John Cacioppo: 'Loneliness is like an iceberg – it goes deeper than we can see'

John Cacioppo: ‘Loneliness is like an iceberg – it goes deeper than we can see’

John Cacioppo at his Chicago office. Photograph: Lucy Hewett for the Observer Professor John Cacioppo has been studying the effects and causes of loneliness for 21 years. He is the director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. His book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection examines the pathology and public health implications of the subject. You have been studying social connection and loneliness for more than two decades. How did you come to it as a subject?It was not biographical, I don’t think. Back in the early 90s I had outlined the new field called social neuroscience, the study of the neural mechanisms within a defined social species. Social species are those that create stable bonds, which have societies and cultures. And…


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