I’m equally curious about all the questions you raise. I briefly skimmed this paper, which seems to have a few interesting points in reference to succesful intervention methods:
By this criterion, our meta-analysis suggests certain interventions, particularly those which use cognitive behavioral therapy, can reduce loneliness.
Authors have suggested that interventions that enhance opportunities for social interaction via group activities or group-based interventions tend to be more successful (Cattan & White, 1998; Cattan, White, Bond, & Learmouth, 2005). However, simply bringing lonely people together may not result in new friendships because the thoughts and behaviors of lonely individuals makes them less attractive to one another as relationship partners (Jerrome, 1983; Stevens, 2001)
An important finding of the randomized group comparison studies is that the four interventions that addressed maladaptive social cognition yielded greater reductions in mean loneliness scores compared to the other intervention types.
In response to your question of:
A question I’m curious about is what are the biggest barriers to lonely people going out and making friends on their own?
The answer seems to be that extreme loneliness may be based on having a poor social environment, where loneliness no longer becomes a motivating factor to just go out and socialize, but instead isolate?
For individuals who have a rich and forgiving social environment, loneliness has a high probability of accomplishing its purpose of motivating interactions and enhancing a sense of connectedness and belonging. For other individuals, however, loneliness becomes inescapable, and it is for these individuals that interventions are perhaps most necessary. Results from this meta-analysis suggest that correcting maladaptive social cognition offers the best chance for reducing loneliness.
Accordingly, we posited that interventions that targeted maladaptive social cognition (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy that involved training to identify automatic negative thoughts and look for disconfirming evidence, to decrease biased cognitions, and/or to reframe perceptions of loneliness and personal control) would be more effective than interventions that targeted social support, social skills, or social access.
The results for social cognitive therapy are promising, but this intervention type appears not to have been widely employed to date relative to other types of loneliness therapy. Moreover, existing social cognitive therapies have had a small effect overall (0.20) relative to the meta-analytic mean effect of over 300 other interventions in the social and behavioral domains (0.50)
This all seems to suggest that building programs to adjust social patterns may be the most effective form of preventing/reducing loneliness. It strikes me that this form of intervention would likely be expensive if done 1-1 (as it’d most likely be done through trained therapists, which are quite expensive), but possibly could be done en masse for cheap? Possibly a website or app to intake symptoms and suggest changes to one’s behavior could be somewhat effective? [Reducing CBT to an app/AI platform seems to currently be failing.] (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/health/artificial-intelligence-therapy-woebot.html)
I have no education/experience in analyzing psychological papers though, so hopefully someone with more experience can chime in and let me know if my 10-minute skim and analysis is incorrect.
I’m equally curious about all the questions you raise. I briefly skimmed this paper, which seems to have a few interesting points in reference to succesful intervention methods:
In response to your question of:
The answer seems to be that extreme loneliness may be based on having a poor social environment, where loneliness no longer becomes a motivating factor to just go out and socialize, but instead isolate?
This 2nd paper concludes:
This all seems to suggest that building programs to adjust social patterns may be the most effective form of preventing/reducing loneliness. It strikes me that this form of intervention would likely be expensive if done 1-1 (as it’d most likely be done through trained therapists, which are quite expensive), but possibly could be done en masse for cheap? Possibly a website or app to intake symptoms and suggest changes to one’s behavior could be somewhat effective? [Reducing CBT to an app/AI platform seems to currently be failing.] (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/health/artificial-intelligence-therapy-woebot.html)
I have no education/experience in analyzing psychological papers though, so hopefully someone with more experience can chime in and let me know if my 10-minute skim and analysis is incorrect.