Berman, Ariely, Gosnell, et al. (2020), “Reframing the Loneliness Epidemic”

Kristen Berman, Dan Ariely, Evelyn Gosnell, et al., “Reframing the Loneliness Epidemic.” Pages 123-131 in The Behavioral Economics Guide 2020, edited by Alain Samson. 

• Loneliness involves a dearth of satisfying relationships 

• Some 20% of Americans report not having any close friends 

• Loneliness undermines subjective well-being and health – and there is no widely available, effective “treatment” 

• Nearly half of loneliness can be traced to one’s genes 

• People tend to get lonelier as they age 

• Women, on average, are lonelier than men 

• Unemployment and retirement both increase loneliness 

• Loneliness can be a sort of self-fulfilling trap 

• How to deal with the loneliness epidemic? Reframing!: instead of treating loneliness, perhaps we can prevent it. In particular, can we nudge friendship? 

• An old study found that a 45-minute meaningful conversation made people feel as close with their (previously unknown) conversation partner as they felt in their more established relationships. 

• But people are risk averse, and (perhaps) they shy away from conversations that could result in rejection. 

• One approach is to change the default, to make deep conversation the expected behavior.

• Experiment 1: A Conference Networking Study. At the beginning of a conference for finance sector workers, Conversation Cards were distributed that contained probing questions participants would answer in conversing with each other. Other conditions included a "just network as usual" command and an "avoid small talk" suggestion. 

• The subjects responded well to the Conversation Cards – but they still weren’t all that interested in following up to build friendships. (The "avoid small talk" folks were sort of frustrated, at a bit of a loss to break the ice.)

• Experiment 2: Nudging Deep Conversation in a Social Setting (Friday night happy hours)  

• The conditions were (1) conversation about the future v. (2) conversation about the past v. (3) an ice-breaker activity with no conversational guidance 

 • The conversational prompts both worked! More talking sessions, and more desire to build the connections... 

• Should we rethink social architecture to encourage deep conversations, without exposing people to large social risks? (And do the conversations really have to be deep?) 

• You can acquire the Conversation Cards at the cost of production and transfer (see p. 129).