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Solitude Skills and the Private Self

Qualitative Psychology

December 2021
10(1):121-139

DOI:10.1037/qup0000218

Authors:

Virginia Thomas

Middlebury College

The construct of solitude skills suggests that successfully navigating the domain of solitude may require specific psychological resources, but this theoretical possibility has not yet been investigated empirically. Fourteen well-adjusted adults (Mage=49.5) participated in a qualitative study that examined their lived experiences with solitude and sought to identify the skills they utilized when engaging in positive solitude. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of narrative data resulted in the identification of eight solitude skills organized within three central concepts: Connect with Self included the skills of enjoying solitary activities, emotion regulation, and introspection; the skills included in Protect Time were making time to be alone, using that time mindfully, and validating one’s need for solitude; and the skills of Find a Balance included heeding signals to enter solitude and knowing when to exit solitude. These findings illuminate how the documented benefits of solitude are enacted and illustrate how solitude sustains the private self, which clinicians have argued promotes well-being (Modell, 1992). Knowledge of these skills may be valuable for those who volitionally enter solitude as well as those who find themselves in unwanted isolation. These findings lay the groundwork for future studies to examine whether the solitude skills identified here apply to other populations, and to explore the efficacy of solitude skills trainings in promoting psychological well-being or as a clinical intervention.

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APPLIED ARTICLE

Solitude Skills and the Private Self

Virginia Thomas

Department of Psychology, Middlebury College

The construct of solitude skills suggests that successfully navigating the domain of solitude

may require speciﬁc psychological resources, but this theoretical possibility has not yet been

investigated empirically. Fourteen well-adjusted adults (M

age

=49.5) participated in a

qualitative study that examined their lived experiences with solitude and sought to identify

the skills they utilized when engaging in positive solitude. Thematic analysis (Braun &

Clarke, 2006) of narrative data resulted in the identiﬁcation of eight solitude skills organized

within three central concepts: Connect with Self included the skills of enjoying solitary

activities, emotion regulation, and introspection; the skills included in Protect Time were

making time to be alone, using that time mindfully, and validating one’s need for solitude;

and the skills of Find a Balance included heeding signals to enter solitude and knowing

when to exit solitude. These ﬁndings illuminate how the documented beneﬁts of solitude are

enacted and illustrate how solitude sustains the private self, which clinicians have argued

promotes well-being (Modell, 1992). Knowledge of these skills may be valuable for those

who volitionally enter solitude as well as those who ﬁnd themselves in unwanted isolation.

These ﬁndings lay the groundwork for future studies to examine whether the solitude skills

identiﬁed here apply to other populations, and to explore the efﬁcacy of solitude skills

trainings in promoting psychological well-being or as a clinical intervention.

Keywords: solitude, well-being, private self, emotion regulation, thematic analysis

Humans are social and solitary creatures both.

We spend much of our lives engaged in relation-

ships with others, and the psychological literature

on attachment attests to the primacy of social

connection for well-being (cf. Bowlby, 1988).

Yet literature indicates that intentionally retreat-

ing from the social sphere is also beneﬁcial for

well-being, a point demonstrated in empirical

studies showing solitude’s role in self-regulation

(Nguyen et al., 2018) and self-reﬂection (Long &

Averill, 2003), and in the clinical literature

arguing that solitude is necessary to sustain the

authentic, private self (Modell, 1993).

Deﬁning Solitude

Solitude has been deﬁned as volitional time

spent by oneself that is generally used construc-

tively; in other words, alone time that is sought after

and utilized for the purpose of engaging in intrinsi-

cally motivated activities (Galanaki, 2013;Koch,

1994;Larson, 1990;Marcoen & Goossens, 1993).

Solitude is marked by an absence of communica-

tion and interaction with other people, typically—

but not necessarily—involving physical separation

from others. For example, someone may be in a

public place but still be in solitude by choosing to

not interact with others (Burger, 1995).

Volition is important in this deﬁnition because

it indicates a desire to be alone, making solitude

distinct from loneliness. Loneliness is conceptu-

alized as an unwanted, negative state of real or

perceived social isolation, marked by a longing

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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

This article was published Online First December 20, 2021.

Virginia Thomas https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8751-

8213

The author wishes to thank Anjali Dutt and Margarita

Azmitia for reading drafts of this manuscript and providing

feedback throughout the writing process.

Correspondence concerning this article should be

addressed to Virginia Thomas, Department of Psychology,

Middlebury College, 276 Bicentennial Way #280, Middle-

bury, VT 05753, United States. Email: vthomas@middle

bury.edu

121

Qualitative Psychology

ISSN: 2326-3601 https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000218

for companionship, rather than a desire to be

alone (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010). In contrast,

volitional solitude seeking increases the chance

that being alone will be a positive, beneﬁcial

experience (Larson, 1990;Lay et al., 2019;

Long & Averill, 2003).

Theoretical and empirical literature both

point to the beneﬁts of solitude throughout the

lifespan, as evidenced by the following examples.

Winnicott (1958) theorized that the capacity for

solitude begins in infancy and considered a per-

son’s lack of anxiety when alone to be a develop-

mental achievement. Children who prefer solitary

play demonstrate higher attention spans and

display less emotional negativity and hostility

than their more sociable peers (Coplan & Armer,

2007;Youngblade et al., 1999). Solitude in ado-

lescence creates opportunities for identity develop-

ment, autonomy, and mood regulation (for a

review, see Goossens, 2014), and for college stu-

dents, opportunities for increased self-awareness

(Franzoi & Brewer, 1984), emotional renewal

(Long & Averill, 2003), and personal growth

(Thomas & Azmitia, 2019). In adulthood, comfort

with being alone correlated positively with satis-

faction in life and negatively with depression

(Larson & Lee, 1996), and older adults’solitude-

seeking behaviors have been shown to result in

positive affect (Lay et al., 2020).

However, there are risks involved with spend-

ing time alone. A preference for solitude has been

correlated with loneliness (Burger, 1995), and

excessive social withdrawal can create adjust-

ment difﬁculties for children (Rubin et al.,

2009) and adolescents in particular (Bowker

et al., 2014;Wang et al., 2013). Time spent alone

has also been correlated with low mood (Larson,

1990), social anxiety (Alden & Auyeung, 2014),

and rumination (Lay et al., 2019).

In weighing the beneﬁts and risks of spending

time alone, it is important to state again that

aloneness is a multidimensional construct, one

that can include constructive solitude but also

states of unwanted loneliness and isolation

(Maes et al., 2015). Thus, it is critical to distin-

guish between solitude that is self-determined,or

autonomously chosen and generally positively

experienced, versus not self-determined, because

of their distinct correlations, respectively, to

enhanced or impaired psychosocial functioning

(Deci & Ryan, 2008;Thomas & Azmitia, 2019).

In other words, the states of anxious solitude

(Gazelle & Druhen, 2009 ) and positive solitude

(Ost Mor et al., 2020) are markedly distinct.

Positive solitude is not only volitional, but also

rich in meaning and enjoyment, whereas anxious

solitude is characterized by social inhibition and

peer rejection and is associated with poor psy-

chosocial outcomes.

Solitude can thus be viewed as an “experiential

niche”ﬁlled with both opportunities and dangers

(Larson, 1990, p. 156). Although much has been

written about the necessity of avoiding the dan-

gers of spending time alone, there is compara-

tively little articulation of how one might

maximize the opportunities. In other words,

how does one have a constructive, positive expe-

rience of solitude?

The Theoretical Construct of Solitude Skills

Decades ago, Rubenstein and Shaver (1982)

invoked the term solitude skills for the ﬁrst time,

suggesting that navigating the domain of solitude

and beneﬁting from time alone may require spe-

ciﬁc psychological resources or abilities. Without

the skills to utilize solitude constructively, people

may go inward only to ﬁnd themselves lonely,

bored, or depressed.

The identiﬁcation of skills in other psycholog-

ical domains has been well established; for exam-

ple, social skills trainings have been successful in

helping people move past social anxiety to func-

tion more readily in interpersonal relationships

and social groups (see Durlak et al., 2010 for a

review), and successful behavioral interventions

for depression include training individuals to use

adaptive coping skills during stressful experi-

ences (Puskar et al., 2007). By extension, it is

reasonable to expect that solitude skills trainings

could have analogous positive effects in the

intrapersonal sphere, promoting, for example,

identity development and self-regulation, and

potentially reducing experiences of loneliness

when individuals are alone.

However, to date psychologists have not inves-

tigated whether such skills exist, and if they do,

how they are enacted. Educators have suggested

the need for solitude skills curricula in our school

systems (Byrnes, 1983;Galanaki, 2005), but have

yet to articulate how children and adolescents can

develop and use these skills productively. In the

clinical arena, Rook (1988) differentiated

between loneliness that derives from a lack of

social skills versus a lack of solitude skills, but

these skills were not described. There are claims

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122 THOMAS

that volitional solitude can serve as a treatment for

loneliness and depression (Burke, 1992;Knafo,

2012;Rook & Peplau, 1982;Young, 1982), yet

the skills needed to transform alone time into a

positive solitude experience rather than an isolat-

ing or terrifying one remain unspeciﬁed.

Aims and Research Question

Despite the lack of empirical evidence thus far,

the concept of solitude skills is theoretically

sound and worthy of investigation. The present

study was therefore designed to ﬁll this empirical

gap and determine whether there is indeed evi-

dence for solitude skills, and in so doing afﬁrm or

modify existing assumptions about such skills. In

short, the study sought to answer the following

research question: What are the skills individuals

utilize to experience solitude positively and con-

structively? Given the exploratory nature of the

research question, a qualitative study was de-

signed to identify and describe an initial set of

solitude skills, and no hypothesis testing was

proposed.

