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The Psychology of Exile
When I was in middle school, one of the assigned readings was a story called “The Man Without a Country.” It was written by Edward Everett Hale in 1863, and told the story of a
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Shaking Off Loneliness
The New York Times: I now know why I gained more than 30 pounds in my early 20s: I was lonely. I had left my beloved alma mater upstate for graduate school and a job
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Fredrickson and Other Leading Scientists to Sign Books at the APS Annual Convention
APS Fellow Barbara L. Fredrickson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, knows how to communicate psychological science to the public. On March 24, her op-ed on electronic devices, social connectedness, and health quickly became
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The Dangers of Social Isolation
Wired: You say you want to be alone? Think again. Researchers have found that older people with fewer human contacts are more likely to die—even if they’re happy in their solitude—than are people with richer
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Maybe Isolation, Not Loneliness, Shortens Life
NPR: Loneliness hurts, but social isolation can kill you. That’s the conclusion of a study of more than 6,500 people in the U.K. The study, by a team at University College London, comes after decades
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Social Experiences Affect Our Genes and Health
Prevailing wisdom suggests that our genes remain largely fixed over time. But, an emerging field of research is beginning to prove this intuition wrong. Scientists are uncovering increasing evidence that changes in the expression of
