{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,8]],"date-time":"2026-06-08T14:26:12Z","timestamp":1780928772663,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,8]],"date-time":"2026-06-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1780876800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>This study investigated the impact of loneliness on the self-reference effect (SRE) under conditions of intentional remembering and directed forgetting. Across two experiments using a self-description paradigm, individuals with high and low levels of loneliness were compared. Results indicated that both groups showed a robust SRE relative to friend- and stranger-referenced items; however, only the high-loneliness group exhibited a mnemonic advantage for negative words. In the directed forgetting task, low-loneliness individuals exhibited greater cognitive flexibility, as they adjusted self-referential memory processing in response to task instructions, whereas high-loneliness individuals exhibited a stable self-referential advantage across both conditions, accompanied by blunted differentiation between friend-referenced and stranger-referenced information. These findings indicate that loneliness is associated with altered self-referential memory processing, characterized by enhanced sensitivity to negative information and reduced flexibility in intentional memory control. By integrating self-reference and directed forgetting paradigms, the present study provides new evidence that loneliness influences not only what individuals remember, but also how flexibly they regulate self-related information in memory.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1809521","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,8]],"date-time":"2026-06-08T13:51:28Z","timestamp":1780926688000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The impact of loneliness on the self-reference effect in remembering and directed forgetting"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Wanqi","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaochen","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yu","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiaodian","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Shanghai Tianlin No. 3 Middle School","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chen","family":"Hong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Weiman","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ning","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wei","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology, Shanghai Normal University","place":["Shanghai, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"702","DOI":"10.15345\/iojes.2014.01.011","article-title":"Self-compassion and loneliness","volume":"2","author":"Akin","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. 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