This research is timely because individuals are

increasingly spending more of their hours alone,

sometimes volitionally, as in the recent trend

worldwide trend of choosing to live alone

(Klinenberg, 2012) or involuntarily, as in the

case of being widowed (Dahlberg et al., 2018)

or socially isolated due to the coronavirus disease

(COVID-19) pandemic (Luchetti et al., 2020). In

addition, people of all ages are increasingly

spending more time alone online, and the costs

and beneﬁts of solitary digital technology have

been documented and regularly updated as these

technologies continue to evolve and become

more mainstream (see Burnell et al., 2021, for

a review). While some studies have found that

solitary online experiences can be useful, for

example in terms of relieving stress (Leung,

2015) or accessing mental health resources

(Hollis et al., 2020), other evidence indicates

that excessive smartphone use is a lonely, isolat-

ing experience rather than a socially connected

one (Kim, 2021;Thomas et al., 2021;Twenge

et al., 2019).

Loneliness is a problem with both societal and

individual consequences (Hawkley & Cacioppo,

2010), and if learning how to transform alone time

into a positive experience of solitude would help

to ameliorate loneliness or depression, as some

have suggested, then identifying and describing

speciﬁc solitude skills is essential. Furthermore,

an understanding of solitude skills would con-

tribute to a better understanding of what a capac-

ity for solitude looks like (Winnicott, 1958),

including how individuals who are proﬁcient in

solitude approach their alone time and extract

meaning from it, and would potentially increase

the likelihood that people who attempt solitude

will reap the beneﬁts.

Method

The present study was conducted in three

phases: (a) an online survey, which effectively

served as a screening tool for study participation;

(b) an experiential component of a solitude date;

and (c) a follow-up interview. Approval for the

study was granted by the academic Institutional

Review Board overseeing Human Subjects

Research (approval no. #HS2299).

Recruitment

Purposive sampling was utilized to recruit

adults who were positively oriented to solitude

and had multiple life experiences of spending

extensive time alone. To increase the likelihood

of transferability of results, the study avoided

sampling extreme solitaires, such as self-

identiﬁed hermits, recluses, or individuals living

in remote areas for months or years at a time (see

Storr, 1988). Rather, this study recruited partici-

pants between the ages of 30 and 60 who were not

yet retired to target adults were actively engaged

in societal roles, with commitments to work and

family or friends in their daily lives, yet who still

sought out solitude within those constraints; a

time of life identiﬁed as the generativity stage in

Erikson’s life stage model (1997). Because of

solitude’s noteworthy associations with creativ-

ity and spirituality (Koch, 1994;Storr, 1988), an

announcement about the study was posted on an

online creative writing network, local to a city on

the West Coast of the U.S., and at a Buddhist

meditation center located on the East Coast of the

United States, with an additional snowball effect

of word of mouth. The recruitment ﬂyer opened

with “A call to those who enjoy being alone”with

an invitation to participate in a research study to

“share your experiences of solitude,”and brieﬂy

listed the three phases of the study and a con-

tact email.

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SOLITUDE SKILLS 123

Recruited participants completed an online

survey where they gave their written consent to

participate. The online survey served as a screen-

ing tool to assess their status as solitude experts.A

review of expertise in a variety of domains

(Hatano & Oura, 2003) distinguished experts

from novices in the following ways: experts

have rich knowledge of the domain in question;

experts have gained this knowledge over years of

experience with the domain; and their knowledge

and experience over time have been accompanied

by socioemotional changes (for an example of

this approach in the ﬁeld of creativity, see

Kaufman et al., 2005). The prestudy survey,

administered online, inquired about the fre-

quency and duration of time spent alone by choice

in their daily lives and assessed their afﬁnity for

solitude through two psychometric scales: the

Preference for Solitude Scale (Burger, 1995)

and the Motivation for Solitude Scale Short-

Form (Thomas & Azmitia, 2019). Additionally,

participants completed the UCLA Loneliness

Scale, Short-Form (Hays & DiMatteo, 1987)to

avoid oversampling a lonely population and

potentially conﬂating positive solitude skills

with coping strategies for loneliness.

Participants

Fifteen participants were recruited and com-

pleted the prestudy survey; one participant

declined to complete the remainder of the study.

This resulted in an analytic sample of 14 adults,

aged 33–61 (M

age

=49.5). Eight participants (six

women; two men) identiﬁed as creative writers

and were employed in a related profession (e.g.,

literature professor, book editor, writing tutor).

Six participants (three women; three men) iden-

tiﬁed as contemplatives who engaged in regular

meditation practice and held full- or part-time

staff positions at a contemplative retreat center

grounded in Buddhist teachings. Participants

identiﬁed as White (N=11), Japanese/French

Canadian (N=1), White/Irish (N=2), and

claimed their nation of origin as Australia

(N=1), Canada (N=1), and the United States

(N=12), although all were living in the U.S. at

the time of data collection. Eight were in long-

term relationships, and three were parents of

children currently living with them.

On average, participants reported inten-

tionally spending an average of 30.1 hr alone

per week for pleasure, beyond time spent alone

for work purposes. Nine of the fourteen parti-

cipants had spent at least two consecutive days

alone at some point in the past 2 years. Alto-

gether, the sample showed high preference for

solitude (M=10.29, SD =1.68; maximum

possible score of 12), high self-determined moti-

vation for solitude (M=25.43, SD =5.26;

maximum possible score of 32), and moderately

low loneliness (M=17.0, SD =4.45; maxi-

mum possible score of 32). Thus, on the whole,

participants spent signiﬁcant amounts of time

alone in their daily lives, despite their work,

social, or family commitments, exhibited a high

preference for solitude, were motivated for soli-

tude for self-determined reasons, and were not

overly lonely.

Procedure

Solitude Date

After completing the online survey, partici-

pants agreed to spend one full day alone on a

solitude date (Manalastas, 2011) at a time of their

choosing. Rather than place constraints or rules

on where or how participants spent their time, no

instructions were provided for how to spend their

day in solitude and each person made their own

choices about internet use, phone use, and being

inside or outside of their homes. The rationale for

the lack of instruction stemmed from the research

goal of examining how solitude was enacted in

daily life and what skills were used to enjoy such

time alone, without intervention or inﬂuence from

the author of the study. By permitting participants

to exercise their own agency on their solitude

date, unencumbered by a set of external expecta-

tions or rules, the author aimed to more accurately

examine solitude in vivo.

Participants were provided with a worksheet to

complete at the end of their solitude date, which

was an adapted form of the Day Reconstruction

Method (Kahneman et al., 2004). The worksheet

invited participants to jot notes about their day in

solitude, including the various activities they

engaged in, their moods throughout the day,

and things they thought about during their time

alone. Use of the worksheet was optional, and

participants were informed that the worksheet’s

purpose was only as a memory aid for the subse-

quent interview, and the worksheet would not be

collected nor analyzed.

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124 THOMAS

Interview

Within 48 hr of completing their solitude date

each participant engaged in a semi-structured,

private interview by phone with the author, which

lasted approximately 1 hr and was audio re-

corded. The author began each interview by

describing the purpose of the study, which was

to understand how people experience solitude,

including both positive and negative experiences

of being alone, with a particular interest in hearing

from individuals like themselves who frequently

sought out solitude. In an effort to be transparent

and build rapport, the author brieﬂy shared that

she herself had a long history of appreciating

solitude, although sometimes found it challeng-

ing to acquire alone time given the demands of

parenthood while working full-time, and there-

fore was also interested in how participants bal-

anced their current commitments and

relationships with their desire for solitude. The

author thus positioned herself as both academi-

cally and personally invested in the research

question, and in a similar stage of life as many

of the participants, while also approaching the

interview with an attitude of openness and

curiosity.

The interview questions were constructed using

a two-pronged approach: the ﬁrst half of the

interview elicited from the participants the activi-

ties, thoughts, and feelings experienced during

their recent solitude date; the second half asked

them to share and reﬂect on their experiences of

solitude more generally, past and present. This

two-pronged approach allowed the interviewer to

examine the phenomenology of the solitude expe-

rience through a “micro”lens, by probing for

speciﬁcs of how participants navigated a recent

episode of time alone, as well as through a

“macro”lens, by listening to participants share,

reﬂect on, and evaluate their lived experiences of

solitude in a diverse range of contexts over time.

The semistructured format of the interview and the

predominance of open-ended questions allowed

for conversational dialogue and ample opportu-

nity for follow-up questions, clariﬁcations, and

requests for illustrative examples.

Given that the meanings of solitude may vary

from person to person, each participant was

asked to deﬁne solitude and how they would

differentiate it from loneliness. Participants

were unanimous in afﬁrming that there were

distinct differences between these two states.

They described solitude as primarily an enjoy-

able state of being alone, typically engaged in by

choice and accompanied by positive connota-

tions, often using metaphors of value and full-

ness, such as “a gift,”“enriching,”and “feeling

nourished.”In contrast, they described loneli-

ness in negative terms, such as feeling “empty,”

“hollow,”and “disconnected.”For instance,

Mika

differentiated these states as such:

Loneliness is a longing. My heart wants something

that’s not there. And it’s a pull, I feel somewhat melan-

choly or like I’m missing something. Solitude is—it’s

like (sigh), it’s a peace, I’m—I’m whole and complete

and my heart feels content being with me, like I don’t

feel the need or the pull for something outside of myself.

There’s a sense of wholeness and fullness.

Thus, by ﬁrst eliciting from participants their

own deﬁnition of the phenomenon under investi-

gation, the author could more conﬁdently ensure

that subsequent questions were built on a more

mutual understanding of what the term soli-

tude meant.

