Loneliness, negative life events, and the provisions of social relationships

This study examined the relationship of loneliness to deficits in six relational provisions—Attachment, Guidance, Opportunities for Nurturance, Reassurance of Worth, Reliable Alliance, and Social Integration. Unlike past investigations, which have been flawed by a confounding of measurement in which the very deficits used to operationalize loneliness have also been used to predict it, a self‐labeling measure of loneliness was used to address the question of how people who have come to the conclusion that they are lonely evaluate the provisions obtained from their social relations. In multiple regression analyses, loneliness was most strongly linked to deficits in Guidance, Attachment, and Reassurance of Worth for females, and Social Integration, Guidance, and Opportunities for Nurturance for males. The hypothesis that deficits in these provisions would be most strongly associated with loneliness for individuals who had recently experienced stress received weak support.

Key concepts:

• Loneliness
• social support
• stress