When Do Lonely People Help or Become Helpless? A Dual Model of Relatedness Needs Thwarting

Although organizational research has begun to examine the effects of loneliness, extant studies have mainly focused on its maladaptive consequences. We collected data from 542 employees across three different countries (the UK, USA, and China) during the COVID-19 outbreak to examine the effects of loneliness due to social distancing or lockdown measures. Building on basic psychological needs theory and integrating both regulatory loop and evolutionary models of loneliness, we found that loneliness leads to relatedness needs thwarting, which in turn leads to fatigue as a maladaptive response and help-giving as an adaptive response. Furthermore, the indirect relationship between loneliness and fatigue was found stronger when individuals have high individualistic orientation while the indirect relationship between loneliness and help-giving was stronger when individuals have low individualistic orientation. Contributions to theory, practical implications and future research directions are discussed.