To avoid inﬂuencing the participants to view

their solitude experiences through the lens of

skills, the term itself was never used in the inter-

view. Rather, open-ended questions about their

lived experiences of solitude, both positive and

negative, were used to see if concepts related to

the theoretical proposal of solitude skills arose

organically in the interview. For instance, parti-

cipants were asked what motivated them to seek

solitude, how they beneﬁted from solitude, and

what they enjoyed about being alone. Given prior

literature pointing out potential pitfalls of soli-

tude, in particular low mood and negative affect

(Goossens, 2014;Lay et al., 2019), participants

were also asked about any difﬁculties they faced

around solitude, in particular whether they expe-

rienced negative emotions such as loneliness or

boredom when alone and if so, how they re-

sponded. Finally, they were asked whether and

how their enjoyment of solitude affected other

people, and what messages they had received

about solitude from their family, friends, and

cultures in which they had lived.

Analysis

Interviews were transcribed verbatim for anal-

ysis and pseudonyms were assigned to protect

participants’identities. The interviews were

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All participant names are pseudonyms.

SOLITUDE SKILLS 125

analyzed using a phenomenologically informed

thematic analysis, which focuses on the subjec-

tive experiences and perspectives of a small group

of participants on a given topic, analyzes narra-

tives thematically rather than idiographically to

identify meaningful patterns in the dataset, and

utilizes an organic, iterative coding process

(Braun & Clarke, 2006;Braun et al., 2019).

Thematic analysis (TA) is a ﬂexible approach

that allows for active engagement with the data to

identify shared meanings across the dataset and

interpret them in a coherent and compelling way,

while not being constrained by a particular epis-

temological framework or methodological

tradition.

The ﬂexibility of TA thus accommodates the

phenomenological aspect of this study, that is

closely examining individuals’lived experiences

of a speciﬁc and often underexplored phenomena,

as well as supports the aim of generating theory—

in this case, articulating a set of solitude skills

both theoretically consistent with previous litera-

ture on the beneﬁts of solitude and potentially

transferable to populations beyond the study

sample. Finally, TA’s active and reﬂexive

approach (Braun et al., 2019) to coding qualita-

tive interviews reﬂects a post-positivist paradigm

(Guba & Lincoln, 1994), and is especially useful

when examining exploratory research questions

that do not involve hypothesis testing. A phenom-

enologically informed approach to thematic anal-

ysis was therefore determined to be the

appropriate analytic method for the present study.

Prior to coding, familiarization of the data took

place through a process of immersive reading of

each manuscript. Coding categories were not

developed a priori, given the lack of empirical

literature on solitude skills; rather, codes were

generated during analysis in an iterative, inter-

pretive process drawn from intensive, multiple

readings of each transcript.

Inductive coding occurred during subsequent

readings of the transcripts, taking ﬁrst the form of

captions or phrases which captured the essence of

the content. These initial codes were provisional

and semantic in nature; care was taken to stay

close to the meaning of the participants’original

words. Next, semantic coding transitioned to

latent coding, a more interpretive process that

considered the semantic codes as the surface

features of underlying conceptual patterns across

the dataset (Braun et al., 2019), and ﬁdelity to the

meaning of the participants’words was preserved

through the linkage of transcript line numbers to

each code.

Using thematic mapping (Braun & Clarke,

2006), latent codes were then clustered theoreti-

cally into candidate themes. An iterative process

was used to promote candidate themes to a ﬁnal

set of themes; as new candidate themes were

constructed from the latent codes, transcripts

were reviewed again to determine whether the

candidate themes indeed reﬂected the meaning of

the narratives. During this process, candidate

themes were revised, clariﬁed, or dropped.

Aﬁnal set of themes was determined based on

their prevalence within the dataset, theoretical

importance, and relevance to the research ques-

tion (i.e., solitude skills). Further review of the

analysis revealed that the ﬁnal set of eight themes,

or skills, when viewed as a whole, could be seen

as comprising three larger categories, each repre-

senting a central organizing concept, that both

integrated and expanded on the extant literature.

Results

This study investigated the exploratory ques-

tion: What are the skills required to experience

solitude positively and constructively? Analysis

yielded evidence for eight themes (i.e., skills)

clustered within three central organizing con-

cepts: Connect with Self, Protect Time, and

Find a Balance (see Table 1). Each skill is

described, supported by thick description from

participant narratives.

The Skills of Connecting with the Self

The ﬁrst three skills showcased participants’

ability to connect with themselves in three as-

pects: behaviorally, by enjoying meaningful

solitary activities (Skill 1); emotionally, by

experiencing and regulating various emotional

states (Skill 2); and cognitively, by engaging in

introspection and self-insight (Skill 3).

Skill 1: Enjoyment of Solitary Activities

These adults rarely experienced boredom dur-

ing solitude, and they explained its absence as a

function of deriving satisfaction and meaning

from solitary pursuits. This enabled them to

genuinely enjoy time not only by themselves,

but also with themselves. Participants explicitly

described their solitude as “enjoying my own

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126 THOMAS

company”(Doug), “happy with my own com-

pany”(Catherine), and “enjoying being by

myself”(Laurie). A conversation with Diana

illustrated this skill:

I am never, ever bored in solitu de ::: because in solitude

I can follow whatever it is that is interesting. I ﬁnd my

thoughts interesting and if my thoughts aren’t interesting,

well there’s always a book, you know ::: and if I’m, if

I’m not in a reading mood, well I can take a bath, or I

could, you know, dance, or I could water the plants. I

mean ::: there’s nothing about being alonethat’s boring.

Frequently the activities mentioned by parti-

cipants were everyday pleasures such as reading,

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Table 1

Eight Solitude Skills Within Three Central Organizing Concepts

Central organizing

concept Theme Definition of theme Example of theme

Connect with self 1. Enjoyment of solitary

activities

Ability to ﬁnd pleasure and

meaning in solitary activities;

enjoying one’s own company

“I feel nourished by myself

meditating or being creative or

going on a long bike ride by

myself. And then if I’m doing

those things, it’s like I need no

one else, I need nothing else, I

can just be happy and content

with what I’m doing.”

Connect with self 2. Emotion regulation Ability to identify feelings,

tolerate distress, and regulate

emotions

“As my body relaxed, my mind

quieted, I had a lot of tears, I had

an emotional release that felt

really cleansing, even though it

was uncomfortable to feel

sadness.”

Connect with self 3. Introspection Ability to engage in self-reﬂection

and insight

“I process what I’m needing or

going through at the time in my

life, it’s important for me to just

to kind of step back and reﬂect

on everything.”

Protect time 4. Make time for solitude Ability to carve out time for

solitude, and if needed,

negotiate for it

“During the week when I’m

working, and I go to the gym or

Iﬁll my day with stuff, I still

have several hours alone to

recharge or to prepare myself,

and that’s important to me.

Protect time 5. Be mindful of how time

in solitude is spent

Ability to use solitude

intentionally or constructively,

free of distractions or

obligations to others

“[I tell myself] don’tgoonthe

computer because you’re going

to get distracted ::: I just try to

be very disciplined about it so

that I don’t feel interrupted or

empty.”

Protect time 6. Validate need for

solitude

Ability to validate one’s need for

solitude despite judgments from

self, others, or society

“There is kind of this feeling you

know, in our world, in our

society, that if you like to spend

a lot of time alone, there’s

something kind of wrong with

you. And I don’t agree with that

at all.”

Find a balance 7. Heed internal signals to

enter solitude

Ability to notice and act on

internal sensations that signal a

need to enter solitude

“I just feel easily irritated and I just

want everyone to leave me

alone, and so then I’m like, oh

okay, I need to put myself in

time-out.”

Find a balance 8. Know when to exit

solitude

Ability to recognize when solitude

has served its purpose and act

on the desire to re-enter social

life

“I’m feeling restless or lonely :::

I’ve gotten what I need from

being alone, and okay, now

who can I go meet?”

SOLITUDE SKILLS 127

walking in nature, engaging in a hobby, or fol-

lowing their own thoughts in silence. The content

of the solitary activity did not appear to be

signiﬁcant; what mattered was that the activity

was intrinsically pleasurable and meaningful

when experienced alone. Philip made this point

clear when he said:

There isn’t enough time in any day to do the things I

want to do ::: there are a million things I want to read,

there’s a million things I want to watch, and I have my

[screenwriting] project to work on, and I’ve got all

these—so there’s always stuff. And again, I’m not

talking about, like, distractions, they’re really just like

rewarding things that I want to focus my attention on.

The relationship between this skill and its

central organizing concept of Connect with Self

is illustrated by Doug, who attributed previous

experiences of boredom in solitude to “lack of

self-contact, like I’m disconnected from myself.”

He contrasted that with his current experience of

solitude for the present study: “I’m just kind of

content to be with myself ::: I wasn’t longing or

pining or missing anything, relationally. And I

was really connected and present with my own

experience.”

Skill 2: Emotion Regulation

This skill described a willingness to experience

a range of emotions during solitude, tolerate

distress caused by difﬁcult emotions, and process

those emotions until a shift or insight occurred.

Participants identiﬁed both positive and negative

emotional states during their solitude experi-

ences, but this skill centered on their ability to

approach rather than avoid the difﬁcult emotions

that sometimes emerged, including grief, anger,

loneliness, despair, confusion, and anxiety.

Some participants, like Shelby, were startled

by initial negative emotions that surfaced but

were able to accept them:

As my body relaxed, my mind quieted. I had a lot of

tears, I had an emotional release that felt really cleans-

ing, even though it was uncomfortable to feel sadness

::: I could feel in my chest this feeling like my heart is

breaking ::: I also had a process of ::: just kind of

being really welcoming towards whatever was arriving.

Others, like Laurie, intentionally sought soli-

tude in order to process emotions they were

already feeling:

[If I’m feeling] a little bit insecure or a little bit fragile, I

deﬁnitely want to be alone ::: I guess [solitude] lets me

be with [my emotions] in a way where I don’t have to

explain them—it feels like if I’m alone I’m allowed

more time to just kind of let it, let it be ::: and then it

usually just, I kind of move on, move on from it.

