Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue
dc.contributor.author | Barreto, M | |
dc.contributor.author | Doyle, DM | |
dc.contributor.author | Qualter, P | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-02-20T10:51:58Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2024-03-06 | |
dc.date.updated | 2024-02-20T09:58:06Z | |
dc.description.abstract | Loneliness is most often understood as resulting from individual deficits that shape poor social engagement and unsatisfying interactions. As a consequence, interventions to address loneliness most often focus on fixing the lonely individual, for example, by modifying their social appraisals and skills, or encouraging them to get out more. In this paper, we characterize and contribute to changing this dominant narrative by arguing that it is both unhelpful and incomplete. We explain that this dominant narrative (1) increases loneliness and makes people feel worse about this experience, (2) does not account for important predictors of loneliness, (3) guides us to interventions that do not produce sufficiently effective or sustainable change, and (4) hinders broader understandings of the societal impact of loneliness. In this way, we argue that the dominant narrative around loneliness contributes to further setting those who feel lonely apart from the rest of society. We propose that attention to individual factors needs to be complemented by the acknowledgement that loneliness is heavily determined by social and structural conditions that render it unequally distributed in society, a situation that qualifies loneliness as a social justice issue. | |
dc.identifier.citation | Published online 6 March 2024 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1111/pops.12965 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/135360 | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0002-6973-7233 (Barreto, Manuela) | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Wiley / International Society of Political Psychology | en_GB |
dc.rights | © 2024 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | |
dc.subject | loneliness | |
dc.subject | marginalization | |
dc.subject | neoliberalism | |
dc.subject | social inequalities | |
dc.subject | social justice | |
dc.subject | structural stigma | |
dc.title | Changing the narrative: Loneliness as a social justice issue | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2024-02-20T10:51:58Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0162-895X | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1467-9221 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Advances in Political Psychology | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2024-02-18 | |
dcterms.dateSubmitted | 2023-10-30 | |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2024-02-18 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2024-02-20T09:58:07Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | AM | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2024-03-15T11:21:10Z | |
refterms.panel | A | en_GB |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © 2024 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.