We are likely to find the emergence of new “neighborhoods” (Bergquist, 1993) In these specialized workplace silos. With long work weeks and evenings spent in front of the computer, there is little time for relating to the people living next door. There are no longer evenings spent on the front porch engaging in conversations with folks from down the street. If there is going to be a party or birthday celebration it is more likely to occur at the office than at the home of people living near us. We might not even know the names of our neighbors—and the mobility (frequent moves) of people living near us makes matters worse.
With attention being devoted to the new neighborhood of the workplace, we are also likely to increase the proportion of interpersonal relationships that are Transactional in nature. As I noted in the first essay in this series, the interactions we have that are “all business” can be identified as transactional. Quite different social norms operate when we are relating in a transactional manner with fellow employees inside our silo – or people with whom we are “doing business” outside the silo. The traditional norms that operate when we are relating to family members and friends do not work when we are being practical and engaging in work-related exchanges of benefits and attending to the formal needs of other people.
As noted by Durkheim, Anomie arises when traditional values, norms and structures are no longer firmly in place. This certainly is the case when transactional norms and values are trumped by the norms and values of business. The structures of large, industrialized businesses—founded on the specialization and standardization of operations—supersede the structures of small, family-owned enterprises as well as the structures of enduring, tightly-interwoven local neighborhoods. Anomie is to be found in abundance when people pass in the night without much to say to one another—and that which is said often is incomprehensible, misunderstood or of little interest to the other person. As David Riesman observed, we are truly living in a lonely crowd.
Having built the bridge between a sociological and psychological perspective regarding loneliness, it is time in this third essay of a five-part series on the wonder of interpersonal relationships to turn our attention directly the psychological perspective.
A Psychological Perspective
One of the major books that provides the psychological perspective was written by John Cacioppo and William Patrick, 2008). They provide a detailed psychological analysis—but first consider the evolutionary history of loneliness in the human species.