Participants echoed each other in sharing that

these difﬁcult emotions did not scare them nor

discourage them from solitude. Rather than

abandon solitude, they chose to stay alone. As

Diana described, “IfeelthatIspendmostofmy

regular life without having enough time to be

really sad and that almost every time I’m alone,

the initial thing that happens is that I go through

intense sadness and then, and then I proceed.”

Participants utilized various strategies to navi-

gate these emotions, from physical movement to

self-reﬂection, and shared stories of successfully

moving through to a more emotionally balanced

state. In Diana’scase,“I thought through the

sadness as far as it needed to go and then it just

evaporated.”

In particular, participants described how they

worked through any loneliness that arose so that

they could return to a more positive experience of

being alone. For example, Audrey shared:

If I’m lonely and I need to get back to the solitude I

might go out to the ocean for a long walk because there’s

something about hearing the waves, seeing the waves,

seeing those little birds scurry across the sand, just

looking at the sand trying to ﬁnd sand dollars, especially

watching the waves, I ﬁnd it very reassuring and then I

just feel so much better and I can hear myself.

Skill 3: Introspection

These adults talked about solitude as an oppor-

tunity to take a step back from their everyday lives

to reﬂect and gain insight about themselves. This

was often framed as a beneﬁt of solitude; for

example, time alone provided the chance for Nora

to “get a new perspective on life”and served as

time for reﬂection for Laurie “when I feel like

there’s something I kind of want to think about or

just kind of sit with for a while.”

Introspection included both a curiosity about

their inner lives as well as a willingness to exam-

ine their own behaviors, feelings, and thoughts.

For Scott, this skill was central to his experience

of solitude: “To me it’s useful to be silent because

then you can see yourself clearly, that’s the whole

point of it.”

For Philip, introspection helped him under-

stand his authentic self. Although he acknowl-

edged that humans are social creatures and in fact

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128 THOMAS

identiﬁed himself as a very sociable person, he

seemed to view his truest self as something

accessible in its most authentic form when

engaged in solitary introspection.

You can’t know who you are if you don’t spend time

completely alone with yourself ::: I think you really get

in touch with what’s going on inside of you, how you’re

feeling, who you are, what your opinions are, what your

beliefs are, knowing how you react to things, yeah, your

internal values, your internal—knowing just everything

about yourself that has nothing to do with other people’s

reactions or who they are. But if we’re all just plugged

into each other, there’s so much other noise that’s

intruding on listening to yourself, your own instincts,

your own feelings. It’s like you lose that if you’re not

spending time alone.

Altogether, the ﬁrst three skills belong in the

central organizing concept of Connect with Self—

a connection that appeared important for these

participants’well-being. However, this state of

self-connection depended on them being able to

protect their time in solitude.

The Skills of Protecting One’s Time

The second central organizing concept, Protect

Time, included the themes of making time for

solitude (Skill 4), using that time mindfully (Skill

5), and validating their need for time alone

(Skill 6).

Skill 4: Make Time for Solitude

Participants expressed the need to be disci-

plined and strategic about securing time in soli-

tude. For example, Audrey shared:

After college, in my twenties, I started drawing. I would

draw every night for four hours and so I think I would

rearrange friends around that time. Because I’d say, well

I have to draw, I need to draw for four hours, I have to

draw, I spend every night drawing for four hours, and so

I can’t see you tonight (laughs) ::: It’s just this thing

that I did and it was like feeding myself. I had to–I had to

do this thing for four hours.

Audrey frequently described solitude as “nour-

ishment”and as an experience akin to being “well

fed.”For her, carving out 4 hr every night to draw

in solitude was as necessary as eating dinner, and

she has continued to practice this skill in her 30s

and 40s, declining social invitations when they

interfere with a need to be alone.

Matt made this skill apparent by discussing his

difﬁculties with it. For him, being a husband and a

father meant he needed to negotiate for solitude if

he wanted to make time for it:

I think it’s one of those things that you go through

negotiations, or you go through like an evolution in

terms of how you deal with it in a relationship. I think

[my wife] is more understanding of that need [for

solitude] now than ever, like you know, the longer

we’ve been together the more she’s realized, you

know, this is just who he is, this is just something he

needs, and she understands that it’s good for me and so

therefore it’s good for us. Right, like I’ll be better to be

around, we’ll both be happier if I get some time—but it’s

always a negotiation because she wants the opposite.

However, the skill of making time for solitude

was especially difﬁcult when close relationships

were unsupportive. For example, Maeve histori-

cally found herself in relationships with people

who “did not get it”and who in fact “took it

personally”when she spent time alone. “I ended

so many relationships because I couldn’tﬁgure

out how to negotiate how badly I needed time for

myself,”she recalled. In order to secure her

solitude in subsequent relationships, Maeve

had to do three things: “explain”her need for

solitude, “ask for it,”and “set the boundaries.”

Skill 5: Be Mindful of how Time in Solitude

Is Spent

This skill described the measures participants

took to make their time in solitude “well spent,”

rather than “wasting”it, to quote Philip. For them,

constructive solitude was dependent on being

mindful that their time alone was volitional,

uninterrupted, and intentional—which included

being free of distractions, especially the internet.

Mika illustrated this when she described her

solitude date for the present study:

Facebook—it can be a real waste of time, and I just

decided that that was not going to be a part of the day. So

not having that as an outlet really brought me back to

what do I want to do right now, like what’s, what’san

opportunity, what’s an available opportunity for me

right now at this moment, instead of just sort of being

swept along by my mind’s preoccupation with the

Internet or with the computer ::: There was more

mindfulness around pretty much everything that I did.

I was much more in touch with myself, I was much more

aware of my mind racing and then me, you know,

wanting to come back to being present.

In most cases, participants shared that they

worked hard to prevent other people from inter-

rupting them, whether it be retreating to a

secluded place or asking people not to call

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SOLITUDE SKILLS 129

them during a certain time of day. However, the

more difﬁcult aspect of securing uninterrupted

solitude was monitoring their own propensity to

interrupt or distract themselves. Audrey attrib-

uted her lack of interruptions while in solitude to

being mindful about what she wanted in the

moment:

I don’t get interrupted very often and (pause) and I think

that I’m, I try to pay really close attention to how I’m

feeling because if I’m feeling in a time of solitude it feels

like, like there’s this cushion around me and, and so I

can say, okay I have this cushion around me, now is a

good time to, to just end up writing or draw or play

music. And then I, then if I want to call somebody, I

really have to say to myself, okay if you call this person,

you’re going to break out of the solitude and you know,

you just have to be aware that it might take a little while

to get back into it.

Finally, the skill of being mindful involved

participants entering the space of solitude with

clear intentions about what they wanted to expe-

rience or accomplish, andnot allowing themselves

to get distracted by meaningless activities. Maeve

described how she distinguished whether or not

her solitude was “worthy”:

Sometimes you know, I just want to lie on the couch and

watch a movie, but I do know like if I go too far with that

like, there’s a certain way in which distractions take me

into that disconnected place in myself ::: I really feel

like part of the reason that I need solitude and part of the

way that solitude can be so helpful for me is that

because, it’s because it allows me to go more deeply

into things that are truly meaningful to me on like a spirit

and soul level, and I don’t, I don’t just like to throw that

time away.

Skill 6: Validate Need for Solitude

This skill described the ability to validate one’s

need for solitude despite judgments from self,

others, or society. Although these participants

emphasized throughout their interviews how nec-

essary time in solitude was for them, they also

acknowledged that it went against social norms.

They were aware that the culture of the United

States in which they all currently lived placed a

high value on socializing and viewed people who

prefer to be alone in deﬁcit terms; “weird,”“anti-

social,”and “selﬁsh”were the most frequent

terms used by participants.

Responses to this cultural bias against solitude

fell on a spectrum. On one end, they diagnosed the

culture as misguided or biased. This helped them

afﬁrm their need for solitude as normal and

natural. For example, Matt shared that he not

only validates his own need for solitude but tries

to be an example for his daughter:

I think American culture is highly skewed towards

extroverts, and that’s kind of seen as the norm, and

the ideal. And so I think solitude is always kind of

looked at with suspicion ::: I think it’s good for [my

daughter] to see solitude as something that’s not nega-

tive, as something that can certainly be positive, and it’s

positive for me ::: I think it’s good that she’s able to see

different ways of being, that there’s not one way that’s

right, or one way that’s ideal, that different people have

different needs. And it doesn’t mean that you’re antiso-

cial or weird or don’t have good people skills or

whatever.

On the other end of the spectrum, they some-

times struggled with these internalized cultural

messages of solitude as signaling deﬁciency.

During these times, they were unable to consis-

tently validate their desire to be alone when they

needed it. Two participants were mothers of

school-aged children, and they often felt guilty

or selﬁsh for seeking solitude because of per-

ceived gendered expectations that they be emo-

tionally available to others at all times. In addition

to self-judgments, many participants worried

about how other people would react to their

need for solitude. For example, Doug said for

much of his life, “The fear was that they would be

upset with me, like they would take it personally

somehow ::: the hesitancy to assert that [need

for solitude] for fear of some kind of retaliation or

rejection.”

Catherine shared how she learned over time to

validate her desire for solitude:

Ten years ago when I was less comfortable with my own

company than I am now ::: going to a party, say, that I

didn’t necessarily want to go to, but I went anyway, and

then waking up and being tired the next morning and

mad at myself ::: choosing to be with people that I

didn’t really want to be with. And then letting myself

down. Yeah, and then I ﬁnally thought, wait a minute,

this is my life. I’m not going to break these promises to

myself anymore. If I want to be at home by myself, I’m

going to be at home by myself. And just tell people, no

thank you. Yeah. And the world did not end.

