Loner, According To Studies: Tend To Be Open-minded And Happy

Illustration of personality of people who like to be alone according to study (Pexels/Uriel Mont)

YOGYAKARTA – People who live their own lives, according to studies, tend to feel relaxed and far from feeling down. Even so, people who enjoy solitude often get a negative stigma. Behind the negative stigma, the study found the opposite.

Loners are people who embrace their own time. So what does a loner really feel? Alone, as reported by Psychology Today, refers to spending time alone. In a scale study conducted by Birk Hagemeyer and his colleagues in Desire for Being Alone, loners are people who feel relaxed when alone. This study analyzed two groups of participants, the first 476 participants mean age 35 years and 578 participants mean age 42 years.

Illustration of personality of people who like to be alone according to study (Pexels/Cottonbro)

There was also a measure of solitude as a single person in another study. The study, conducted by Stephanie Spielmann and colleagues in Fear of Being Single, involved a group of 301 people with an average age of 29 and 143 Canadian students aged 19.

Based on the findings of the two studies above, researchers found several things related to how someone who enjoys solitude feels. First, people who like to spend time alone, and aren't afraid of being single, are very unlikely to be depressed, worried, and uptight. Second, people who are not afraid of being alone are more fun than people who are afraid of being single. Third, people who are not afraid of being single are more careful than those who are.

Then, being alone is often associated with an introverted personality. According to a study reviewed by Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. from Psychological & Brain Sciences, UCSB, people who are not afraid of being single are more extroverted than those who are afraid of being alone. But they are often considered less friendly. They are also less sensitive to rejection because their lives do not depend on the romantic relationships they have.

In all of the studies, people who enjoyed solitude, both alone time and being single, were more open, conscientious, extraverted, and had lower levels of neuroticism.