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anything but isolated. High school graduates who leave family and friends for the first time to attend college, on the other hand, typically experience intense feelings of social isolation even though they are physically around more people than before they left home. Caspi and colleagues (23) found that perceived social isolation in adolescence and young adulthood predicted how many cardiovascular risk factors (e.g., body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, cholesterol) were elevated in young adulthood, and that the number of developmental occasions (i.e., childhood, adolescence, young adulthood) at which participants felt socially isolated predicted the number of elevated risk factors in young adulthood.

Perceived social isolation is known more colloquially as loneliness, which in early scientific investigations was depicted as “a chronic distress without redeeming features” (24, p. 15). Loneliness may feel like a painfully miserable, hopeless, and worthless state, but we have found it has a specific structure and a valuable adaptive function.

Research on the ways in which people describe themselves when asked the question, “Who are you?”, reveals three basic dimensions (25): (1) a personal, or intimate, self, the “you” of your individual characteristics; (2) a social or relational self, which is who you are in relation to the people closest to you—your spouse, kids, friends, and neighbors; and (3) a collective self, the you that is the member of a certain ethnic group, has a certain national identity, belongs to certain professional or other associations, and a member of the fan club for certain sports teams. Similar to the relational self, this part of the self is social but what makes this self distinct is that these are broader social identities, linked to larger social groups rather than individual members of the groups. When we examined the dimensions underlying loneliness/social connectedness, we found the same three basic dimensions (26): (1) intimate connection/isolation refers to the perceived presence/absence of anyone in your life who affirms you as a valued person; (2) relational connection/isolation refers to the perceived presence/absence of quality friendships or family connections; and (3) collective connection/isolation refers to the perceived presence/absence of a meaningful connection with a group or social stimulus (e.g., school, team) beyond other individuals. When you perceive you are part of a valued group (collective connection), for instance, you may be more inclined to agree with other group members, even on beliefs that may seem irrational, than when you are thinking of yourself as a unique individual.

Given that human survival and prosperity depends on inclusion in and participation with a social group, especially in evolutionary time when food was scarce and dangers were common, there is an adaptive benefit to having the strong and aversive response of loneliness when an individual feels his or her social connections might be weakening or broken, just as there is a benefit to having aversive signals for other conditions critical for survival. Hunger, thirst, and pain have evolved as aversive signals to prompt an organism to change their behavior in a way that protects the individual and promotes the likelihood their genes will make their way into the gene pool. The social pain of loneliness has evolved similarly – to serve as a signal that one’s connections

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