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

我思故我在：威胁解释对产生和管理青少年孤独感的贡献

• 批准号: ES/T00004X/1
• 负责人: Jennifer Lau
• 金额: $ 52.34万
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT00004X%2F1
• 关键词: think; therefore; am; contributions; threat

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 youthloneliness and contribute to the national dialogue on loneliness between professionals/practitioners working with youth, policymakers, the public and young people themselves.

孤独是一种负面情绪，当人们认为自己的社会关系和网络无法满足其社会需求时，就会发生一种负面情绪。由于孤独被认为是与他人建立联系并征求他们的支持的有力动力，因此可能在生活时期以社会动荡为特征。这样一个时期就是青年，在外部社会环境中发生了重大变化，例如与同龄人在一起的时间以及新的同伴等级和集团的出现 - 以及内部因素，例如对同伴批准的需求以及同伴拒绝的厌恶性。因此，由于这些社会变化可能会导致社会关系中的不稳定，因此可能会出现孤独以促进与他人重新联系，因此被认为是许多年轻人成长的正常组成部分。但是，对于某些年轻人来说，孤独可能会很紧张，令人沮丧和持久，预测身心健康。因此，提供干预措施以管理青年的孤独感至关重要，这使得这可能反映了一个可塑性，以学习更有效的调节情绪的方式。由于某些负面思维方式，例如倾向于对良性期望的威胁和模棱两可的社交状况的解释与青年孤独感有关，衡量和针对这些早期的生活可能是一种有力的“疫苗”，以减少孤独的风险。在任何早期干预计划的计划中都需要解决威胁的目标，因此需要解决一些问题，而这些问题需要解决一些问题。首先，只有一项研究表明，威胁解释先于孤独的风险，而不是反映后果。解开这些角色可能会告知修改威胁解释以改变孤独感是否有用。此外，尚不清楚威胁解释是否通过影响社会退缩行为来影响孤独感，如理论所暗示的那样。其次，所有研究与孤独有关的威胁解释的研究都使用了有关假设社会情景的问卷，而不是直接评估对现实生活事件的思想。在日常生活中建立威胁解释与孤独之间的关系很重要，再次用于告知修改这些思维方式以改变孤独感是否有帮助。最后，尽管已经开发出用于挑战与其他社会行为问题（如社交焦虑）相关的威胁解释的方法，但尚不清楚这些方法是否与孤独的年轻人一样相关并宽容。这项研究的目标是解决这些问题。将进行三项研究。首先，将对大约1000名年轻人进行纵向研究，以研究威胁解释，社交戒断和孤独之间的跨时间关系，并通过嵌套的访谈研究补充了定量数据。其次，一项生态瞬时评估研究将在一天中几次评估对真实社会情况和孤独感的威胁解释一周，以调查日常生活中的这些关系。最后，与一些年轻人一起，我们将为旨在修改威胁解释的培训计划开发一些材料。然后将这些介绍给另一组年轻人，以评估相关性，可接受性以及这种干预的帮助和可行性。将考虑减少孤独和威胁解释以及不断变化的社会行为的潜在有效性。这些研究将生成数据，以支持对青年人的认知干预措施的进一步研究，并为与青年，政策制片人，公众，公众和年轻人自己一起工作的专业人士/从业者之间的孤独对话做出贡献。

项目成果

Developing an interpretation bias modification training task for alleviating loneliness in young people

开发解释偏差修正训练任务以缓解年轻人的孤独感

• DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2023.104380
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Behaviour Research and Therapy
• 影响因子: 4.1
• 作者: Riddleston L

Young people's recommended coping strategies to manage social isolation: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK

年轻人管理社会隔离的建议应对策略：英国 COVID-19 大流行封锁的经验教训

• DOI: 10.1016/j.crbeha.2023.100133
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
• 作者: Jong A

Are biased interpretations of ambiguous social and non-social situations a precursor, consequence or maintenance factor of youth loneliness?

• DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2021.103829
• 发表时间: 2021-03-13
• 期刊: BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY
• 影响因子: 4.1
• 作者: Lau, Jennifer Y. F.;Shariff, Rimsha;Meehan, Alan J.
• 通讯作者: Meehan, Alan J.

Restricted Visual Scanpaths During Emotion Recognition in Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder.

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.658171
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Frontiers in psychiatry
• 影响因子: 4.7
• 作者: Kleberg JL;Löwenberg EB;Lau JYF;Serlachius E;Högström J
• 通讯作者: Högström J

Identifying characteristics of adolescents with persistent loneliness during COVID-19: A multi-country eight-wave longitudinal study

识别 COVID-19 期间持续孤独的青少年的特征：一项多国八波纵向研究

• DOI: 10.1002/jcv2.12206
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: JCPP Advances
• 作者: Riddleston L