Catherine’s words suggest that an essential

component of this skill is validating to oneself—

not necessarily to others—the need for solitude

and learning how to ignore or reframe any related

internalized judgment or guilt. Aaron echoed

this sentiment when he said, “The most impor-

tant thing is giving myself permission [to

be alone].”

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130 THOMAS

The Skills of Finding a Balance

The ﬁnal two skills involved creating a healthy

balance of time in solitude versus time in the

social world by noticing internal cues that sig-

naled a need to enter (skill 7) or exit (skill 8)

solitude.

Skill 7: Heed Internal Signals to Enter Solitude

This skill was two-fold; it entailed ﬁrst the

ability to notice internal cues, whether they be

physical sensations or emotions, and interpret

them as signals to enter solitude, and second,

to act on those signals by moving into solitude.

The internal cues were indicators of overstimula-

tion, and were most frequently described as feel-

ing overwhelmed, exhausted, or easily irritated

with others. Doug summarized it as:

It’s like this sense of under my collar is too warm. And

that I can’t hear myself think, you know ::: the emo-

tions, and the irritation ::: this sense of exasperation, I

think overwhelmed is in there somewhere, like I’ve just

got to go be alone ::: I want to take care of myself and

go back to sort of quietly reconnect or see what’s

happening ::: I kind of lost myself here somewhere

so let’s go be by myself again to connect with myself.

It was clear from these participants’stories that

interpreting these signals in a timely and accurate

way was a skill they learned over time. Maeve

described it as such:

I get excessively irritable ::: literally my system just

shuts down ::: I will keep going as long as I can but it

feels like it comes at a really high cost, you know :::

I’ve learned to recognize the early warning signs of

[I’m] going to have a meltdown, right. I start to notice

that I feel overwhelmed, I start to complain about my

surroundings, I start to tell myself stories about how bad

everything is. I’m like, I know what’s happened here,

I’ve just been getting too tired, I’m getting too far away

from myself and I just need some time, I need to get out,

I need to go for a walk in nature by myself, whatever. So,

I think it’s you know either that I’m feeling overstimu-

lated or that I’m feeling like for whatever reason I

haven’t really been attending to, you know, myself

on a spiritual or creative level with those things.

Skill 8: Know When to Exit Solitude

Just as participants recognized internal signals

that prompted them to seek solitude, they likewise

identiﬁed when they needed to exit solitude.

These signals fell into two primary categories:

boredom and loneliness. Philip recognized when

his solitude has served its purposes when, “I’m

feeling restless or lonely ::: I’ve gotten what I

need from being alone, and okay, now who can I

go meet?”Participants emphasized that it was

essential to discern whether these feelings sig-

naled a real need to rejoin the social world, or

whether they instead represented a need to go

deeper into their solitude. Maeve elaborated on

the necessity of discernment when loneliness or

boredom arose:

I’ll get restless when I’m alone and sometimes I’ll be

like, is this restlessness because I’m interested in going

deeper in my own process with myself? Because like if I,

if I get restless and I haven’t felt like I really settled with

myself then I think that it’s not really the sign that I have

to go out and be with people. But you know, if I’ve been

alone a while and I feel like I’ve come to a subtle place

that sort of—Iﬁrst just wait to see what happens and

then you know, what feels like a really natural urge just

to get out and connect more comes to me.

Participants reported that they were glad to

socially reconnect when they felt they had sufﬁ-

cient time in solitude, and in fact remarked that

spending time alone enhanced those relation-

ships. Audrey noted, “I can’t be with people

effectively unless I’ve spent time in solitude,”

and Laurie said, “my solitude helps my interac-

tions.”She elaborated by saying:

[Solitude is] how I kind of recharge, and I think if I’m

feeling, if I’m feeling overwhelmed or if I feel I don’t

have enough time for myself, then I will be cranky and I

will be sort of brusque ::: I just don’t want to really be

around people. Whereas if I’ve had some solitude, yeah,

I think it does [help]. Because then when I’m around

people I’m glad to be around people.

The balance of solitude and sociability that

resulted from the use of these ﬁnal two skills

appeared to foster connection not only with

themselves, but also with others.

Discussion

The set of solitude skills identiﬁed in the

present study supported an experience of positive

solitude for these participants and contributes to

an understanding of how individuals can success-

fully navigate the domain of solitude and reap the

beneﬁts. Furthermore, this study integrates prior

ﬁndings from disparate developmental and clini-

cal traditions and extends that research in

new ways.

Behaviorally, it appears that individuals who

have the capacity to be alone know how to engage

in intrinsically enjoyable activities. Boredom

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SOLITUDE SKILLS 131

signals a failure to engage one’s attention on

meaningful activities (Westgate, 2020), which

explains the notable absence of boredom experi-

enced by these participants during their solitude;

they were expert in their ability to ﬁnd meaning

and pleasure in solitary activities. Burger (1995)

remarked on a similar absence of boredom in the

individuals he surveyed who scored high in a

preference for solitude. The lack of boredom may

be partially explained by these participants’ten-

dency to become immersed in whatever they were

doing—whether it be a creative project, an intro-

spective process, or an appreciation for the beauty

of their surroundings. This is consistent with the

proposal that, “Solitude provides a situation that

is suited to deep absorption”(Larson, 1990,

p. 165). The identiﬁcation of this ﬁrst skill is

also consistent with research that has linked the

frequency and enjoyment of solitude experiences

with a high solitropic orientation, which denotes a

high desire to engage in solitary activities, rather

than with a low sociotropic orientation, which

denotes a low desire to afﬁliate with others (Leary

et al., 2003). Furthermore, given that the partici-

pants appeared intrinsically motivated to engage

in their chosen activities, their solitude was self-

determined, increasing the likelihood of a posi-

tive experience of solitude (Deci & Ryan, 2008;

Thomas & Azmitia, 2019).

Emotionally, these participants were skillful in

traversing the internal landscape of their feelings.

The strategies they used most closely align with

integrative emotion regulation (IER; Roth et al.,

2019) rather than the emotion regulation model

proposed by Gross (2015), in which cognitive and

behavioral strategies such as reappraisal and

selection are utilized to inﬂuence emotional

states. In contrast, the IER model views emotions

as important sources of information about one’s

inner life, and these emotions are brought into full

awareness in a nonreactive, receptive manner

akin to mindfulness and acceptance-based thera-

pies (Baer, 2003;Blackledge & Hayes, 2001;

Keng et al., 2011). The participants exhibited

this integrative approach to emotion regulation,

showing an openness to a broad range of emo-

tions and a willingness to explore what those

emotions signiﬁed about their current goals,

needs, or relationships.

Furthermore, these participants exhibited a

capacity for emotion differentiation (Kashdan

et al., 2015), deﬁned as an ability to put into

words the various complex emotions one is

feeling. Before one can successfully regulate

an emotion, it helps to know exactly what that

emotion is. Also known as emotional granular-

ity, this ability represents an adaptive response to

stress. Furthermore, they demonstrated distress

tolerance when the emotions they felt were

uncomfortable or negatively valenced (Simons

& Gaher, 2005). Rather than ﬂeeing solitude

when these unpleasant emotions arose, they

were able to tolerate that discomfort and explore

those emotions, after which they described feel-

ing an emotional release or renewal. These ﬁnd-

ings support the speculation that negative moods

that surface during solitude may be masking

important emotional and cognitive processes

underneath and is consistent with research over

multiple adult and adolescent samples demon-

strating that moods typically lower during soli-

tude but then rebound to higher than normal

levels upon exiting solitude (Larson, 1990).

Taken together, this set of emotional capacities

served to increase participants’connection with

themselves.

It must be noted that these participants were not

limited to regulating difﬁcult emotions; they also

reported feeling a range of positive emotions

when alone, including gratitude, joy, content-

ment, peace, and fulﬁllment. Their frequent re-

ferences to positive emotionality during solitude

are indicative of positive emotion regulation

(Silton et al., 2020), a process known to enhance

well-being and reduce depression. Long et al.

(2003) found that the ability to be emotionally

creative—to adapt and navigate challenging emo-

tional situations—correlated signiﬁcantly with

the frequency of positive solitude experiences.

Cognitively, participants demonstrated the

skill of introspection, which involves the ability

to reﬂect on one’s own behavior, attitudes, be-

liefs, or place in the world. This supports previous

work showing that people use solitude for exis-

tential contemplation (Long & Averill, 2003) and

to gain a reﬂective perspective (Koch, 1994), in

addition to engaging in the self-reﬂection neces-

sary for identity development (Goossens &

Marcoen, 1999). The introspection exhibited in

these narratives often took the form of a dialecti-

cal relationship of the self-interacting with the

self, as when Audrey said, “I can hear myself.”

This is reﬂected in William James' (1890) concept

of the “I”and the “me,”in which the “I”repre-

sents the self as knower, containing the qualities

of self-awareness and agency, and the “me”

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132 THOMAS

represents the self as an object of knowledge.

James argued that this internal dialogue between a

subjective self and the self as social object is

essential for maintaining a continuity of being and

ensuring congruence between our values and

behavior.

Rather than engage in ruminative self-

reﬂection, a behavior known to be generally

maladaptive (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000), these par-

ticipants’introspection took the form of self-

insight, a meta-cognitive process that supports

subjective well-being (Harrington & Loffredo,

2010;Stein & Grant, 2014) and plays a role in

self-regulation (Silvia & Phillips, 2014). Alto-

gether, the identiﬁcation of this skill lends cre-

dence to Byrnes' (1983) speculation that to beneﬁt

from solitude, one needs to develop an ability for

introspection in addition to being able to sur-

mount initial feelings of anxiety that may surface

when alone.

