According to a new study released yesterday, loneliness is contagious. The study, conducted by the University of Chicago, the University of California-San Diego and Harvard, interviewed 5,000 people over the course of 10 years and tracked their friendships and reports of loneliness. Researchers found that lonely people tend to move to the outskirts of their social groups, where they have fewer and fewer friends. But before they move, they “infect” or “transmit” their feelings of loneliness to their remaining friends. Essentially, their behavior rubs off on others. These friends, in turn, do the same to their friends - and the cycle continues. “It travels through people,” said John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the study. “Instead of a germ, it’s transmitted through our behaviors.” The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, also shows that loneliness can make you more anxious, more shy and cause you to believe you have poor social skills.