The Influence of Loneliness on Perceived Connectedness and Trust Beliefs – Longitudinal Evidence from the Netherlands

Abstract

While social pluralism and diversity are central characteristics of functioning democracies, civil society and democratic institutions require citizens to perceive themselves as an integral part of society in order to function. This stems from a general sense of unity and cohesion and a mutual understanding of citizens that institutions and other members of the society are trustworthy. While objective aspects of social embeddedness, that is organizational membership and inter-relational contact, are established predictors of these outcomes, perceived loneliness is rarely investigated. This study investigates whether changes in loneliness reduce levels of perceived connectedness and political and interpersonal trust beliefs. By analyzing 12 waves of panel data from the Netherlands gathered between 2008 and 2020 ( n = 41,508 observations from 9954 individuals), the analysis shows that intra-personal variation in loneliness predicts a citizen`s sense of connectedness and interpersonal trust beliefs. Regarding political trust, the relationship was not found with panel fixed effect.