic motivation in sustaining health-related efforts.
• Practical Implications: The findings suggest that creating and maintaining supportive social networks can be an effective strategy for promoting personal health. By understanding and leveraging social cognitive-motivational mechanisms, health interventions can be designed to improve individual outcomes through enhanced social support and encouragement.

• Measuring for social connectedness, both social isolation and feelings of loneliness, requires objective and subjective measuring tools. Loneliness regarded as subjective and isolation as objective
• human’s sociality—trust, cooperation, and interdependence—is a key aspect of our survival as a species
• Single people may find it more difficult to maintain social contact with others as they get older, and as their friends and close others become increasingly more likely to be in a relationship
• Loneliness was primarily predicted by relationship status, with single individuals reporting more loneliness than those in relationships. This effect was influenced by age: younger adults showed no significant difference in loneliness based on relationship status, but older adults who were single reported higher loneliness
• Findings suggest that while younger singles may remain hopeful about forming future relationships, older singles may feel lonelier due to both a perceived decline in opportunities to connect and the loss of past relationships -- highlighting the increasing impact of social isolation on feelings of loneliness as people age

• The study looked at how having supportive people around affects mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. It found that feeling supported led to fewer mental health problems over three weeks, but it didn't necessarily make stressful situations easier. It also checked what makes interactions with others helpful. It's not just about getting support, it's more about how pleasant those interactions are. The study saw how day-to-day changes in how we interact with others affect our mood. It found that having pleasant interactions can help cope with stress better.

• The article discusses how mindfulness training improves well-being by enhancing neural integration and distinguishing between different streams of awareness. Brain imaging studies show that mindfulness meditation reduces narrative-focused brain activity while increasing present-moment awareness. This indicates that mindfulness helps individuals quiet the mind and focus on the present, leading to better mental health.

• This study created a short scale called the MSS-SF to measure why people choose to be alone. It found two main reasons: self-determined solitude (SDS) and not self-determined solitude (NSDS). Choosing solitude for personal reasons was linked to feeling good, while doing it for outside pressures was linked to feeling lonely and sad. This scale helps understand why some people enjoy solitude while others struggle with it.

• Having a diverse social circle, with interactions across different types of relationships (friends, family and colleagues), boosts well-being. This was found in four studies across various demographics and cultures, even after considering factors like time spent socializing and activity.

• Physical proximity to familiar connections reduces brain activity in regions involved in detecting threats, staying alert, controlling impulses, and regulating emotions—especially when facing potential danger. This calming effect is stronger when a person also perceives social support (separate from physical presence)
• Noted is that the social regulation of threat responses is likely to also vary as a partial function of other trait-like characteristics and situations. For example, perception of low social support, developmental levels of neighborhood quality, and attachment security may modulate the impact of supportive handholding

• Social connections significantly impact physical health and longevity, with loneliness and social isolation increasing the risk of disease and mortality, while supportive relationships can improve health outcomes. Research indicates that social connections influence stress physiology, immune function, and inflammation levels.
• Recognizing the importance of social connection as a public health issue, efforts are needed to address loneliness and promote supportive relationships at both the individual and policy levels.

This research looked at how acquaintances affect happiness finding:

• There is a relationship between weak ties ie acquaintanceships, or relationships between people who know each other, but the relationship is not deep or intimate, and happiness.
• When comparing people who engaged more with acquaintances with people who engaged less, the group that engaged more reported a higher sense of happiness
• Even among strangers, those that engaged in a way that invited acquaintanceship rather than transactionally or "efficiently" those in the former group reported an improved mood
• Genuine interactions with acquaintances, improved mood more than transactional interactions.
• While talking more with acquaintances made people feel better temporarily, it didn't lead to lasting changes in happiness. It suggests casual connections, can however, have a big impact on happiness.

• A lack of meaningful social relationships poses a major risk for various health issues and increased mortality. As populations age and chronic illness drives up healthcare costs in industrialized nations, there is growing interest in understanding how these relationships impact health and the mechanisms behind their effects
• Loneliness, characterized by feeling isolated in a social world, is a significant risk factor for various health issues, including disrupted sleep, and poorer mental and physical wellbeing, contributing to higher rates of morbidity and mortality among lonely individuals, especially older adults

• Social connection—or its absence—can influence other health-related behaviors, including diet. Factors like marital status, living situation, and levels of social isolation affect how people eat. For example, individuals who have more frequent contact with family and friends tend to consume a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. This highlights how social relationships can have a compounding effect on overall health
• Men are more affected by non-partnered statuses and infrequent friend contact, while women are more influenced by weekly family contact in relation to their dietary variety

• Impact of Social Relationships on Mortality: Individuals with stronger social relationships had a 50% increased likelihood of survival compared to those with weaker social relationships. This was true regardless of age, gender, or initial health status

• Third places may offer resources and social supports that facilitate social mobility, disparities in their availability risk perpetuating or exacerbating existing social cleavages
• There are significant disparities in the availability of third places. Higher poverty rates were associated with fewer third places. Tracts with the smallest shares of Black and Hispanic populations had comparatively more third places
  

• Combating loneliness involvesmore than just interacting with others— it's about the quality and type of interactions. Face-to-face interactions are most effective at reducing loneliness. Enjoyable and meaningful interactions crucial for reducing loneliness
• Interactions characterized by distance and lack of intimacy can increase loneliness. avoiding negative interactions is as important as seeking out positive ones

• Sharp conceptual distinction between pleasure versus engagement-meaning components, hedonic and eudaimonic aspects empirically cohere together in happy people
• Supporting a hedonic approach, it has been suggested that the best measure of subjective well-being may be simply to ask people how they hedonically feel right now—again and again—so as to track their hedonic accumulation across daily life (Kahneman 1999). Such repeated self-reports of hedonic states could also be used to identify more stable neurobiological hedonic brain traits that dispose particular individuals toward happiness

• Social inequalities and structural factors significantly increase vulnerability to poor mental health across the life course, especially among marginalized populations facing intersecting risks
• High-quality evidence linking social determinants (e.g., poverty, discrimination, displacement) to mental health outcomes, emphasizing the need for primary prevention strategies grounded in social justice