**Introduction:** As the world becomes interconnected and individuals gain easy access to social interactions through different forms of social media, the ability to take time for solitude becomes more difficult (Wilson et al., 2014). This topic has started to gain more attention partly because most people find solitude intolerable and often try to avoid it. Up to date, there is not a theoretical framework to understand what factors reliably predict people’s ability to be alone with themselves. In this program of research, we used the self-determination theory framework to look at autonomy as an important ingredient for resilience in solitude.
**Method:** We conducted two pre-registered experiments (Study 1: N = 250; Study 2: N = 352), in which participants were given instructions to spend time alone in the lab for 15 minutes. In Study 1, participants were randomized into 3 conditions: one received a controlling instruction, one received an autonomy supportive instruction, and one received a neutral instruction. In Study 2, we only included only the controlling and autonomy supportive instructions conditions. After 15 minutes of sitting alone, the participants reported their experience with solitude.
Besides self-reported measures, an interesting component was added to these experiments. Mimicking the free-choice paradigm adopted from Deci’s (1971) study, participants were given the opportunity to later sit alone with themselves or engage in a boring task: sorting pencils into boxes. This alternative, boring task served as a measure of how much participants would prefer doing anything else rather than spending more time with themselves.
**Results:** In both studies, those who received autonomy supportive instructions reported greater autonomy support from the experimenter, compared to the neutral instruction and the controlling instruction. Autonomy supportive instructions led the participants to anticipate more enjoyment from solitude and see greater value in sitting alone with themselves prior to the experience. When given the choice between a boring activity or sitting alone with oneself, those who received controlling instructions engaged more with the boring activity, compared to those who received autonomy supportive instruction. Further investigation showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the amount of pencils sorted into boxes for those in the autonomy supportive condition but this correlation was not significant in the controlling condition. This suggested that for those who felt controlled and pressured to be in solitude, their engagement with the pencil-sorting task was more of a diversion from spending time alone with themselves.
