Abstract
Do cultural norms that allow individuals to choose their social relationships put them at risk for, or protect them from, loneliness? After all, more freedom to choose whom to relate to may promote that individuals can choose higher-quality relationships (which protects from loneliness), but it may also imply a higher risk of social isolation (which puts at risk for loneliness). We propose that the solution to this cultural loneliness paradox of choice is to distinguish whether more individual choice flows from cultural norms that provide more opportunities for new relationships (as implied by higher relational mobility; higher RMn), or from cultural norms that allow to leave established relationships (as implied by lower relational stability; lower RSn). Specifically, we suggest that more individual choice protects from loneliness when emerging from higher RMn (which allows to establish new higher-quality relationships), but puts at risk for loneliness when emerging from lower RSn (which increases the risk of social isolation by undermining the stability of established relationships). Findings from two cross-sectional survey studies in four European countries (Study 1: Finland, N = 237; Portugal, N = 261; Study 2: Poland, N = 242; Austria, N = 2 41) supported this line of thought: Higher RMn was consistently related to lower loneliness across all samples, and lower RSn was related to higher loneliness in two out of four samples (and either non-significantly related to higher loneliness or unrelated to it in the other two samples). We discuss the importance and implications of differentiating RMn and RSn to resolve the cultural loneliness paradox of choice.
Highlights
Do cultural norms that allow individuals to choose their social relationships put them at risk for, or protect them from, loneliness? After all, more freedom to choose whom to relate to may promote that individuals can choose higher-quality relationships, but it may imply a higher risk of social isolation
We focus on what we call the cultural loneliness paradox of choice—that cultural norms that encourage that individuals can freely choose their social relationships may increase the risk for and protect from loneliness at the same time
We base our reasoning on the literature on relational mobility as socioecological notion, which describes the individual choice regarding social relationships that flows from opportunities to create new relationships in a social environment (Yuki & Schug, 2012)
Summary
Do cultural norms that allow individuals to choose their social relationships put them at risk for, or protect them from, loneliness? After all, more freedom to choose whom to relate to may promote that individuals can choose higher-quality relationships (which protects from loneliness), but it may imply a higher risk of social isolation (which puts at risk for loneliness). Norms about the maintenance of established relationships (i.e., RSn) have so far implicitly been seen as part of relational mobility (with higher relational mobility implying lower RSn), we propose that, to explain the cultural loneliness paradox of choice, it may be useful to differentiate RMn and RSn as distinct sets of cultural norms that underlie individual choice regarding social relationships. We tested these ideas in survey studies in four different European countries (Finland, Portugal, Austria, and Poland)
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