how connection developsSix Ways to Envision a More Connected Life
What would you love to experience more of in your relationships? Explore six ways to set a goal and shift what's possible, with reflection questions inspired by Robert Dilts.
Research behind Feeling Connected
The research used in Feeling Connected: Why Connection Matters and How it Develops covers far more than the book could hold. These articles explore each reference in greater depth, going beyond the subject of the book.
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Autonomy
Sacrifice in relationships and staying true to yourself
Three studies explore how motives for giving something up for a partner relate to feeling true to ourselves, everyday well-being and relationship quality.
Source: The Joys of Genuine Giving · Impett, Javam, Le, Asyabi-Eshghi and Kogan, 2013
Self-silencing, relationship expectations and depression in women
Jack and Dill’s 1992 paper examines how beliefs about care, conflict and self-expression relate to depression in women, and why social circumstances belong in that account.
Source: The Silencing the Self Scale · Jack and Dill, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1992
Self-silencing, marital conflict and depression in women and men
Understanding self-silencing alongside the question of how both people can have a say in a relationship.
Source: Self-silencing Mediates the Link Between Marital Conflict and Depression · Whiffen, Foot and Thompson, 2007
Autonomy and belonging across cultures
Chirkov and colleagues distinguish autonomy from independence and examine how willingly adopting cultural practices relates to wellbeing in four countries.
Source: Chirkov et al. (2003)
Autonomy, competence, relatedness, and daily well-being
A two-week diary study examined how feeling willing, capable, and connected varied with everyday well-being, including which social experiences accompanied closeness.
Source: Reis et al. (2000)
Belonging
What makes time together feel like belonging?
Baumeister and Leary’s review explains how regular contact and enduring care contribute to belonging, and what those conditions mean for everyday relationships and shared activities.
Source: The Need to Belong · Baumeister and Leary, Psychological Bulletin, 1995
Mattering through feeling valued and making a contribution
An introduction to feeling valued, contributing and fair opportunities to participate, drawn from the opening of How People Matter.
Source: Prilleltensky & Prilleltensky, 2021
Group identification, social contact and mental health
Two studies compare feeling part of a family or army group with regular social contact, revealing distinct relationships with mental health and satisfaction.
Source: Sani et al., 2012
Community
Socializing, work and family care in the 2019 American Time Use Survey
The 2019 results of the American Time Use Survey show how socializing fits alongside work, leisure and family care.
Source: American Time Use Survey, 2019 results · Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020
Socializing, work and family care in the 2025 American Time Use Survey
The 2025 American Time Use Survey shows how social occasions, work locations, and care responsibilities fit into daily life.
Source: American Time Use Survey, 2025 results · Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026
Community life, friendship and social support in America
A national survey follows the relationships among gathering places, community participation, friendship, and support.
Source: Disconnected · Cox and Pressler, Survey Center on American Life, 2024
Neighborhood socializing, trust and support in America
The American Neighbor Survey examines everyday conversations, practical help and the places where neighbors meet.
Source: Strangers Next Door · Cox, Grace and Shields, Survey Center on American Life, 2026
Religious affiliation, attendance and personal importance in America
Gallup's findings distinguish how much religion matters to Americans, the religious identities they report and how often they attend services.
Source: Americans’ Religious Engagement Holds at Lower Levels · Megan Brenan, Gallup, 2026
What creates a sense of community
McMillan and Chavis explain how membership, mutual influence, fulfilled needs, and shared emotional connection work together to create a sense of community.
Source: McMillan and Chavis (1986)
How brand communities create relationships and shared meaning
Muñiz and O’Guinn’s study of Saab, Macintosh, and Ford Bronco enthusiasts shows how recognition, traditions, practical help, and collective voice create brand communities.
Source: Muñiz and O’Guinn (2001)
Conversation
Self-disclosure, responsiveness and intimacy in everyday conversations
Two diary studies examine how sharing personal thoughts and feelings, hearing from another person and feeling understood, accepted and cared for relate to closeness in everyday exchanges.
Source: Intimacy as an Interpersonal Process · Laurenceau, Barrett and Pietromonaco, 1998
How self-expression and responsive listening develop intimacy
Reis and Shaver’s model explains how personal expression, responsive listening and interpretation shape intimacy within ongoing relationships.
Source: Reis & Shaver, 1988
Conversations with strangers and the pleasure we expect
Epley and Schroeder compared people's expectations about talking with strangers with their actual experiences.
Source: Epley & Schroeder (2014)
Expressing gratitude and how appreciation is received
Kumar and Epley compared gratitude-letter writers' predictions with recipients' reactions.
