Introversion, Solitude, and Subjective Well‐Being

Zelenski, John M.; Sobocko, Karin; Whelan, and Deanna C.

doi:10.1002/9781118427378.ch11

Cited by 27 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Unsociability in childhood is conceptualized as a nonfearful preference for solitary activities . This construct overlaps conceptually with the long‐studied adult personality trait of introversion (; see , for a recent review). Unsociable children are described as content to play alone, and as neither desiring nor fearing peer interaction.…”

Section: Unsociability In Childhood: “I Kind Of Like To Play Alone…”mentioning

confidence: 99%

When One Is Company and Two Is a Crowd: Why Some Children Prefer Solitude

Coplan

Ooi

Nocita

2015

Child Dev Perspectives

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In this article, we examine research on conceptualizing and assessing individual differences in children's preference for solitude. Social withdrawal is typically defined as the process whereby a child removes himself or herself from opportunities for social interaction with peers. Most research has focused on shy children (whose retreat into solitude is driven by social fear or anxiety), but some children may instead prefer solitary activities. We aim to clarify the distinction between unsociability (i.e., a nonfearful affinity for solitude) and social avoidance (i.e., a preference for solitude driven by actively avoiding social interaction). We also provide suggestions for further research, drawing on related perspectives from personality and clinical psychology.

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Section: Unsociability In Childhood: “I Kind Of Like To Play Alone…”mentioning

confidence: 99%

When One Is Company and Two Is a Crowd: Why Some Children Prefer Solitude

Coplan

Ooi

Nocita

2015

Child Dev Perspectives

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“…The answer might hinge on individuals' personal characteristics. In particular, introverts and extraverts exhibit fundamentally different approaches to social life (Smillie, Kern, & Uljarevic, 2019;Zelenski, Sobocko, & Whelan, 2014), suggesting that the effects of physical distancing might vary depending on individuals' extraversion levels. 1 Depriving people of social contact may substantially reduce their positive feelings of interpersonal closeness and belonging, while increasing loneliness and perceived isolation (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Lee, Draper, & Lee, 2001;Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980;Ryan & Deci, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19?: The Role of Extraversion

Folk¹,

Okabe‐Miyamoto

Dunn³

et al. 2020

Collabra: Psychology

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In two pre-registered studies, we tracked changes in individuals' feelings of social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both studies capitalized on measures of social connection and well-being obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by recruiting the same participants again in the midst of the pandemic's upending effects. Study 1 included a sample of undergraduates from a Canadian university (N = 467), and Study 2 included community adults primarily from the United States and the United Kingdom (N = 336). Our results suggest that people experienced relatively little change in feelings of social connection in the face of the initial reshaping of their social lives caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory analyses suggested that relatively extraverted individuals exhibited larger declines in social connection. However, after controlling for levels of social connection prior to the pandemic (as pre-registered), the negative effect of extraversion reversed (Study 1) or disappeared (Study 2).

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“…This may be explained by the interaction of additional factors that were not captured by the present experiment but might have impacted the participants’ emotional state. For example, personality traits might play an essential role in the ways individual participants are affected by social isolation and how they cope with it [ 61 – 63 ]. Furthermore, the intensity of the enforced quarantine measures was not the same for all participants, resulting variation in self-isolation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subjective ratings of emotive stimuli predict the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on affective states

2020

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The COVID-19 crisis resulted in a large proportion of the world's population having to employ social distancing measures and self-quarantine. Given that limiting social interaction impacts mental health, we assessed the effects of quarantine on emotive perception as a proxy of affective states. To this end, we conducted an online experiment whereby 112 participants provided affective ratings for a set of normative images and reported on their wellbeing during COVID-19 self-isolation. We found that current valence ratings were significantly lower than the original ones from 2015. This negative shift correlated with key aspects of the personal situation during the confinement, including working and living status, and subjective well-being. These findings indicate that quarantine impacts mood negatively, resulting in a negatively biased perception of emotive stimuli. Moreover, our online assessment method shows its validity for large-scale population studies on the impact of COVID-19 related mitigation methods and well-being.

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Introversion, Solitude, and Subjective Well‐Being

Cited by 27 publications

References 86 publications

When One Is Company and Two Is a Crowd: Why Some Children Prefer Solitude

When One Is Company and Two Is a Crowd: Why Some Children Prefer Solitude

Did Social Connection Decline During the First Wave of COVID-19?: The Role of Extraversion

Subjective ratings of emotive stimuli predict the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on affective states

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