2011 Boston Meeting: John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D.
Social Isolation
Invited address by John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D., Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor and Director, Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, University of Chicago
In his wide-ranging and engaging Friday address, Dr. John Cacioppo (University of Chicago), presented the accumulated work of decades of research on the causes and consequences of social isolation. Cacioppo, who earned his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Ohio, and has been conducting ground-breaking work in social neuroscience ever since, opened the talk with a description of the deadly-or at least gravely detrimental-impact of social isolation on species up and down the phylogenetic tree, including fruit flies, penguins, squirrel monkeys, and pigs, all of whom have shorter lifespans and greater morbidity when isolated from their communities.
To some extent, this is also true for humans, though Cacioppo's work has consistently emphasized that what is more important than physical isolation in humans is perceived isolation and loneliness, which he argues is the social equivalent of physical pain: An aversive signal that motivates you to correct your actions in the social domain. In experimental work, Cacioppo and his colleagues have demonstrated that not only do the brains of people who report greater daily loneliness respond differently to images of social situations-perhaps explaining why those who perceive greater isolation often fail to use intact social skills as well as those who do not-but also that normal individuals who have been hypnotized to feel lonely show marked changes in their personality, consistent with profiles of already-lonely people.
Furthermore, the differences between lonely and non-lonely individuals manifest not only at the social or self-report level, but even at the cellular level. Cacioppo presented work suggesting that the immune system of lonely people seems to prepare for and mobilize more readily against bacterial pathogens-which you're more likely to encounter in non-affiliative environments-whereas the immune systems of non-lonely people seem to shore up more resources against viral infections, one cost of social interactions. Likewise, lonely people are more prone to micro-awakenings throughout the night-consistent with the profile of someone who perceives him or herself to be the lone watchman against danger in the night-making sleep for these individuals less restorative on a daily basis.
Inevitably, the question of advances in social media-i.e., Facebook-arose. Cacioppo presented evidence that people with more friends on Facebook also tend to be less lonely, but the real predictor of loneliness is how you use those electronic interactions. Those who substitute Facebook for substantial human contact may not reap any benefits. Indeed, Cacioppo likened use of the site to "eating celery when you're hungry," and noted that "you can't use Facebook as a replacement for in-vivo interactions."