This is the personality of those who love solitude and are not afraid of being single
There are many stereotypes about men and women who feel predilection for loneliness . It is often said that they are misanthropic individuals, with social problems or even that they are not able to solve the problems of daily life outside the home.
However, stereotypes are just that, preconceived ideas usually based on myths never questioned. Is it true that the minds of these people are impoverished by isolation, or are they as much or healthier than the rest of the population?
Of course, to see what research in Psychology says about it, it is first necessary to define what we understand by "solitude" in the way in which these people experience it.
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How is the desire to remain alone?
We must bear in mind that someone who prefers solitude because his attempts to get out of it have been frustrated, either by harassment or social difficulties, he does not feel an authentic predilection for loneliness; they remain isolated against their will and, therefore, it can not be said that they prefer to be alone in an authentic way. In any case, that is the consequence of the avoidance of harm.
When we talk about people who prefer solitude we refer to those who not only do not reject time alone, but embrace it and make it part of their life; They are not afraid to be with themselves and with anyone else, and they enjoy situations of loneliness, experiencing them as moments of calm.
On the other hand, these people have lost their fear of being single , if they ever had one. It is not that they necessarily prefer to be without a partner in any context, but that they do not see it as an important and abstract vital goal and that it has to be satisfied at all costs.
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Exploring the minds of those who do not fear loneliness
A few years ago, a team of researchers decided to study the phenomenon of the preference for loneliness (not imposed from outside) using two groups of married people residing in Germany; in one group the average age of the participants was 35 years, and in the other, 42.
Another similar initiative proposed the same objective, but this time they worked to study how are those who are not afraid of singleness . In this case, we had the collaboration of two groups of people, most of them single. In the first group the average age was 29 years, and in the second group, of 19. To measure their personality, both in this research and in the previous one, the Big Five model was used, which measures these features:
- Neuroticism : degree of emotional stability.
- Extraversion : degree in which comfort is experienced in social contexts.
- Responsibility : degree to which organization and commitment are tending.
- Openness to experience : degree in which the new and the creative are valued positively.
- Amiability : ease of treatment, tendency to cooperation.
In the case of research on people who appreciate loneliness, measurements were also made about their sociability, while in the research on fear of being single these extra personality characteristics were measured :
- Sense of unwanted loneliness
- Rejection sensitivity
- Need to belong to the group
- Depression (inability to be encouraged even in the company of others)
- Emotional fragility
- Dependence between self-esteem and existence or not of relationship of couple
Neither misanthropes, nor unstable, nor antisocial
The results of these investigations completely destroy prevailing stereotypes about people capable of freely enjoying solitude.
First, it was found that this personality profile is significantly less prone to emotional instability, ie akl neuroticism. If in many occasions they prefer the absence of company it is not because of crisis, nervousness or anything like that.
On the other hand, this personality type also stands out for obtaining higher scores in terms of openness to the experience, while those who do not fear being single are, moreover, more kind and responsible than the rest . In the case of research on the desire for loneliness, the profile prone to voluntary loneliness did not score above or below the average.
But perhaps the most groundbreaking result is that, while people who generally enjoy solitude are neither more extroverted nor more introverted than the rest, people who do not fear being single they are not more introverted , but quite the opposite: they enjoy situations in which they must participate in social situations.This confirms that they do not "choose" singleness for convenience, but simply do not force themselves to have a partner, since they do not have a particularly bad time in conversations with strangers, for example.
Bibliographic references:
- Hagemeyer, B., Neyer, F. J., Neberich, W., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2013). The ABC of social desires: Affiliation, being alone, and closeness to partner. European Journal of Personality, 27, 442-457.
