What the research says the state does to attention

Cacioppo JT, Hawkley LC (2009). Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(10), 447 to 454 doi

Loneliness shifts attention and memory toward social threat. Lonely people pick up negative social cues faster, hold on to the unpleasant parts of an interaction more readily, and expect rejection before an interaction has started. The authors describe this as a self protective state that the situation switches on, rather than as a fixed feature of the person. It is a review of the evidence rather than a single experiment.