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Tendency to Share Positive Emotions Buffers Loneliness-Related Negativity in the Context of Shared Adversity.

Nicholas R HarpMaital Neta
Published in: Journal of research in personality (2022)
Loneliness is associated with adverse outcomes, and the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to increase loneliness. How loneliness-related outcomes unfold, though, varies across individuals. Individuals' sense of social connectedness and engagement with others to regulate emotional experiences (interpersonal emotion regulation; IER) may modulate loneliness-related outcomes. Individuals failing to maintain social connectedness and/or regulate emotions may be at heightened risk. We assessed how loneliness, social connectedness, and IER related to valence bias, a tendency to categorize ambiguity as more positive or negative. Loneliness was associated with a more negative valence bias among individuals reporting above average social connectedness but who shared positive emotion less often ( z =-3.19, p =.001). These findings suggest that sharing positive emotional experiences may buffer loneliness-related outcomes during shared adverse experiences.
Keyphrases
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