Source: Kumar & Epley (2018)
Emotions
Gratitude journaling, emotional wellbeing, and connection
Three experiments by Emmons and McCullough examined what happened when people regularly recorded things they appreciated.
Source: Emmons & McCullough (2003)
Practicing loving-kindness toward yourself and others
Greater Good in Action offers a guided practice for directing goodwill toward oneself, familiar people, and a wider community.
Source: Greater Good Science Center (n.d.)
Loving-kindness meditation and feeling connected to unfamiliar people
Hutcherson and colleagues tested whether a brief exercise in goodwill changed responses to unfamiliar faces.
Source: Hutcherson et al. (2008)
Awe walks and positive emotions in older adults
Sturm and colleagues compared ordinary outdoor walks with walks guided by curiosity and wonder.
Source: Sturm et al. (2022)
Family and care
How early care helps shape the developing brain
Research on early care connects caregiving with developing stress responses, gene activity, and brain structure in animals and children.
Source: Growing a social brain · Atzil, Gao, Fradkin and Barrett (2018)
Serve and return in early relationships
Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child explains responsive exchanges and caregiver support.
Source: Harvard Center on the Developing Child · Developmental science explainer
Friendship
How shared understanding relates to friendship and social connection
Baek and Parkinson’s 2022 review examines shared interpretations, friendship, feeling connected and why people choose to share information.
Source: Baek & Parkinson, 2022
Repeated conversations, familiarity, and the beginnings of friendship
Two experiments by Harry Reis and his colleagues examined how spending more time in conversation affected liking, comfort, and interest in getting to know someone better.
Source: Reis, Maniaci, Caprariello, Eastwick and Finkel (2011)
Familiar friends and the neural representation of threat
In several brain regions, responses to a friend’s possible danger were more closely related to self-directed threat responses than responses to a stranger’s danger.
Source: Beckes, Coan and Hasselmo (2013)
Gathering
Group participation, friendship, and well-being in older adults
A trial found gains in friendship and well-being alongside unchanged loneliness scores.
Source: Routasalo and colleagues (2009)
The American Library Association’s guide to running a book club
Practical advice on selecting books, leading discussions, and managing meetings.
Source: American Library Association. (n.d.). For book clubs. I Love Libraries.
What to expect at Cars and Coffee Greensboro
Vehicles, visiting information, and event rules for Greensboro’s monthly gathering.
Source: Cars & Coffee Greensboro. (n.d.). About Cars & Coffee Greensboro.
Rocky Horror audience participation from its origins to Clinton Street Theater
Sal Piro’s history of audience participation and Clinton Street Theater’s guide to screenings, props, and costumes.
Source: Clinton Street Theater. (n.d.). The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Piro, S. (n.d.). It was great when it all began. Excerpt from Creatures of the Night, reproduced on The Rocky Horror Picture Show Official Fan Site.
How Geeks Who Drink trivia nights work
Team sizes, quiz formats, digital answers, and recurring events explained.
Source: Geeks Who Drink. (n.d.). Frequently asked questions.
The origins of Parrot Head clubs and their volunteer tradition
How an Atlanta fan club developed into a wider organization.
Source: Parrot Heads in Paradise. (n.d.). A brief history of local Parrot Head clubs.
Silent Book Club’s origins, reading format, and local chapters
How Silent Book Club began, what happens at a meetup, and how volunteers establish official chapters.
Source: Silent Book Club. (n.d.). About Silent Book Club. Silent Book Club. (n.d.). How to start a Silent Book Club.
The Moth’s origins, anniversary stories, and storytelling guide
The Moth’s founding and anniversary broadcast, followed by its guidance for preparing a story and entering a StorySLAM.
Source: The Moth. (n.d.). Celebrating The Moth’s 25th anniversary. The Moth Radio Hour. The Moth. (n.d.). Tell your story.
How music festivals shape identity and belonging
Andrew Davis explores how expectations, shared behavior, personal values, and local ties shape the identities people develop at music festivals.
Source: Davis (2017)
How singing structures breathing and heart-rate rhythms
Vickhoff and colleagues compared humming, a hymn, and a repeated musical phrase. Their findings show how the timing of music can organize breathing and patterns of heart-rate change among singers.
Source: Vickhoff et al. (2013)
Health and stress
How our social lives shape healthy aging
A Nature Aging editorial explores how community participation, social environments, and meaningful roles contribute to the conditions for healthy aging.
