Late-life Social Integration

: What shapes loneliness in late-life?

 

 

Most of the harmful effects of social isolation on health occur through loneliness. We are investigating factors that shape loneliness and how the factors interact with each other. We are currently investigating what position in social networks makes the elderly feel lonely, and what moderating factor assuages the feeling of loneliness even under the context of social isolation. Also, we wonder which social relationship can most easily cause loneliness. To answer this question, we utilized the Cyberball task paradigm in the MRI scanner, capturing participants’ response to social exclusion (the Cyberball task is designed to make participants feel lonely as they are excluded during a virtual ball-tossing game). Notably, we implemented real-world social networks into the task. Using the task, we are examining the neural/behavioral response to social exclusion associated with the context of real-world social relationships.