I think, therefore I am: The contributions of threat interpretations in generating and managing youth loneliness

Loneliness is a negative emotion that occurs when one perceives his/her social relationships and networks to fall short of his/her social needs. Because loneliness is thought to have evolved as a powerful motivator to connect with others and solicit their support, it may arise during periods of life that are characterised by social turbulence. One such period is youth, where there are major changes in the external social environment such as the amount of time spent with peers and in the emergence of new peer hierarchies and cliques - but also in internal factors, such as the need for peer approval and the aversiveness of peer rejection. Accordingly, as these social changes may bring about instability in social relationships, loneliness can arise to facilitate re-connection with others, and therefore be considered a normal part of growing up for many young people. However for some young people loneliness can be intense, upsetting and persistent, predicting poorer mental and physical health. Delivering interventions to manage loneliness in youth is therefore crucial, made more so as this may reflect a period of plasticity for learning more effective ways of regulating emotions. As some negative thinking styles such as a tendency to endorse threatening over benign expectations and explanations of ambiguous social situations is associated with youth loneliness, measuring and targeting these earlier in life may be a powerful 'vaccine' for reducing the risk of loneliness.

However before any early interventions programs are planned around the targeting of threat interpretations, there are some key questions that need to addressed. First there is only one study showing that threat interpretations precede and predict risk for loneliness rather than reflect consequences. Disentangling these roles may inform whether it is useful to modify threat interpretations in order to alter loneliness. In addition it is not clear whether threat interpretations affect loneliness by influencing social withdrawal behaviour, as theories would suggest. Second all studies investigating threat interpretations in relation to loneliness have used questionnaires about hypothetical social scenarios rather than directly assess thoughts to real-life events. Establishing the relationship between threat interpretations and loneliness in everyday life is important, again for informing whether it is helpful to modify these thinking styles to alter lonely feelings. Finally, although methods have been developed for challenging threat interpretations related to other social behavioural problems like social anxiety, it is not clear if these methods are as relevant to and well tolerated by young people who are lonely.

The goals of this research are to address these questions. Three studies will be performed. First a longitudinal study of around 1000 young people will be conducted to examine the cross-time relationships between threat interpretations, social withdrawal and loneliness with a nested interview study supplementing quantitative data. Second an ecological momentary assessment study that assesses threat interpretations to real social situations and loneliness at several times in the day for a week will be conducted to investigate these relationships in daily life. Finally, together with some young people we will develop some materials for a training program that aims to modify threat interpretations. These will then be presented to another group of young people to assess for relevance, acceptability and how helpful and feasible such an intervention is. Potential effectiveness at reducing loneliness and threat interpretations, and changing social behaviour will be considered.

These studies will generate data to support further investigation into cognitive interventions for youth
loneliness and contribute to the national dialogue on loneliness between professionals/practitioners working with youth, policymakers, the public and young people themselves.

Loneliness has become a major public health and social issue in the UK and a national strategic priority. Because the topic of loneliness - its causes, correlates and management - has attracted the attention of research scientists, clinical, health and educational professionals/practitioners, policymakers, nongovernmental organisations, the wider public and young people themselves, there are multiple beneficiaries of this research.

First and foremost, young people who suffer from loneliness will benefit from this research. A brief survey of 15 young people highlighted the widespread impact of loneliness on a) well-being "It's made me very depressed at some points in my life", b) on self-concept "Loneliness has definitely taken a huge toll on my self confidence because I feel like people just don't really want to be around me or that I just don't know how to properly socialise/make friends", c) on difficulties with social behaviour "Means I am more likely to isolate myself", and d) on work "i had to repeat a year of university due to being severely depressed of which loneliness was a key factor in that." Although our research on loneliness interventions for young people is at an early stage of development, our studies on the mechanisms of loneliness and more generally our proposed dissemination efforts on these findings through schools and universities may help reduce stigma about feeling lonely, and bring further recognition and credibility to the loneliness experiences of many young people. Relatedly, our efforts to engage the wider public about loneliness and to contribute to the national dialogue on this issue through a series of public events and social media will also help parents, families and friends to look out for these negative, distressing feelings in young people, before they become entrenched in a vicious cycle of negative thinking, social withdrawal and loneliness.

Second, other research scientists will benefit from our findings by increasing the profile of loneliness research, highlighting new research directions to pursue in particular the need for a more evidence-based approach to identifying new therapeutics. We plan to submit manuscripts of our studies to developmental science and applied journals for greatest impact. We also plan to guest edit a special issue on youth loneliness in a high impact journal, and to present our findings at international conferences in order to engage other academic researchers in this area. Beyond academic researchers, other beneficiaries include clinical, educational and health professionals/practitioners working with young people, who have an interest in tackling loneliness. Our findings will raise awareness of the urgent need to develop cost-effective evidence-based interventions that can be easily implemented by these individuals.

Finally various external stakeholders including policymakers, government ministers for loneliness strategy and non-governmental organisations will benefit from our findings. Many non-governmental organisations have been campaigning for funding resources to be dedicated to reducing loneliness in society. Through the dissemination of our findings, we hope to raise awareness and lend support to their campaigns by suggesting concrete directions in the development of novel evidence-based interventions. We will write and publish a national report on youth loneliness with interested charity partners and launch this at a high-profile seminar co-organised with interested stakeholders such as the Children's Society, who have already expressed interest. The aim of the report and seminar will be to bring academics, practitioners/professionals working with children, policymakers, and other non-governmental organisations in dialogue and to structure discussions around concrete strategies for reducing loneliness in society. Through such interactions we may also invite key stakeholders to co-produce grant applications to relevant funding bodies.