Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper by Moreno and colleagues published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and reported on Aug. 6–7, 2026 (DOI 10.1177/01461672261462978) found strong associations between seeing singlehood as an opportunity and measures of well-being.
- The study applies self-expansion theory, which holds that trying new roles, skills, and experiences broadens a person’s sense of self, to the context of single adults rather than romantic couples.
- Participants who viewed singlehood as offering self-expansion were more likely to take up novel activities such as learning skills, playing team sports, or socializing, and they reported less fear of singlehood and greater happiness, autonomy, competence, and satisfaction.
- The research measured behavior over time in a sample of more than 600 single adults and found most (about 82%) used friends or family to broaden experiences while roughly 18% pursued self-expansion alone, showing multiple pathways to growth.
- Authors caution the results are correlational not causal, note possible selection effects, and call for follow-up studies to test directionality and generalizability while recommending that singles who want to improve well-being try self-expanding activities whether or not they plan to seek a relationship.