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Life scripts represent cultural expectations regarding the events in the prototypical life whereas life stories represent narrative constructions of the events occurring in individuals' own lives. In Study 1, we generated an outline of the love life script and a list of the self-definitional events individuals tend to associate with their own love lives. Participants were prompted to produce and rate seven important events in the prototypical love life and several significant moments from their own love lives. Building upon these descriptive efforts, in Study 2, we developed self-report measures of perceived and desired love life normality. These characteristics positively predicted the conventionality of autobiographical narratives drawn from participants' love life stories. Furthermore, perceived normality and desired normality were positively and negatively related to functioning within the romantic domain, respectively. These results underscore the role love life scripts and love life stories play in functioning within the romantic domain.

Background Loneliness is a growing area of concern, attracting attention as a public health concern due to its association with a variety of psychological and physical health problems. However, interventions targeting loneliness are less common than interventions for other mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, and existing interventions focus primarily on building social skills and increasing opportunities for social interaction despite research suggesting these techniques are not the most effective. Furthermore, although there is an increasing need for scalable and convenient interventions, digital interventions for loneliness are even less common. Objective Using a qualitative approach, we explore how adults (18-64 years of age) who express wanting to be more connected to others experience loneliness and react to a digital mental health intervention targeting loneliness. Methods A total of 11 participants were recruited from a pilot randomized controlled trial exploring the impact of a digital mental health intervention, Happify Health, on loneliness among adults aged 18-64 years who indicated wanting to feel more connected to others when signing up for the platform. Participants were invited to participate in a 3-day asynchronous focus group about their experiences with loneliness, with Happify Health, and with social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. All 11 participants completed the focus group in May 2020. Results Participants’ responses were coded using thematic analysis, which led to identifying five themes, each with separate subthemes, that could be applied across the 3-day focus group: loneliness, relationships, social distancing, skill acquisition, and coping. Overall, we observed variability across participants in terms of the source of their loneliness, their perceptions of their social connections, and their motivation to reduce feelings of loneliness; however, participants commonly referred to negative self-perceptions as a cause or consequence of loneliness. Participants also varied in the extent to which they felt social distancing increased or decreased feelings of loneliness. In regard to the intervention, participants showed evidence of adopting skills they used to address their loneliness, particularly mindfulness and gratitude, and then using these skills to shift toward more active coping strategies following the intervention, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions The heterogeneity in participants’ experiences with loneliness described during this focus group emphasizes the subjective and complex nature of loneliness. This highlights the importance of developing loneliness interventions that use a variety of strategies, including both direct and indirect strategies for reducing loneliness. However, based on our data, a key component to loneliness interventions is incorporating strategies for addressing underlying negative self-perceptions that stem from, but also contribute to, loneliness. This data also provides preliminary evidence that digital platforms may be an effective tool for disseminating loneliness interventions while providing the added benefit of offering a productive distraction when feeling lonely.

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Master narratives are culturally constituted stories that guide individual and collective behavior. Here, we examined Clinton and Trump supporters’ master narratives of election night 2016 and deviations from these narratives in relation to political ideology. In Study 1, Clinton and Trump voters ( N = 177) wrote stories about election night and completed measures of liberalism and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Stories were interpreted using an inductive approach, leading to the identification of six narrative dimensions. Three linguistic categories were also considered. Study 2 ( N = 341) consisted of a direct replication in which our inductively derived coding system was applied to participants’ responses deductively. Across studies, the narratives constructed by Clinton and Trump supporters differed on five of the six inductive/deductive dimensions and one of the three linguistic dimensions assessed. In addition, many of these dimensions, which included “redemption” and “hope for America’s future,” were associated with liberalism and RWA.