Source: Nature Aging (2026)
Slow breathing and cardiovascular rhythms during prayer and mantras
Reciting a familiar sequence of words can give breathing a regular pace.
Source: Bernardi et al. (2001)
Touching your dog and responding to the next stressful task
An experiment with dog owners examined how physical contact related to recovery from stress and responses to a later challenge.
Source: Kaufmann, Cheng and Schirmer (2026)
Allostatic load and the body's capacity to recover
Bruce McEwen's foundational review explains how responses that help us meet a challenge can become costly when demands repeat or recovery is disrupted.
Source: McEwen (1998)
Subjective vitality and the experience of feeling alive
Ryan and Frederick's six studies explored felt energy as one aspect of well-being, distinguishing it from busyness and examining its links with agency, symptoms, and health experiences.
Source: Ryan & Frederick (1997)
Allostatic load and cumulative biological risk in aging
A seven-year study examined whether a combined measure of cardiovascular, metabolic, and hormonal activity could help explain later health and functioning in older adults.
Source: Seeman et al. (2001)
Identity
How identity shapes motivation, action, and persistence
Oyserman and Destin explain how social settings connect identity with everyday action, interpretations of difficulty, and progress toward educational goals.
Source: Oyserman and Destin (2010)
How nostalgia connects relationships, identity, and vitality
Six experiments explore how nostalgic memories strengthen felt connection with others, link past and present selves, and increase immediate feelings of energy and aliveness.
Source: Sedikides and colleagues (2016)
Loneliness
Self-criticism, self-silencing and loneliness in relationships
How harsh self-judgment and holding back relate to loneliness, and why the experience of expressing ourselves deserves attention alongside relationship status.
Source: Self-criticism, Dependency, Silencing the Self, and Loneliness · Besser, Flett and Davis, 2003
The two-way link between loneliness and self-centeredness
A 200-word brief on the reciprocal relationship between loneliness and self-centeredness in Cacioppo, Chen and Cacioppo’s 2017 study.
Source: Reciprocal influences between loneliness and self-centeredness · Cacioppo, Chen and Cacioppo, 2017
How loneliness relates to attention, reasoning and memory
Cacioppo and Hawkley’s 2009 review explains connections among loneliness, social attention, interpretation, effortful thinking and cognitive aging.
Source: Perceived social isolation and cognition · Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009
Loneliness and depressive symptoms over time
A five-year study distinguishes loneliness from depressive symptoms and examines which predicts the other, alongside social networks, support and stress.
Source: Perceived social isolation makes me sad · Cacioppo, Hawkley and Thisted, 2010
How loneliness relates to sleep, health and social connection
Hawkley and Cacioppo’s 2010 review examines loneliness, restorative sleep, health mechanisms and what intervention studies reveal about feeling connected.
Source: Loneliness matters · Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010
Social circumstances, relationship quality and loneliness
A 2008 study examines how income, health, stress, social opportunities and relationship quality fit together in understanding loneliness.
Source: From social structural factors to perceptions of relationship quality and loneliness · Hawkley and colleagues, 2008
Emotional and social loneliness and the connections we value
A German study distinguishes emotional and social loneliness, revealing different patterns in age, personal conversation and the relationships people can rely on.
Source: Emotional and social loneliness · Kleinschlömer and colleagues, 2026
Places
Third places and neighborhood quality of life
A national survey explored where Americans recognized opportunities for conversation and how those perceptions related to the quality of life in their neighborhoods.
Source: Jeffres et al. (2009)
Cafés, coffee shops, and students’ restorative place preferences
Narae Lee examined how university students perceived eating and drinking places as settings for relaxation.
Source: Lee (2022)
Third-place design and the social life of streets
A study of three Massachusetts Main Streets examined how storefront character, visibility, seating, and shelter differed between community gathering places and other businesses.
Source: Mehta and Bosson (2010)
Oldenburg and Brissett’s original third-place concept
The 1982 paper describes the contribution of social places beyond home and work to a fuller sense of self.
Source: Oldenburg and Brissett (1982)
Place identity and how physical settings become part of the self
Proshansky, Fabian, and Kaminoff explain how memories, expectations, and skills learned in physical settings become part of identity throughout life.
Source: Proshansky et al. (1983)
Third places, neighbor interaction, and cohesion across neighborhoods
A Los Angeles County study found that the relationship between nearby gathering places and neighborhood social life differed across levels of neighborhood poverty.
Source: Williams and Hipp (2019)
Relationships
Actual and perceived similarity in interpersonal attraction
A brief on Montoya, Horton and Kirchner’s 2008 meta-analysis.
