Homeostatic Regulation of Energetic Arousal During Acute Social Isolation: Evidence From the Lab and the Field
通过实验室实验和新冠封锁期间的现场研究，发现8小时社会隔离会降低自我报告的能量唤醒并增加疲劳感，类似于食物剥夺的效果，表明能量下降可能是对缺乏社会接触的稳态反应。
Recent evidence suggests that social contact is a basic need governed by a social homeostatic system. Little is known, however, about how conditions of altered social homeostasis affect human psychology and physiology. Here, we investigated the effects of 8 hr of social isolation on psychological and physiological variables and compared this with 8 hr of food deprivation in a lab experiment ( N = 30 adult women). Social isolation led to lowered self-reported energetic arousal and heightened fatigue, comparable with food deprivation. To test whether these findings would extend to a real-life setting, we conducted a preregistered field study during a COVID-19 lockdown ( N = 87 adults; 47 women). The drop in energetic arousal after social isolation observed in the lab replicated in the field study for participants who lived alone or reported high sociability, suggesting that lowered energy could be part of a homeostatic response to the lack of social contact.