HYDE PARK — You may unwittingly have a small hand in whether your kids are lonely, according to new research from the University of Chicago.
In a new paper in the journal, Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers said they found that loneliness is at least partially due to genetics, though environment plays a bigger role.
The study, which included professor John Cacioppo from the University of Chicago, also found that the genetic risk for loneliness is also associated with neuroticism and depressive symptoms.
Listen to Sam Cholke talk about research on why we might feel lonely.
“Humans are fundamentally social animals,” Cacioppo said. “Just as physical pain alerts humans to potential tissue damage and motivates us to take care of our physical bodies, loneliness is part of a biological warning system that has evolved to alert us of threats or damage to our social bodies.”
He said animal studies suggest it’s not likely that loneliness itself can be inherited, but the intense social pain can that occurs when someone’s desires and what their social connections can provide don’t match up.
The study also found that the part of loneliness that is inherited tends to be passed along with neuroticism and depressive symptoms.
The study is one of the largest of its kind to examine loneliness, with more than 10,000 participating in the research project lead by the University of California-San Diego.
Cacioppo and colleagues have estimated the heritability of loneliness to be 37 percent to 55 percent. They found that the tendency to feel lonely for most of one’s life is much less likely to be a heritable trait.
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