Would the Real Loneliness Please Stand Up? The Validity of Loneliness Scores and the Reliability of Single-Item Scores.

Several measures that assess loneliness have been developed for adults. Across three studies, we investigated psychometric features of scores of different versions of the Rasch-Type Loneliness Scale, the University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, and three single-item measures. In Study 1 (N = 697 self-ratings, N = 282 informant-ratings of 160 targets) and Study 2 (N = 1,216 individuals from 608 couples), we investigated convergent validity, self-informant agreement, and nomological nets of the item scores using correlates related to demographic aspects, personality, satisfaction, and network characteristics. In Study 3 (N = 411), we estimated a reliability of rxx>.70 for scores of three single-item measures of loneliness. Overall, scores of all measures and their nomological nets were highly correlated within and across studies, indicating that the scores of the included measures are all reliable and valid. Recommendations for choosing a loneliness measure are discussed.

Does Smile Intensity in Photographs Really Predict Longevity? A Replication and Extension of Abel and Kruger (2010).

Abel and Kruger (2010) found that the smile intensity of professional baseball players who were active in 1952, as coded from photographs, predicted these players' longevity. In the current investigation, we sought to replicate this result and to extend the initial analyses. We analyzed (a) a sample that was almost identical to the one from Abel and Kruger's study using the same database and inclusion criteria ( N = 224), (b) a considerably larger nonoverlapping sample consisting of other players from the same cohort ( N = 527), and (c) all players in the database ( N = 13,530 valid cases). Like Abel and Kruger, we relied on categorical smile codings as indicators of positive affectivity, yet we supplemented these codings with subjective ratings of joy intensity and automatic codings of positive affectivity made by computer programs. In both samples and for all three indicators, we found that positive affectivity did not predict mortality once birth year was controlled as a covariate.