Loneliness Study Finds Zero Close Friends is Most Common Answer

About this episode

In this episode, host Chris Williamson sat down with Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at UC Riverside who has studied happiness for 36 years, to discuss her new book How to Feel Loved and the science of connection. Lyubomirsky argued that the single most powerful driver of happiness is feeling connected and loved, a conclusion she reached after decades of testing interventions like gratitude and kindness. She revealed that 70% of people don't feel as loved as they want in at least one significant relationship, and that the most common answer when asked how many close friends people can call in an emergency is zero. The conversation explored the difference between being loved and feeling loved, with Lyubomirsky emphasizing that being truly known—not just admired—is essential to feeling love. She introduced four core mindsets for building connection: radical curiosity, a sharing mindset, open heart, and multiplicity (seeing people in their full complexity). Lyubomirsky also debunked the popular love languages framework, citing research showing matching languages doesn't predict relationship success, and revealed that how couples respond to good news predicts relationship duration better than how they handle bad news. In her favorite study, she found that both introverts and extroverts become significantly happier when acting more extroverted, contradicting theories that introverts need solitude to recharge. The episode closed with practical advice on how to change relationships by changing conversations—through listening, curiosity, and sharing—and Lyubomirsky's assertion that she knows of no evidence-based interventions to reliably increase self-esteem despite decades of research.