To summarize thus far, the ﬁrst three skills of

enjoying solitary activities, emotion regulation,

and introspection can be viewed as the substance

of the solitude skillset. They represent abilities

that are exercised during time alone, thus creating

an experience of positive solitude, deﬁned as rich

in meaning and enjoyment (Ost Mor et al., 2020).

Viewed as such, solitude may function less as a

happiness promoter in the hedonic sense (i.e.,

feeling good, experiencing pleasant emotions)

and more as a well-being promoter (i.e., gaining

insight, experiencing the full spectrum of emo-

tions) in the eudaimonic sense (Ryff, 1989).

The remaining ﬁve skills can be viewed as the

structural support of positive solitude in two

ways: ﬁrst, in the practical sense of securing

time for solitude and being mindful to avoid

distractions during that time; second, in the psy-

chological sense of heeding internal signals to

enter and exit solitude when needed, and validat-

ing this need for solitude even in the face of

internal or external critics. The identiﬁcation of

these skills extends existing literature and chal-

lenges core assumptions. For instance, knowing

when to enter and exit solitude helped each

participant create what Larson (1990) called their

“optimal balance”of social and solitary engage-

ment (p. 158) and support the theoretical argu-

ment that a balance of solitude and relationship is

a necessary ingredient for well-being in adult-

hood (Littman-Ovadia, 2019).

However, the present ﬁndings go further by

describing how this balance was achieved.

Participants were attuned to their inner signals,

such as exhaustion and irritability, that prompted

them to seek solitude and remedy the effects of

overstimulation. Likewise, they had to discern

when signals to exit solitude were trustworthy; for

example, whether loneliness and boredom were

invitations to go deeper into solitude or cues that

the company of others was indeed necessary.

Moreover, to create an optimal balance they

had to exercise the skill of making time for

solitude, and often had to negotiate with others

to obtain it. Because support for solitude was

often missing from their cultural upbringing,

participants developed these skills by trial and

error. In these ways, the skills of knowing when to

enter and exit solitude provide greater articulation

of the dynamic relationship of solitude and socia-

bility outlined in the extant literature, which has

demonstrated that when a person becomes over-

taxed by the social world, a retreat into solitude

can be rejuvenating and emotionally regulating,

with even brief periods of solitude having a

deactivating effect on high arousal states, both

positive (e.g., excitement) and negative (e.g.,

anger; Buchholz & Helbraun, 1999;Larson,

1990;Nguyen et al., 2018).

Yet, these narratives simultaneously challenge

the assumption that solitude’s function is ulti-

mately in service to our more fundamental social

nature, essentially providing a temporary haven

to withdraw and self-regulate, after which one can

rejoin society better equipped to relate positively

with others (Larson, 1990;Nguyen et al., 2018).

Rather, several participants ﬂipped this script,

asserting that solitude was their “natural state”

or their “default”and expressed confusion during

the interview when asked what motivated them to

be alone. For instance, Scott replied: “Motiva-

tion? I would need motivation to be around

people. I would say being by myself is natural

::: And if you’re looking for some reason, like I

don’t—I don’t have a reason. It’s just kind of the

way I like to be.”His response made clear the

assumption embedded in the interview question:

namely, that one would need a motivation to be

alone, as though solitude-seeking needed to be

justiﬁed.

The centrality of solitude for these participants

is reminiscent of the recently proposed construct

of aloneliness, deﬁned as a negative feeling state

that arises when a person perceives that they are

not spending enough time alone (Coplan et al.,

2019), as when Mika said that when she gets too

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SOLITUDE SKILLS 133

far away from solitude, “I get lonely for myself,

like I feel lonely and miss the connection to

myself when I get really busy.”Altogether, rather

than solitude serving a subsidiary role to social

interaction, these ﬁndings instead suggest that for

some individuals time alone may be equal, or

preferable, to social relationships.

Solitude Skills and the Private Self

As a whole, the solitude skills demonstrated by

these participants, and the function of self-

connection they appear to serve, ﬁnd a home in

the construct of the private self, developed by

clinical psychologist Arnold Modell (1992,

1993), building on what Winnicott (1965)

described as the true self. The chief characteristics

of the private self are authenticity and an internal

coherency of being, drawing on William James'

(1890) articulation of the psychological necessity

to maintain a continuity of self. The private self is

supported by the capacity to generate meaning

from personal experience. While meanings are

also generated through social interaction and

participation in the public sphere, Modell

(1993) argued that occasional retreat from social

roles and societal obligations is necessary to make

contact with an affective core where private

thoughts, feelings, and meanings are processed

and recategorized. The private self is “the source

of autonomy”(Modell, 1992, p. 3), sustained by

the freedom to be oneself when alone and exercise

the agency to engage in “vital personal interests”

(p. 3) that are meaningful and nourishing.

These qualities of the private self are concep-

tually linked to the ﬁrst three solitude skills

identiﬁed in the present study; enjoyment of

solitary activities, emotion regulation, and intro-

spection all served to deepen participants’con-

nection with themselves, or in Modell’s terms, to

sustain the private self. This theoretical lens

provides context for someone like Nora, whose

very experience of self depended on time in

solitude: “If I didn’t have solitude, I wouldn’t

have me.”The protective skills of carving out

time to be alone, using that time mindfully, and

validating one’s need for solitude all encourage

optimal conditions to make contact with the

private self. Finally, embedded in Modell’s con-

ception of the private self is a recognition of

the importance of social relationships, and he

aligns with Winnicott (1965) in arguing that

supportive attachment relationships are what

make the private self possible. The ﬁnal two skills

illustrate Modell’s emphasis on the importance of

a“balance between alternate periods of related-

ness and disengagement”(1992, p. 5).

Modell argued that even when one is forced

into solitude, individuals who successfully navi-

gate that state do so because they rely on internal

resources of the private self to “sustain them-

selves from within ::: [and] ﬁnd sources of

nourishment at the core of their being”(1993,

p. 126). The theoretical construct of the private

self was echoed in remarkably similar ways

throughout participant interviews, including me-

taphors of feeling nourished by time alone. It is

also consistent with Larson’s(1990) review of his

decades of empirical research: “The ability to be

alone without succumbing to panic or disturbed

means of coping confers a measure of indepen-

dence from social deﬁnitions of self. It holds open

the chance for self-renewal ::: to reﬂect on their

experience and make choices congruent with

personal values and feelings”(p. 177).

Strengths, Limitations, and Future Directions

The present ﬁndings represent an important

advance in the literature on solitude by identify-

ing a preliminary set of skills that foster the state

of positive solitude. Until now, the concept of

solitude skills was noted as a theoretical possibil-

ity but never investigated empirically (Byrnes,

1983;Galanaki, 2005;Rook, 1988;Rubenstein &

Shaver, 1982).

Given the exploratory nature of the research

question, the open-ended, semi-structured inter-

view method undertaken in the present study,

combined with a phenomenologically oriented,

inductive approach to thematic analysis, proved

to be a fruitful methodology to map the hereto-

fore uncharted territory of solitude skills. This

method facilitated an advance from theoretical

speculation about solitude skills to empirical

identiﬁcation of a preliminary set of skills uti-

lized by adults in daily life and opens the door for

quantitative and mixed-methods studies to ver-

ify or amend these skills in other populations and

test their efﬁcacy in clinical and educational

settings.

Despite the advantages of qualitative methods,

the interview does not act as a ﬂawless conduit of a

participant’s inner world. Rather, the social interac-

tion embedded in the interviewer–participant dyad

can introduce demand characteristics and power

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134 THOMAS

differences, leaving the participant vulnerable to

misinterpretation (see Potter & Hepburn, 2005,

for a critique of this method). Moreover, the

conversational nature of the interview with its

reliance on oral expression is potentially at odds

with the topic in question, inherently limiting

participants’ability to accurately convey the

private experience of solitude in the context of

interpersonal dialogue. Future research may want

to utilize nonoral qualitative methods, such as

diary studies or written reﬂections, to bypass

some of the constraints imposed by conversa-

tional interviews.

In addition, the eight skills identiﬁed here were

drawn from a select sample that is not represen-

tative of the population at large, and attempts to

generalize should be undertaken with the follow-

ing caveats in mind. First, the solitude skills

demonstrated by these adults may be develop-

mentally constrained. For example, children and

adolescents may not have the cognitive capacity

necessary for introspection, nor have the agency

necessary for carving out time to be alone. Sec-

ond, the adults in this study were employed and

well-educated; they had access to access to pri-

vate rooms and the autonomy to go places on their

own. In short, they had space and freedom. Many

people of all ages lack the ability to access space

and time for solitude, whether due to poverty,

displacement, housing situation, and untold other

reasons (Koch, 1994). Such developmental and

socio-economic factors need to be taken into

consideration when theorizing or applying from

this data set. Third, these individuals were in

solitude volitionally. There may be additional,

or different, skills required when solitude is

involuntarily, as in the case of the millions of

individuals worldwide who were isolated in their

homes due to the stay-at-home orders during the

COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted

prior to the onset of the pandemic, and it is

unknown how enforced social isolation may

impact the development or enactment of solitude

skills.

Despite these limitations, the present study lays

the groundwork for a more comprehensive inves-

tigation of the role these skills may play in psy-

chological well-being. As Levitt (2021) has noted,

qualitative research lends itself to generalization

to the phenomenon, rather than to the population,

and thus future research can investigate how

positive solitude, and the skills that support it,

is enacted across various contexts. Conducting

additional qualitative and mixed-methods studies

with more diverse samples can illuminate whether

and how these skills are manifested in other

populations; a nonexhaustive list of additional

variables includes age, psychological adjustment,

prior trauma, and one’s culturalcontext. Empirical

questions about the efﬁcacy of solitude skills

could be tested using quasi-experimental or inter-

vention methods. In addition, solitude skills train-

ings could be adapted to therapeutic settings;

clinicians have already speculated that the capac-

ity for solitude could serve as a clinical interven-

tion for patients who suffer from loneliness,

depression, and poor relationships (Burke,

1992;Knafo, 2012;Young, 1982).

