Measuring Loneliness in Everyday Life

Evidence of the public health significance of loneliness is accumulating. Lonely individuals are at greater risk for diverse physical and mental health conditions, and the prevalence of loneliness is rising. To address these concerns and align assessment with existing theoretical frameworks, researchers aim to understand momentary feelings of loneliness in everyday life. However, development of measures that reliably and validly assess momentary loneliness has largely been overlooked. In this study we evaluated the psychometric performance of a new multi-item measure of momentary loneliness derived from traditional self-report measures – the Momentary Loneliness Scale – with respect to its factor structure, reliability, and validity. We also compared this multi-item measure to the effectiveness of using a single-item indicator of loneliness. A racially diverse sample of depressed adults (N = 102) provided data on momentary loneliness and related measures 5x/day for 14 days (Nobs = 6,568). In a preregistered multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, we observed evidence of an internally reliable, unidimensional measure of momentary loneliness that demonstrated construct validity. Momentary loneliness was associated with more depression and less satisfaction with social interactions. Trait loneliness was associated with being more depressed, perceiving less social support, and being less extroverted. Furthermore, exploratory analyses indicated that a single-item indicator of loneliness (“I feel alone”) well-approximated the multi-item measure and can be used in settings where brevity is prioritized. Altogether, our results indicate that momentary and trait loneliness can be reliably and validly measured in everyday life using multi-item or single-item instruments within ecological momentary assessments.