A new study out of Stanford University concludes that people may perceive they are more alone in their emotional problems than they really are.

More often than not, people underestimate how often others feel unhappy or lonely, thinking in turn, that they are the only ones who are experiencing such negative emotions, the study notes.

The problem lies in how people express their emotions, said Alexander Jordan, a social psychologist at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and co-author of the study.

“We can only observe other people in a social setting. (And) people tend to feel better when there are others around,” he said in an interview Wednesday with the Star.

The study Misery Has More Company Than People Think: Underestimating the Prevalence of Others’ Negative Emotions was published in December in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Jordan added it’s the cultural norm to put on a happy face when others are around. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are prime examples of this, he said.

It’s more common for a Facebook user to write about how happy they are on their Facebook status, than if they are depressed or lonely.

The research was conducted between 2007 and 2010, and sampled 400 first-year undergraduate students at Stanford. It was divided into four smaller studies, with Jordan and his team monitoring participants’ thoughts throughout.

In the first part, participants reported that their negative emotions were more hidden than their positive emotions.

In part two, participants underestimated how many among them in the group had negative, rather than positive, experiences.

In the third part, participants underestimated negative emotions and overestimated positive emotions among their peers.

In the fourth part, researchers found that lower estimations of the occurrence of negative emotional situations predicted greater loneliness and lower life satisfaction. Higher estimations for positive emotional situations, however, predicted lower life satisfaction.

But Jordan doesn’t advocate that people should complain more to one another.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Negativity breeds negativity, he said.

Instead, he said he hopes that people realize that “they aren’t alone” in their negative feelings, and empathize more with others.