Developing and testing a model of loneliness.

This article presents a model of loneliness that incorporates characteristics of the social network, background variables, personality characteristics, and evaluative aspects. The most salient aspect of this approach is its emphasis on cognitive processes that mediate between characteristics of the social network and the experience of loneliness. A total of 554 adult men and women served as respondents. The program LISREL, a causal modelling approach, was used to analyze the data. The LISREL program includes a goodness-of-fit test that indicates the degree of fit between a particular model and the data. The hypothesized model made a valuable contribution to the understanding of loneliness: It accounted for 52.3% of the variance in the data set. One of the model's major advantages is its ability to disentangle both the direct and the indirect causal influences of the various factors on loneliness.

[1]  C. Anderson,et al.  Attributional style of lonely and depressed people. , 1983, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[2]  S. C. Johnson.  Hierarchical clustering schemes , 1967, Psychometrika.

[3]  Letitia Anne Peplau,et al.  Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy. , 1984 .

[4]  J. Jong-Gierveld,et al.  Singlehood: A creative or a lonely experience? , 1980 .

[5]  G. Hendershot,et al.  Do Family Ties Reduce Mortality? Evidence From the United States, 1966-1968. , 1977 .

[6]  J. de Jong-Gierveld,et al.  The Development of a Rasch-Type Loneliness Scale , 1985 .

[7]  R. Weiss,et al.  Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation. , 1975 .

[8]  Robert A. Lewis,et al.  Men in Families , 1985 .

[9]  Linda A. Wood.  Loneliness, Social Identity and Social Structure. , 1978 .

[10]  V. Derlega,et al.  Friendship and Social Interaction , 1986 .

[11]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotions , 1987 .

[12]  I. Szelényi,et al.  Primary Group Structures and Their Functions: Kin, Neighbors, and Friends , 1969 .

[13]  C. Fischer.  On urban alienations and anomie: powerlessness and social isolation. , 1973, American Sociological Review.

[14]  A. Jersild,et al.  Feelings and Emotions. , 1929 .

[15]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Loneliness, social interaction, and sex roles. , 1983, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  C. Solano,et al.  Loneliness and patterns of self-disclosure. , 1982, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  Y. A. Cohen,et al.  The Anatomy of loneliness , 1980 .

[18]  R. Veenhoven.  The growing impact of marriage , 1983 .

[19]  W. Gove,et al.  Reexamining the Ecological Fallacy: A Study in Which Aggregate Data Are Critical in Investigating the Pathological Effects of Living Alone , 1980 .

[20]  C. Solano.  People Without Friends: Loneliness and Its Alternatives , 1986 .

[21]  D. Perlman,et al.  Gender Differences in Loneliness , 1985 .

[22]  Ronald C. Kessler,et al.  Marital Status and Depression: The Importance of Coping Resources , 1982 .

[23]  Personal Relationships in Disorder , 1981 .

[24]  W. H. Jones,et al.  Personality and interpersonal predictors of loneliness in two cultures. , 1985 .

[25]  J. Overall,et al.  Applied multivariate analysis , 1983 .

[26]  Jenny de Jone-Gierveld.  The construct of loneliness: Components and measurement. , 1978 .

[27]  T. Brennan,et al.  Adolescent Loneliness: An Exploratory Study of Social and Psychological Pre-Dispositions and Theory. Volume 1. , 1979 .

[28]  J. Woodward,et al.  Loneliness and the elderly as related to housing. , 1974, The Gerontologist.

[29]  N. Denzin,et al.  The Research Act , 1978 .

[30]  H. Lopata.  Women as widows: Support systems , 1979 .

[31]  G. Levinger,et al.  Attraction in relationship : a new look at interpersonal attraction , 1972 .

[32]  Letitia Anne Peplau,et al.  The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and Discriminant Validity Evidence , 1980 .

[33]  W. Gove.  The Relationship Between Sex Roles, Marital Status, and Mental Illness , 1972 .

[34]  K. Jöreskog,et al.  Analysis of linear structural relationships by maximum likelihood and least squares methods , 1983 .

[35]  Michael R. Anderberg,et al.  Cluster Analysis for Applications , 1973 .

[36]  W. Clark,et al.  The mental health of the unmarried. , 1966, The American journal of psychiatry.