Perhaps it starts in babyhood, when we first experience the painful anxiety of separation from parents, even if it is for very short periods of time. And experiences as we grow up may add to that. Interestingly, the area of loneliness did not receive very much attention from researchers until relatively recently. Surprisingly, the marketing literature has ignored this important aspect of consumer behavior. This paper attempts to introduce this potentially significant variable to the study of cross-cultural consumer behavior.
Most people have an intuitive sense of what loneliness means.
There are many formal definitions. There are three important common themes in all these definitions. First, loneliness is the result of a deficiency in an individuals social interactions. Second, it is a subjective and not an objective experience. For example, one may be alone without being lonely, and feel lonely in a crowd.