Single people who pursue novel activities report better psychological health, study finds

People who view being single as an opportunity for personal growth tend to experience greater life satisfaction and less fear of remaining unpartnered. A recent set of studies published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that single adults who believe their relationship status offers chances to try new things report higher daily and weekly well-being. The research provides evidence that personal growth frequently occurs alongside friends, family, or even in solitude.

In psychology, self-expansion theory describes the fundamental human drive to grow one’s sense of self. This growth happens by acquiring new perspectives, skills, and identities, which helps people feel more capable of achieving their goals. Historically, scientists have studied this concept within romantic relationships, focusing on how falling in love or trying new activities with a partner expands a person’s horizons.

Because about 40 percent of adults are single, this relationship status represents a common and distinct context for personal development. The authors of the new paper wanted to know if a specific mindset relates to better psychological health for single individuals. They examined a concept called singlehood self-expansion potential, which is the belief that being unpartnered provides future opportunities to grow as a person.

“People are increasingly delaying their initiation of romantic relationships and choosing to remain single instead, and we know surprisingly little about how people experience singlehood,” said Elina Moreno, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto who conducted the research at Simon Fraser University with Yuthika Girme as part of the Social-Personality Undergraduate Research mentorship program.

“One fundamental need that people have is the desire to expand their sense of self (i.e., self-expansion), but research has overwhelmingly emphasized self-expansion as occurring through a romantic partner. So, we wanted to know how self-expansion unfolds for single people, who do not have a romantic partner, and how it may influence their well-being.”

To test this, Moreno and her colleagues designed a daily diary study involving 130 single students at a Canadian university. The participants, who had an average age of 22.7 years, first completed a baseline survey measuring their belief in the growth potential of singlehood. Over the next 14 days, they answered daily questions about their life satisfaction, fear of being single, and their psychological need fulfillment. Psychological need fulfillment refers to feeling a sense of autonomy, competence, and connection to others.

A subset of 58 participants also tracked their daily engagement in novel or exciting activities. The daily data indicated that participants who strongly believed singlehood offered growth potential participated in more novel activities day to day. Participating in these activities was then linked to higher life satisfaction, better psychological need fulfillment, and lower anxiety about being single on those exact days.

“Every person experiences singlehood at some point in their life, and despite popular societal belief that romantic relationships are the key to a successful and happy life, single people can lead fulfilling lives without a partner,” Moreno said. “Our research highlights that singlehood can be a meaningful outlet for self-expansion and personal growth. We found that when single people believe that their singlehood status provides them the opportunity to pursue self-expanding experiences (like traveling to a new place or testing a new hobby), they are more likely to actually engage in those activities and, in turn, be happier in their singlehood and their life in general.”

The researchers also looked at delayed effects to see if positive feelings carried over. Controlling for a person’s emotional state on a given day, a strong baseline belief in singlehood growth predicted less fear of being single and higher satisfaction the very next day. Interestingly, the specific novel activities themselves did not predict better well-being the following day, suggesting the emotional benefits of engaging in exciting new activities tend to peak in the moment.

For their second study, the researchers expanded the timeline to a six-week weekly diary format. They recruited a new sample of 146 single university students with an average age of 20. Participants completed the same baseline measures and then reported their weekly growth experiences and well-being, along with writing down the exact novel activities they did and who joined them.

The weekly findings mirrored the daily patterns, showing that optimism about singlehood growth correlated with more weekly novel experiences and better well-being. The written responses provided a window into how single people actually expand their horizons. The most common growth activities were physical exercise or sports, making up about 20 percent of responses in absolute terms, while socializing and attending large celebrations each accounted for 15 percent.

The social context of these activities was also highly relevant. Single people completed 83 percent of these novel activities with another person, such as friends or family members. At the same time, about 18 percent of these growth experiences were done entirely alone, indicating that single adults primarily use their non-romantic social networks to experience personal growth.

“One surprising finding was that the majority of single participants reported completing their self-expanding experiences with another person, often family or friends,” Moreno said. “Nonetheless, single folks also engaged in self-expansion alone. Importantly, having non-romantic close relationships is not a prerequisite for self-expansion in singlehood, but it may be helpful for folks who find it difficult to step out of their comfort zone on their own.”

In a third study, the scientists attempted to see if they could experimentally trigger this positive mindset. They recruited 324 single adults through an online platform, resulting in a slightly older sample with an average age of 38 years. The researchers randomly assigned 153 participants to write about routine, predictable activities they might do in the future as a single person, while the other 171 participants wrote about novel, spontaneous activities they could pursue.

After the writing task, participants completed surveys rating their current mood, their belief in singlehood growth potential, and their satisfaction. The experimental manipulation did not change how much participants fundamentally believed that singlehood offers personal growth. However, those in the novel activity group reported a small relative increase in positive mood compared to the control group. The effect size for this positive mood difference was a Cohen’s d of 0.26, indicating a modest but noticeable shift in immediate happiness.

The participants in the novel activity condition also reported feeling a slight, immediate bump in their sense of having self-expanding experiences. A closer look at the written responses indicated that people in both groups often wrote about similar core activities, such as hobbies and exercise. The primary difference was how they framed them, with the control group focusing on basic chores and the novel activity group focusing on getaways or parties.

Based on these combined results, holding an optimistic view about singlehood is linked to a happier day-to-day life, but it may operate more like a stable personality trait. The correlational nature of the daily and weekly diary methods means the data cannot confirm whether growth beliefs actively cause better well-being. It is equally possible that people who are already happy and secure simply maintain a more positive outlook on their single status.

Exploratory data from the studies provided evidence for this idea, showing that people with low self-esteem or a strong desire for a committed relationship were much less likely to see singlehood as an opportunity for growth. Changing this underlying belief might require deeper interventions than a brief writing exercise. The emotional lift from doing a new activity also appears temporary, requiring single adults to consistently seek out new experiences to maintain the benefits.

As Moreno told the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, “Seizing the opportunity to try new things, meet new people, and develop new hobbies can significantly improve not only the way you feel about being single, but also how you feel about your life in general.”

But the findings do not suggest that singlehood is inherently superior to a romantic partnership. “Our research identifies potential strategies for single people to strengthen their well-being and to enjoy being single more,” Moreno noted. “Still, we find it important to emphasize that we do not aim to compare singlehood and partnership, or say that single people are better off than folks in romantic relationships.”

“Instead, we hope to aid single people in making the most out of their singlehood while they are single, whether this be because they are choosing to remain single, because they recently experienced a break-up, or because they haven’t found the romantic partner they desire yet.”

The reliance on college students for the first two studies is another detail to keep in mind, as university environments naturally expose young adults to high levels of novelty, learning, and socializing. Future research should evaluate older single adults and varying life stages to see if these day-to-day patterns look different outside of an academic setting.

“We aim to continue broadening our understanding of how single people actually experience their singlehood,” Moreno said. “What can single people do to better enjoy their time being single? How do peoples’ expectations of single peoples’ lives influence their well-being? Continuing in the realm of self-expansion in singlehood, I hope to identify whether self-expansion and its associated benefits may differ across types of activities or company.”

The study, “Riding Solo: The Associations Between Singlehood Self-Expansion Potential, Self-Expansion Experiences, and Singlehood Outcomes,” was authored by Elina Moreno, Yuthika U. Girme, Anastasiia Burik, and Sarah C. E. Stanton.