People who are lonely may, literally, perceive the world around them differently than individuals who are not lonely. Baek and associates found via a functional MRI-based study that “lonely people may view the world in a way that is different from their peers. These findings raise the possibility that being surrounded predominantly by people who view the world differently from oneself may be a risk factor for loneliness (even if one socializes regularly with them). . . . one possibility is that lonely individuals do not find value in the same aspects of situations or scenes as their peers (and instead focus on other aspects of situations in an idiosyncratic fashion), perhaps because of differences in their preferences, expectations, and/or memories that can in turn shape how they attend to and interpret stimuli. This may result in a reinforcing feedback loop in which lonely individuals perceive themselves to be different from their peers, which may in turn lead to further challenges in achieving social connection.”
Elisa Baek, Ryan Hyon, Karina Lopez, Meng Du, Mason Porter, and Carolyn Parkinson. “Lonely Individuals Process the World in Idiosyncratic Ways.” Psychological Science, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221145316