The loneliness paradox: a scoping review of cognitive biases in loneliness

Kiyak, Ceyda, Edwards, S. Gareth and Bengtsson, Sara L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0887-7344 (2026) The loneliness paradox: a scoping review of cognitive biases in loneliness. Cognition and Emotion. pp. 1-17. ISSN 0269-9931

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Abstract

Loneliness motivates reconnection, yet paradoxically fosters hypervigilance to negative social cues and cognitive biases that may serve self-protection. This scoping review mapped studies of three biases, attention, interpretation and approach-avoidance, through the lens of Social Information Processing model, to identify patterns and methodological gaps. Searches of PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science identified 50 studies using behavioural, eye-tracking, psychophysiological, self-report and neural measures. Findings depended on how each bias was measured. Behavioural evidence for attention bias towards negative social cues was mixed, whereas neural evidence more consistently showed heightened responses to such cues. Interpretation bias was the most consistent finding in which lonely individuals interpreted ambiguous social cues as hostile or rejecting. Evidence on approach-avoidance bias was limited but theoretically informative. Situational loneliness was linked to approach and chronic loneliness to avoidance. Because almost all studies were cross-sectional, they reflect between-person differences rather than the within-person processes that evolutionary accounts describe. Future research needs within-person and experimental designs, reliable bias measures, more studies of children and adolescents, and a clearer distinction between situational and chronic loneliness.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability: No new data were generated in this review. All data charted from the included studies are provided in the Supplementary Material (Supplementary TableS1), and the review protocol is available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/uckzy/).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	loneliness,cognitive bias,attention bias,interpretation bias,approach-avoidance,psychology(all),sdg 3 - good health and well-being,das in place,).,2026 ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Social Cognition Research Group Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Cognition, Action and Perception
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	06 Nov 2026 11:34
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2026 00:07
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/104998
DOI:	10.1080/02699931.2026.2753638

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