On the other hand, “a well-regulated, social contented person sends social signals that are more harmonious and more in sync with the rest of the environment. Not surprisingly, the signals he or she receives back are more harmonious and better synchronized as well. This ripple back and forth between the individual and others is the corollary to self-regulation.” call it co-regulation—and later note that “co-cognition” (the simultaneous sharing of comparable perspectives) can take place under conditions of co-regulation (Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 167) I suspect that co-regulation and co-cognition are related to the conditions of coherence that we explored previously with regard to the sociology of loneliness.
Finally, we consider the third factor that contributes to the powerful effect of loneliness according to Cacioppo and Patrick. This factor concerns the mental representations and expectations of, as well as reasoning about, others: (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008, p. 14)
“Each of us frames our experience through our own perceptions, which makes each of us, to some extent, the architect of our own social world. The sense we make of our interactions with others is called social cognition. When loneliness takes hold, the ways we see ourselves and others, along with the kinds of responses we expect from others, are heavily influenced by both our feelings of unhappiness and threat and our impaired ability to self-regulate.”
At the heart of the matter is an important social cognition concept that has received considerable attention in psychological circles over the past couple of decades. This concept is called “theory of mind.” It relates to our capacity (usually developed in early childhood) to understand and appreciate the way in which other people are thinking and how this way of thinking translates into action. With a clear “theory of mind” in place we can distinguish between our own way of thinking and that of other people, while also (ideally) being accepting (even empathetic) of this difference (Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 115):
“Theory of mind, which is what we call the ability to have insights int other people’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions, develops in humans when we are about two years old. This is the same time when we begin to recognize ourselves in mirrors. So self-awareness and the ability to understand the feelings and intentions signaled by others may be connected. The biologist N. K Humphrey has even suggested that the adaptive value of being able to detect the emotional state of another person may be what led, not just to the development of human intelligence, but to the development of human consciousness itself.”
Cacioppo and Patrick assert that our theory of mind is disrupted when we are in the thralls of loneliness. They point, in particular, to disruptions at a neurological level to engage this uniquely human capacity. It is at this point that our two authors introduce perspectives and research findings from another emerging subdiscipline (like evolutionary psychology) that interweaves social psychology with a once-separate discipline. In this case, the other discipline is neurobiology and the subdiscipline is called socio- neuropsychology.
The Neuropsychology of Loneliness
Cacioppo and Patrick begin their socio-neuropsychological analysis of loneliness by pointing out that the feelings of loneliness are most closely associated with the emotional region of the brain (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008, p. 8). This is the region of the brain (dorsal anterior cingulate) that is also registering physical pain—and our body can’t tell the difference. Other studies have similarly shown that the experience of shame activates the same region. There is physical pain when receiving strong (and unexpected) negative feedback from another person or experiencing a moment of embarrassment.
