Genes, environments, and interactions as a new challenge for European developmental psychology: The sample case of adolescent loneliness

Abstract

This article aims to illustrate how development is shaped by genes, environments, and their interactions. To this aim, a selective overview of research on adolescent loneliness is presented. Earlier approaches have already recognized the combined influence of environmental and personal factors on adolescent loneliness. Contemporary approaches, and the evolutionary theory of loneliness and associated sociocognitive model in particular, have provided a new impetus to research on loneliness. The rapidly expanding knowledge of genes and gene–environment interactions suggests that genetic effects related to loneliness represent some form of differential susceptibility to the environment. Methods from the neurosciences provide new insights into the basic mechanisms underlying feelings of loneliness. The concluding part of the article explains why loneliness is a valuable topic of scientific inquiry and presents an integrative model for future research on adolescent loneliness. Developmental psychologists throughout Europe can contribute to such integrative research programmes, each from their own perspective.

Keywords:

• Adolescence
• Differential susceptibility hypothesis
• Evolutionary theory
• Gene–environment interactions
• Integrative model for loneliness research
• Loneliness
• Sociocognitive model

Acknowledgments

This paper was originally presented as the Presidential Address at the XVth Conference of the European Association of Developmental Psychology in Bergen, Norway, on 25 August 2011. Funding for this paper was provided through Grant GOA 12/2009 (STRATEGIES project) of the KULeuven Research Fund.

The author is greatly indebted to Rutger Engels, Theo Klimstra, Koen Luyckx, Ron Scholte, Eveline Teppers, Janne Vanhalst, Eeske van Roekel, and Maaike Verhagen for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luc Goossens

This paper is based on the Presidential Address to the European Association of Developmental Psychology at the 15th European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Bergen, Norway, 2011.