Finally, although individual differences such

as extraversion likely play a role in how much

solitude one prefers (Burger, 1995), the actual

skills to utilize solitude constructively may not

depend on individual differences. Research has

shown that many expert behaviors typically

attributed to innate personality characteristics

are actually activities practiced by individuals,

activities which are demonstrated and reinforced

by the larger culture. These are called repertoires

of practice (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003), and

denote experiential skills that are learned and

practiced over time. Viewed as a repertoire of

practice, engaging in solitude is not the exclusive

province of individuals who “naturally”know

how to be alone. Rather, positive solitude be-

comes potentially accessible for the individual

who learns to practice and adapt various solitude

skills to meet particular needs or achieve cer-

tain ends.

Conclusion

Fostering the private self in solitude is critical

for supporting mental health and well-being

(Modell, 1993), and the ﬁndings from this study

suggest that certain skills assist individuals in

successfully navigating solitude and reaping the

beneﬁts. The capacity to be content when alone is

a developmental achievement; indeed Winnicott,

in his landmark paper on the subject, called it “one

of the most important signs of maturity in emo-

tional development”(Winnicott, 1958, p. 416).

The solitude skills identiﬁed in the present

study may represent some of the psychological

resources necessary to sustain an authentic, pri-

vate self, with the added implication that they are

valuable not only for those who volitionally enter

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SOLITUDE SKILLS 135

solitude, but also for those who ﬁnd themselves in

unwanted isolation. Applying these skills could

position individuals to leverage their time alone

for the purposes of self-regulation and self-

reﬂection, increasing the likelihood of experienc-

ing positive solitude. Whether this preliminary set

of solitude skills can be found in populations

beyond the study sample, whether these skills

can be learned, and whether the practice of such

skills can enhance psychological functioning are

all empirical questions worth investigating.

Doing so would further our understanding of

the role positive solitude has in adjustment and

well-being.

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Received March 19, 2021

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Accepted September 14, 2021 ▪

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The Impact of Preference for Solitude and Self-Esteem on the Relationship between Loneliness and Well-Being: a Moderated Mediation Model

Article

Mar 2025

Behmen Çelikbaş

This study aims to examine the mediating role of preference for solitude and the moderating role of self-esteem in the relationship between loneliness and well-being. A total of 338 individuals (183 males and 155 females) aged between 18 and 55 years (M = 26.272  7.125 year) participated in this study. Data were collected using the Loneliness Scale, the Preference for Solitude Scale, the Personal Well-Being Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. For data analysis, frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and regression analysis using the SPSS Macro extension were conducted to test the moderated mediation model. The findings indicated that loneliness was positively associated with preference for solitude and negatively associated with self-esteem and personal well-being. While preference for solitude was negatively related to personal well-being, no significant relationship was found between preference for solitude and self-esteem. A positive correlation was observed between personal well-being and self-esteem. Additionally, preference for solitude mediated the relationship between loneliness and personal well-being. Furthermore, self-esteem moderated the relationship between preference for solitude and personal well-being. When self-esteem was one standard deviation above the mean, the direction of the relationship between preference for solitude and personal well-being became positive, and the strength of this relationship increased. However, when self-esteem was one standard deviation below the mean, the strength of the relationship increased, but the direction remained negative. The findings of this study were discussed in relation to the existing literature and compared with previous research.

The Effects of Multifaceted Introversion and Sensory Processing Sensitivity on Solitude-Seeking Behavior

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2024
J PERS

Introduction The state of solitude may be desirable and beneficial particularly for individuals who are highly sensitive and introverted. Methods To test these predictions, we surveyed a nationally representative US sample of 301 adults and a sample of 99 undergraduates on their levels of sensory processing sensitivity and assessed introversion with the Big Five Inventory and the multifaceted STAR Introversion Scale. Participants then reported the frequency and duration of their volitional solitude, stress levels, and subjective well‐being across 10 consecutive days. Results Results revealed that Social Introversion and sensitivity significantly predicted higher motivations for solitude, both self‐determined and not. Thinking Introversion also predicted higher self‐determined solitude, but BFI introversion showed no relationship with either motivation. Social Introversion and sensitivity predicted higher frequency of solitude in daily life and longer duration of solitary episodes; BFI Introversion and Restrained Introversion showed the opposite pattern for both outcomes. Finally, stress was positively associated with daily solitude frequency, and in turn, solitude frequency was negatively associated with same‐day well‐being; there were no interaction effects with personality traits. Discussion These findings suggest that introversion, as measured by the STAR Introversion Scale, and sensitivity contribute significantly to solitary motivation; however, solitude appears to be sought after by people in times of stress regardless of their scores on these traits.

Alone Time in the Golden Age: Planning for Solitude in Retirement

Preprint

Full-text available

Apr 2025

Background: Retirement marks a significant life transition, often accompanied by the loss of structured work routines and an increase in alone time. How this solitude is experienced—positively or negatively—varies depending on individual and environmental factors. Methods: This study interviewed 8 pre-retirees and 15 retirees (N = 23) using semi-structured individual and focus group interviews. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour framework, we asked participants to reflect on their retirement transition, attitudes toward solitude, social influences on their alone time, and their perceived control over managing solitude during retirement. Results: Thematic analysis revealed key themes, including shifts in identity, balancing social connection and alone time, and the role of autonomy and financial stability in shaping solitude experiences. While some participants embraced solitude as an opportunity for personal growth and well-being, others faced challenges such as boredom and social isolation. Conclusions: Findings suggest that achieving a balance between alone time and social engagement is critical to fostering positive experiences of solitude in retirement.

Empathic Listening Satisfies Speakers' Psychological Needs and Well-Being, but Doesn't Directly Deepen Solitude Experiences: A Registered Report

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Dec 2024
J EXP SOC PSYCHOL

A live discussion experiment was designed to test the effects of highly empathic (vs. moderately empathic) listening on solitude experiences. Participants were assigned to three conditions in which they: 1) Discussed a negative personal experience with a confederate (ostensibly another participant) exhibiting highly empathic listening; 2) Discussed an experience with a confederate exhibiting moderately empathic listening; or, 3) Engaged in a positive reframing exercise. Building on previous listening theory (Weinstein et al., 2022) and research (Itzchakov & Weinstein, 2021; Itzchakov, Weinstein, et al., 2022). We then assessed the two posited mechanisms of autonomy and relatedness and tested the expectations to be in solitude. All participants were instructed to spend ten minutes alone, phones off, and distractions stored away. While highly empathic listening enhanced participants' (i.e. speakers) autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction compared to the other two conditions and predicted initial increases in self- and social-connection, it did not subsequently improve solitude experiences, with no direct effects found predicting self-connection, peaceful affect, loneliness, or self-insight. Indirect effects linked empathic listening to self-connection and self-insight through autonomy satisfaction. While empathic listening fosters immediate psychological need satisfaction in social contexts, deeper listening interventions may be necessary to improve subsequent solitude periods.

Intimate sounds of silence: its motives and consequences in romantic relationships

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May 2024
MOTIV EMOTION

Silence shared between partners is a rich and understudied feature of romantic relationships. Within relationships, silence may be experienced in meaningfully different ways as a function of the motivations underlying it. These internally rich experiences may affect partners differently than silence that occurs spontaneously (i.e., without intentional initiation). In four studies, we tested the motives of silence and corresponding affect and relationship quality, operationalized through psychological need satisfactions and inclusion of other into self. Studies relied on complementary methods to explore the phenomenon of silence, namely cross-sectional, daily diary, and experimental designs. Findings across studies showed that intrinsically motivated silence was felt with more positive affect and less negative affect, and that relationships were closer and more need satisfying during intrinsically motivated moments of silence. Introjected and externally motivated silences, on the other hand, were often linked to more negative affect and lower relational outcomes. Spontaneous moments of silence were not consistently linked to affect or need satisfaction.

Solitary Experience and Problematic Social Media Use Among Young Adults: A Systematic Review with Recommendations for Future Research

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Full-text available

Sep 2024

Objective: This study was conducted to summarize existing studies on the association between solitary experiences and problematic social media use (PSMU) among young adults. Method: A systematic review was performed according to the PRISMA guidelines, implemented in Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and PsycINFO. We selected studies if they presented original data, assessed solitary experiences and PSMU in young adults (i.e., 18-30 age range), were published in peer reviewed journals between 2004 and 2023, and were written in English. Results: After duplicate removal, 1,841 eligible studies were found. From these, 12 articles were selected, encompassing 4,009 participants. Most studies showed a positive association between general loneliness and PSMU. Some of these suggested that this relationship varies based on the facets of loneliness, other potential variables, and the type of social media. No mediating factors were found. Few studies assessed solitary experiences other than general loneliness, highlighting the need for a multidimensional perspective on solitary experience in investigating PSMU. Conclusions: Implications and future research orientations are discussed.

Italian validation of the Positive Solitude Scale

Article

May 2024
J Hum Behav Soc Environ

Positive Solitude (PS) is the decision to use one’s time for a meaningful activity, with a choice made by and for oneself. The purpose of this study is to validate the Italian version of the Positive Solitude Scale (PSS) developed by Palgi et al. (2021a). Data were collected through the administration of a questionnaire to 1,120 Italian adults. Confirmatory factor analyses showed a bi-factor structure, indicating that the scale can be considered as unidimensional. Moreover, the Italian PSS demonstrated good internal consistency, supporting the scale’s good reliability. Then, PS was associated with improved psychological well-being, increased mindfulness, higher levels of positive effects and lower loneliness. However, we found no association between PS and depressive symptomatology. These results support a good convergent, discriminant, and divergent validity of the scale. Finally, this study enhances the understanding of PS in the Italian context providing a valuable tool for future research.

