Poor social performance of lonely people: Lacking a skill or adopting a role?

The authors hypothesize that the adoption of passive interpersonal roles predisposes lonely people to exhibit inadequate social performance. In order to test this hypothesis, lonely and nonlonely subjects were assigned to one of two roles: They either listened (Condition Li) to an interaction partner describe a personal problem or they themselves described a personal problem (Condition Pr) to their partner. The subjects' interpersonal role produced a substantial effect on their social behavior. Subjects who listened to their partner describe a problem generated more solutions to a set of hypothetical situations, attended to their partners more adequately, and conversed longer than did subjects who described a personal problem. In contrast, lonely subjects did not differ from nonlonely subjects in their social performance within each particular role. Lonely and nonlonely subjects did differ, however, in their subjective evaluations of themselves and of their performance. These results illustrate the need for research to address both the interpersonal and the intrapersonal bases of social performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)