Abstract as per original application
(English/Chinese): |
Loneliness, a subjective sense of feeling lonely, has become a global epidemic. It is a significant threat to people's health because it predisposes depression and increases mortality. Conventional belief is that loneliness can be measured by the number of social connections and can be treated by opportunities for social activities. We argue that loneliness is subjective, and existing interventions for loneliness have failed to hit the root of the problem – the altered socio-affective processing. Therefore, we will apply a novel paradigm of intervention grounded in the principles of conditioning to minimize the loneliness feeling in lonely adults. Existing evidence has demonstrated the potential of using conditioning paradigm in treating people with social anxiety. Other applications have also proven success, such as in increasing self-esteem, reducing drinking behaviors.
This novel conditioning paradigm will train the participants in associating positive emotional stimuli with social scene stimuli. This will create a transfer of positive valence to the social scenes that capture social encountering, producing a more positive perception to social interaction in the participants. As people’s perception of social interaction is closely tied to their loneliness feeling, after this intervention paradigm, it is expected that lonely people will benefit from the paradigm and have reduced loneliness feeling. Of not is that loneliness can be distinguished into social loneliness and emotional loneliness, which are mostly related to people’s different social networks and how they are predisposed. Therefore, we will recruit 180 high-social-lonely adults and high-emotional-lonely adults and assess the efficacy of a 6-session conditioning paradigm by investigating the conditioning-induced change in their socio-affective processing, loneliness, depressive symptoms, and neural correlates pre-, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention using a randomized controlled trial design. To understand fully their change in loneliness levels, their loneliness will be evaluated objectively by the changes in their loneliness-related brain networks, implicitly by reaction-time test, and subjectively by self-report questionnaire. Daily loneliness levels throughout the study will also be measured to understand the impact of the conditioning intervention paradigm on their loneliness levels across time
The outcome of this project will benefit the general population in this pandemic era in promoting betterment of mental health and quality of life, bringing positive change to well-being. It will also generate in-depth understanding of how loneliness is tied to socio-affective processing and how loneliness can be reduced by applying principles of conditioning.
孤獨是一種主觀的負面感受。近年來，孤獨感已經成為一種全球性的流行病。孤獨感對健康有顯著的不利影響，亦是抑鬱症和高死亡率的潛在危險因素。傳統觀點認為，孤獨是可以通過增加人參與社交活動的機會和次數來減少。但由於孤獨是一種主觀的心理活動，我們認為此方案不能精準解決問題的根源 - 社交及情緒處理的改變。
我們提出基於條件反射原理的干預措施將有助成年人對抗孤獨感。現有證據表明，使用條件反射干預對治療社交焦慮症患者有顯著成效。在其他方面，例如提高自信心、減少飲酒行為等，也有積極的干預效果。在本項目中，我們將應用條件反射原理訓練參加者將正向的刺激物與社交場景連結，增強其對社交場景的積極性和正面態度。由於人對社交的感受和孤獨感息息相關，我們期望較孤獨的人的孤獨感能得以舒緩。孤獨可以分為社交孤獨以及情感孤獨，並與人不同的社交網絡有關。我們將招募180位具較高社交孤獨感及具較高情感孤獨感的參加者進行6節條件反射的干預訓練，並採用隨機對照試驗設計在干預前、後、及3個月後測試他們的社交及情緒處理能力、孤獨感、抑鬱症狀、大腦神經網絡。為了全面了解參加者孤獨感的變化，除問卷調查外，我們還將使用反應時間測試及腦掃瞄。我們同時亦會收集參加者每天的孤獨感數據，以評估本項目的干預成效。
本項目提出的研究將促進民眾的心理健康和改善其生活質量，同時有助更深入了解孤獨感形成的心理機制，以及條件反射的應用對孤獨感的干預成效。
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