friendlier than most of the people in the group. In short, the lonely students
thought the others would not like them, yet as it turned out they were greatlymistaken.
These low expectations can be poisonous when trying to develop a
friendship or romantic relationship. Lonely people doubt a new acquaintancewill enjoy talking with them and suspect the person will find them boring or
stupid by the end of the conversation. Consequently, lonely people often
show little interest in getting to know other people and are quick to end theconversation and move on to something else. These negative expectations may
also lead lonely people to interpret any small sign as rejection. Participants in
one experiment spent 5 minutes talking with a stranger (Frankel & Prentice-Dunn, 1990). Later, participants saw a videotape of their partner ’s evaluation
of them. The videotape contained positive and negative comments. As ex-pected, the lonely people paid attention to and recalled the negative feedbackbetter than the nonlonely participants. Because they believe their interactions
have gone worse than they probably have, lonely people are unlikely to pursue
a friendship with someone they ’ve met or to seek out others to do things with.
Given this negative approach to social interactions, it is not surprising that
lonely people have such a difficult time making friends. This research also helps
explain why loneliness is a problem for many students on crowded college
campuses. With so many potential friends around, there is little reason to seek
out and nurture the friendship of someone who appears to be unfriendly.
Chronically lonely people also tend to have poorly developed social skills.
Perhaps you are one of those lucky individuals for whom conversation comeseasily. You enjoy meeting people, effortlessly finding out about them, and oc-
casionally talking about yourself. If this is you, then you are probably puzzled
by people who have difficulty interacting with others. Even for people who
are not shy and who would like to meet new friends, engaging in more than
a short and trivial conversation can be a chore. What these people may lackare basic social skills, the knowledge of how to carry on a conversation that
both you and the other person find valuable and enjoyable.
Several studies implicate just such a lack of social skills as part of what
keeps some people trapped in a cycle of loneliness (Segrin, 1999; Segrin &Flora, 2000; Vitkus & Horowitz, 1987). The best way to learn the art of con-
versation is to talk with others. Yet people without social skills may havesuch a difficult time developing relationships that they have little opportunity
to develop these skills. They never learn how to initiate an interaction or how
to keep the conversation lively, so their difficulty making friends continues.
Consider the interaction styles one team of researchers found when they
examined conversations with lonely and nonlonely individuals (Jones,Hobbs, & Hockenbury, 1982). Lonely participants showed relatively little in-terest in their partners. They asked fewer questions, often failed to comment
on what the other person said, and made fewer references to the partner.
Instead, these lonely people were more likely to talk about themselves and in-troduce new topics unrelated to their partner ’s interests. Another study found
lonely people were more likely to give advice to strangers and less likely toacknowledge what the other person said (Sloan & Solano, 1984). Little322 CHAPTER 12 The Humanistic Approach