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explain different outcomes in the two groups. For example, people who volunteer to be in the experimental arm of a study may be more gregarious by nature and may be more likely to become less lonely over time regardless of exposure to the intervention. Results of the meta-analysis suggested the interventions might be effective, but to know it’s the intervention and not an artifact of subject selection, we need to look at the effect of these interventions when assessed using randomized group comparison designs in which participants are randomly assigned to the experimental or control group.

Twenty-two studies utilized such a design. Quantitative analysis revealed that, on average, the interventions had a small but significant effect in reducing loneliness. Moreover, efficacy in reducing loneliness did not differ significantly as a function of intervention strategy nor as a function of individual- versus group-based implementation. Whereas once a consensus existed that social skills training and/or group activities could reduce loneliness, we found insufficient evidence to support that conclusion.

Why have successful interventions to reduce loneliness been so elusive? There are several possible reasons. Some of the interventions have been designed with the notion that if only lonely individuals had better social skills they would be able to form satisfying connections with others. However, recent research suggests that at least for most adults, the social skills they know are not related to the loneliness they feel. Other interventions have been developed with the notion that lonely individuals simply need to interact more with others, so the interventions are designed to increase contact with others. However, people not only tend to like lonely individuals less than nonlonely individuals, lonely individuals are especially negative toward other lonely individuals. Therefore, bringing lonely individuals together is unlikely to result in warm, satisfying social connections. Finally, some interventions were designed with the notion that what lonely individuals need is social support, such as someone who is available to provide help when needed. However, loneliness affects not only how people think, but how people think about others: loneliness diminishes people’s executive functioning and biases them to see others as threatening and rejecting even when they are not (5).

Cacioppo and Patrick (5) proposed a framework for reducing loneliness which includes four elements. First, unconscious barriers that chronically lonely people develop to shield against being hurt by others tend to reduce their likelihood of having positive social interactions, and they may benefit, therefore, from encouragement and practice in forming social connections gradually in “safe” environments where threat of rejection is minimal. For instance, because chronically lonely people are self-focused in their hypervigilance for social threat, they may benefit from learning to shift their attention from themselves to others through other-oriented activities such as volunteerism. The notion is to intervene to diminish or eliminate the negative effects loneliness can have on social perception and cognition. Second, we tend to think of loneliness as the same thing as a personal weakness, as being a social isolate, being depressed, or being weak. As noted above, we now know these accounts to be incorrect, and

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