Unraveling the Role of Loneliness in Depression: The Relationship Between Daily Life Experience and Behavior

Focusing on temporal associations between momentary (or state) loneliness, appraisal of social company, and being alone in daily life may help elucidate mechanisms that contribute to the development of prolonged (or trait) loneliness and major depressive disorder (MDD). We aim to examine if (a) a self-reinforcing loop between loneliness, negative appraisals of social company, and being alone in daily life may contribute to trait loneliness; (b) this possible self-reinforcing loop may also contribute to the development of MDD, by testing differences in temporal relationships between these social elements in participants who did or did not develop MDD during follow-up; and (c) any of these social elements at baseline predicted a MDD at follow-up.status: publishe