From "isolation" to "me-time": linguistic shifts enhance solitary experiences

Article

Jan 2025
COGNITION EMOTION

Spending time alone is a virtually inevitable part of daily life that can promote or undermine well-being. Here, we explore how the language used to describe time alone - such as "me-time", "solitude", or "isolation" - influences how it is perceived and experienced. In Study 1 (N = 500 U.S adults), participants evaluated five common labels for time alone. Descriptive and narrative evidence revealed robust interindividual variability and significant mean differences in how these labels were evaluated. Overall, "me-time" was rated most positively, and "isolation" was rated least positively (but not negatively). In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the linguistic framing of time alone, describing it as either "me-time" or "isolation". Participants (N = 176 U.S undergraduates) then spent 30 min physically alone without in-person or digital interaction. Notably, positive affect increased for "me-time" participants but decreased for "isolation" participants. Negative affect decreased in both conditions, but the magnitude of the decrease was greater after "me-time". People's beliefs about being alone improved after "me-time" but not after "isolation". Further, we explored participants' behaviours and thoughts while alone. These findings demonstrate meaningful variation in how people perceive different time alone labels and provide preliminary evidence that simple linguistic shifts may enhance subjective experiences of time alone.

Need satisfaction in daily well-being: Both social and solitude contexts contribute to well-being

Article

May 2024
BRIT J SOC PSYCHOL

Daily need satisfaction for relatedness (social connection), autonomy (volitional self‐congruent action), and competence (self‐efficacy) fosters well‐being, but those findings primarily reflect experiences during social interactions. A three‐week daily diary study ( N = 178) explored psychological need satisfaction in two key everyday contexts: solitude and social. Holding constant the benefits of need‐satisfying social contexts, autonomy satisfaction during solitude was key to peaceful affect, whereas competence satisfaction during solitude contributed to lower loneliness; both psychological needs in solitude contributed to evaluating the day as more satisfying. Relatedness‐deficiency in solitude did not contribute to loneliness; instead, those who were relatedness‐deficient in social interactions felt lonely. Further, need satisfaction in solitude compensated for deficient needs in social contexts, reducing loneliness (autonomy and relatedness) and increasing day satisfaction (all needs) when social contexts failed to satisfy needs. Findings suggest daily solitude can shape daily well‐being and further attention is needed to understand and ultimately improve everyday solitude.

References

Chapter

Mar 2024

The Role of Rumination in Depressive Disorders and Mixed Anxiety/Depressive Symptoms

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2000

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema

Several studies have shown that people who engage in ruminative responses to depressive symptoms have higher levels of depressive symptoms over time, after accounting for baseline levels of depressive symptoms. The analyses reported here showed that rumination also predicted depressive disorders, including new onsets of depressive episodes. Rumination predicted chronicity of depressive disorders before accounting for the effects of baseline depressive symptoms but not after accounting for the effects of baseline depressive symptoms. Rumination also predicted anxiety symptoms and may be particularly characteristic of people with mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.

Getting Even Lonelier?: Psychological Well‐Being and Problematic Use of Media in the Over‐Connected Society

Chapter

Full-text available

Apr 2021

Jung-Hyun Kim

Qualitative Generalization, Not to the Population But to the Phenomenon: Reconceptualizing Variation in Qualitative Research

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2021

Heidi M. Levitt

A question that qualitative researchers are asked frequently is how they justify generalizing their finding to populations. In this article, I argue that this question results from a misunderstanding of generalization that conflates of the logic and mechanics of statistical generalization with that inherent in the process typically used in qualitative methods, which does not rely on probability sampling procedures. To clarify the differences in these processes, I propose the concept of qualitative generalization. It is built upon the work of scholars who have identified the logic of qualitative research as rooted in a cycle of inferential processes that identify forms of stability and variation in their data. Instead of using probability sampling to capture variability in samples which reflects that in a population, qualitative researchers use this cycle to develop a map of variation in their data, which reflects the practice and experience of the phenomena under study—a logic describing generalization to the phenomenon, not the population. The initial application of this self-correcting cycle of inferences underpins the later stage of transferability of findings by readers. The framework of methodological integrity is considered to explain how research goals, epistemological perspectives, and study characteristics (e.g., diversity) influence the identification of variation and, ultimately, qualitative generalization. This framework orients researchers to identify variation that can increase fidelity and utility, supporting qualitative generalization. The formulation of qualitative generalization proposed is seen as congruent with existing practices across a variety of qualitative traditions and with reasoning intrinsic to qualitative methods.

The Definition and Categories of Positive Solitude: Older and Younger Adults' Perspectives on Spending Time by Themselves

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2020
INT J AGING HUM DEV

This paper attempts to develop a better understanding of the positive solitude (PS) phenomenon and its meaning among age groups, as well as formulate a unanimous definition for PS. A qualitative study (N = 124) was conducted. Participants were gerontology professionals and laypeople. Interviews were conducted and content was analyzed in order to understand the essence of PS, themes, and subthemes. Two major categories were found: the essence and the components of the PS experience. Seven PS content categories and three meta-themes were raised: (1) PS is a matter of choice; (2) PS is satisfying and enjoyable; and (3) PS is meaningful. Differences in PS categories between younger and older adults were found. The meta-themes served as the foundation of a new definition. PS has different attributes in old age. A unified definition of PS may help distinguishing between PS and other forms of being alone. Recognizing and facilitating the PS experience among older adults might be beneficial and contribute to their quality of life.

Editorial: The role of digital technology in children and young people's mental health – a triple‐edged sword?

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2020
J CHILD PSYCHOL PSYC

The rapid expansion of access to, and engagement with, the Internet and digital technology over the past 15 or so years has transformed the social, educational and therapeutic space occupied by children and young people in contemporary society in remarkable ways. First, it has created previously unimaginable opportunities for learning and development and personal exploration and growth. Second, it seems that the very same qualities and characteristics of the Internet that make these positive contributions possible, such as its immediacy, portability, intimacy, unconstrained reach and lack of supervision and regulation of content, has opened children and young people up to a range of serious social, intellectual and mental health risks. Finally, over and above these 'effects', the digital space is increasingly successfully being harnessed for the identification and treatment of mental health problems. Accordingly, the Internet is not so much a double‐, as a triple‐edged sword, with regard to children’s mental health.

The Trajectory of Loneliness in Response to COVID-19

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2020

Social distancing and “stay-at-home” orders are essential to contain the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), but there is concern that these measures will increase feelings of loneliness, particularly in vulnerable groups. The present study examined change in loneliness in response to the social restriction measures taken to control the coronavirus spread. A nationwide sample of American adults (N = 1,545; 45% women; ages 18 to 98, M = 53.68, SD = 15.63) was assessed on three occasions: in late January/early February 2020 (before the outbreak), in late March (during the President’s initial “15 Days to Slow the Spread” campaign), and in late April (during the “stay-at-home” policies of most states). Contrary to expectations, there were no significant mean-level changes in loneliness across the three assessments (d = .04, p > .05). In fact, respondents perceived increased support from others over the follow-up period (d = .19, p < .01). Older adults reported less loneliness overall compared to younger age groups but had an increase in loneliness during the acute phase of the outbreak (d = .14, p < .05). Their loneliness, however, leveled off after the issuance of stay-at-home orders. Individuals living alone and those with at least one chronic condition reported feeling lonelier at baseline but did not increase in loneliness during the implementation of social distancing measures. Despite some detrimental impact on vulnerable individuals, in the present sample, there was no large increase in loneliness but remarkable resilience in response to COVID-19.

New Media and Solitude: Implications for Peer Relations

Chapter

Apr 2021

Thematic analysis - FULL TEXT NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST, ANY REQUESTS WILL BE DECLINED

Chapter

Jan 2019

FULL TEXT NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST, ANY REQUESTS WILL BE DECLINED This chapter maps the terrain of thematic analysis (TA), a method for capturing patterns ("themes") across qualitative datasets. We identify key concepts and different orientations and practices, illustrating why TA is often better understood as an umbrella term, used for sometimes quite different approaches, than a single qualitative analytic approach. Under the umbrella, three broad approaches can be identified: a "coding reliability" approach, a "codebook" approach, and a "reflexive" approach. These are often characterized by distinctive-sometimes radically different-conceptualizations of what a theme is, as well as methods for theme identification and development, and indeed coding. We then provide practical guidance on completing TA within our popular (reflexive) approach to TA, discussing each phase of the six-phase approach we have developed in relation to a project on men, rehabilitation, and embodiment. We conclude with a discussion of key concerns related to ensuring the TA you do-within whatever approach-is of the highest quality. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019. All rights are reserved.

Connections Among Loneliness, the Ability to Be Alone, and Peer Relationships in Young Children

Chapter

Jun 1999

Loneliness is experienced by children, adolescents and adults across varied cultures. In the early 1960s and 1970s, some authorities in the field of psychology did not believe that children experienced loneliness. This book ushers in a new wave of theory and research examining the phenomena of loneliness during childhood and adolescence. The book represents a thorough examination of the topic: the chapters range from the role of attachment in children's loneliness, differences between being alone and loneliness, the significance of divided self and identity achievement in adolescents' loneliness, and the link between loneliness and maladjustment during adolescence. This volume should stimulate research into loneliness during childhood and adolescence for many years to come.

Adolescent Loneliness, Self-Reflection, and Identity: From Individual Differences to Developmental Processes

Chapter

Jun 1999

Solitude Skills and the Private Self

Abstract

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