Source: Montoya, Horton, & Kirchner, 2008
Expressing and perceiving love in close relationships
A brief research note on how partners interpret and respond to one another’s emotional communication.
Source: Gaelick, Bodenhausen and Wyer (1985)
Partner responsiveness and daily cortisol patterns ten years later
A longitudinal study connects feeling understood, appreciated and cared for with later cortisol rhythms and examines changes in emotional experience.
Source: Slatcher, Selçuk, & Ong, 2015
Feeling known and satisfaction in our relationships
Studies of families, friends, partners, and dating profiles examine how feeling known relates to satisfaction, support, and interest in others.
Source: Feeling known predicts relationship satisfaction · Schroeder and Fishbach (2024)
Handholding, relationships, and how we respond to threat
Two experiments explored how familiar handholding, relationship quality, and expectations of support shaped responses to an approaching threat.
Source: Coan and colleagues (2006, 2017)
Partner massage before stress, cortisol, and heart rate in women
Ditzen and colleagues compared partner massage, supportive conversation, and preparing alone before a stressful task, measuring how women’s bodies and reported feelings responded.
Source: Ditzen and colleagues (2007)
Marital conflict, inflammation, and wound healing
A study of 42 married couples examined how supportive and conflict discussions related to wound repair, revealing different patterns in local and circulating inflammation.
Source: Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (2005)
Social proximity and the body's physiological regulation
Experiments with couples and an infant pilot examined how a close person's presence related to glucose, skin temperature, and arousal during brief physiological challenges.
Source: Masalha et al. (2026)
Romantic breakup and the changing sense of self
Research on romantic breakup distinguished changes in daily life from uncertainty about the self, and linked lower self-concept clarity with greater distress.
Source: Slotter, Gardner and Finkel (2010)
Partner comfort and threat responses after emotionally focused couples therapy
A small study followed distressed couples through therapy and compared responses to possible shock during partner handholding, stranger contact and being alone.
Source: Johnson and colleagues (2013), corrected
Breakup recovery and rebuilding a clear sense of self
A nine-week study found that more intensive research participation improved reported self-concept after a breakup, while other recovery measures showed a more selective pattern.
Source: Larson and Sbarra (2015)
Safety
Emotional attachment after an abusive relationship
A brief research note on Dutton and Painter's study of attachment after separation.
Source: Dutton and Painter (1993)
How a personalized safety plan supports choices around abuse
The National Domestic Violence Hotline explains safety planning as practical preparation shaped around a person's circumstances, relationships, and stage of life.
Source: National Domestic Violence Hotline
Recognizing patterns of group psychological abuse
Rodríguez-Carballeira and colleagues identify six forms of group psychological abuse, offering a precise way to examine sustained control within group life.
Source: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015)
Leslie Morgan Steiner on abusive love and support for leaving
The author of Crazy Love describes the attachment she felt within an abusive marriage and the people and practical help that supported her departure.
Source: Steiner combined references
Intimate partner violence and coercive control in the 2023/2024 CDC survey
The CDC's national survey describes the reach of intimate partner violence, psychological aggression, and related impacts among US women and men.
Source: Zhang Kudon et al. (2026)
Social support
How social support relates to mental health, school and work
A synthesis of 60 meta-analyses examines available and received support across relationships, populations and psychological outcomes.
Source: Zell & Stockus, 2025
Social Baseline Theory and how relationships shape risk and effort
Coan and Sbarra propose that reliable relationships form part of the resources people bring to everyday demands, influencing expected effort, responses to threat, and adjustment after loss.
Source: Coan & Sbarra (2015)
How social support helps people recover and grow
Feeney and Collins describe two ways relationships can support a fuller life, through care during adversity and encouragement to explore possibilities.
Source: Feeney & Collins (2015)
Secure base support and adult exploration
A study of married couples distinguishes availability, encouragement, and interference, showing how each relates to a person's experience of trying something new.
Source: Feeney & Thrush (2010)
Social relationships and allostatic load across adulthood
Two cohorts helped researchers examine how caring relationships, social integration, and emotional support were associated with a combined measure of biological risk.
Source: Seeman et al. (2002)
Everyday emotional support above and below a person’s usual level
Daily diaries of couples showed why less-than-usual support and extra support had different associations with mood and feelings about a relationship.
Source: Bar-Kalifa and Rafaeli (2015), corrected
Social support and judgments of a hill’s steepness
Two studies examined how friend presence and supportive memories related to estimates of a hill’s steepness, with different patterns across judgment tasks.
Source: Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci and Proffitt (2008)