Study 1: Results

Objective 1: Loneliness and coping strategies.

            A. Correlates of coping strategies and loneliness.  A bivariate Pearson’s correlation was computed between the 28 coping strategies and loneliness.  Of the 28 coping strategies measured, 19 of them had significant correlations with loneliness at the p < .01 level and two had significant correlations with loneliness at the p < .05 level (see Table 4).  Acceptance (r = .54, p < .01) and suffering (r = .45, p < .01) had the two highest positive correlation scores with loneliness whereas active coping and planning (r = -.38, p < .01) and positive reinterpretation (r = -.35, p < .01) had the two highest negative correlation scores with loneliness.  Most of the coping strategies used in the scales were shown to have significant correlations with loneliness.

Table 4

Correlates of coping strategies with loneliness

Coping Strategy

Positive Correlates with Loneliness

Coping Strategy

Negative Correlates with Loneliness

Acceptance

.54**

Active coping and planning

-.38**

Suffering

.45**

Positive Reinterpretation

-.35**

Use internet

.41**

Emotional Social Support

-.31**

Withdrawal

.40**

Admiration of self

-.24**

Sit and think/do nothing

.36**

Exercise/Walk

-.22**

Taking drugs

.28**

Instrumental Social Support

-.19**

Start to cry

.25**

Use of God

-.17**

Sleep more

.24**

Aesthetics

-.07

Daydream

.23**

Competition

-.03

Being alone

.22**

Spend money

-.02

Power and revenge

.15**

 

 

Love and closeness

.15**

 

 

Go movies/watch TV

.12*

 

 

Eat more than usual

.11*

 

 

Listen to music

.08

 

 

Venting emotions

.06

 

 

Work or study

.02

 

 

Work on hobby

.01

 

 

Note. *p < .05. **p < .01.

            B. Factor analysis and the creation of coping categories.  A factor analysis with a varimax rotation set to extract three factors was done on the 28 different coping strategies (see Table 5).  Extracting more than three factors using factor analysis did not yield factors that held any theoretical significance.

Table 5

Factor Analysis of Coping Strategies

Factor 1:

Rumination and Passive-Avoidant Coping

Factor

Loading

Factor 2:

Emotion expression and Social coping

Factor

Loading

Factor 3:

Constructive Active Coping

Factor

Loading

Suffering

.70

Emotional Social Support+

.74

Work on hobby^

.66

Withdrawal*

.70

Venting

.74

Exercise/Walk^

.60

Acceptance

.65

Instrumental Social Support+

.74

Listen to music^

.58

Sit and think/Do nothing^

.53

Start to cry^

.56

Work/study^

.55

Use Internet

.53

Love and closeness

.54

Positive reinterpretation+

.53

Take drugs+

.53

Admiration of self

.54

Active coping and planning

.48

Daydream

.50

Spend money^

.48

Competition

.32

Sleep more^

.47

Use of God*

.36

Aesthetics

.35

Power and Revenge

.46

 

 

 

 

Being alone*

.41

 

 

 

 

Eat more than usual^

.32

 

 

 

 

Go to movies/watch TV^

.30

 

 

 

 

  Note. *Coping strategies used by Rokach and Brock (1998). ^Coping strategies used by Rubenstein and Shaver (1982).  +Coping strategies used by both.  

The first coping category, rumination and passive-avoidant coping (RPA), contains 12 coping strategies.  Two of these 12 coping strategies had weak factor loadings on RPA coping.  Rumination applies to the thoughts and cognitions that dwell on more negative aspects of loneliness, such as suffering and acceptance.  Passive-avoidant refers to the use of passive or subdued behaviors that avoid dealing with the problem of loneliness in this type of coping (e.g., sleep more).  The second coping category, emotion expression and social coping (EES), had 9 coping strategies that loaded on this factor with one coping strategy having a weak loading.  Most of these coping strategies entail coping with loneliness by some social mechanism or through an expression of emotion.  The third coping category, constructive active coping (CA), contained 8 coping strategies.  Two of these 8 coping strategies had a weak factor loading on this coping category.  These coping strategies involved behaviors and cognitions that attempted to solve the problem of loneliness or coped with loneliness in an active fashion.  RPA coping explained the greatest amount of variance (15.9%), followed by EES coping (14.3%) and CA coping (7.1%).  Overall, the model explained 37.4% of the variance.

            C. Coping categories and its relation to loneliness.  The scores of the respective coping strategies for each coping category were summed to create a composite score for each coping category.  A bivariate Pearson’s correlation was then calculated for the three coping categories along with the level of loneliness (see Table 6).  RPA coping had the strongest correlation with loneliness (r = .55, p < .01) and was the only coping category that had a positive correlation with loneliness.  This suggests that lonely persons use RPA coping heavily and/or that this coping strategy increases loneliness.  EES coping had a significant weak correlation with loneliness (r = -.13, p < .05) and CA coping had the strongest negative correlation to loneliness (r = -.30, p < .01).  Interestingly, EES coping had a significant correlation to both RPA coping (r = .19, p < .01) and CA coping (r = .45, p < .01), but RPA coping and CA coping were not significantly correlated with each other.

Table 6

Intercorrelation between coping categories and loneliness

Subscale

1

2

3

4

 

(n = 353)

 

 

 

1. Loneliness

-

.55**

-.13*

  -.30**

2. RPA coping

 

-

   .19**

-.10

3. EES coping

 

 

-

    .45**

4. CA coping

 

 

 

-

Note. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Objective 2: Culture, loneliness and coping strategies.

            A. and B. Differences between coping strategies, loneliness and nationalities.  The means between the two nationalities for loneliness and the three coping categories were compared through four separate t-tests.  No significant differences were found for any of these four t-tests.  This was probably due to the lack of statistical power to gain significant differences between the two nationality categories since collectivistic societies were a small proportion of the sample.

Objective 3: Developmental approach to loneliness and coping strategies.

            A. Correlate between loneliness and age.  A bivariate Pearson’s correlation between age and loneliness was computed.  There was no significant correlation between age and loneliness.  An ANOVA test also was computed between age categories (adolescent, young adult and adult) and loneliness to see if there were significant differences between age categories for reported levels of loneliness.  The overall model was not significant at the α = .05 level.

B. Changes in coping categories between age categories.  When a bivariate Pearson’s correlation was computed between coping categories and age, two coping categories were significantly related to age.  EES coping was one (r = -.20, p < .01) and RPA coping was the other (r = -.12, p = .02).  CA coping did not appear to have any relation to age.  The other two correlations, however, suggest that these two coping strategies are used more among the younger population.

ANOVAs were then calculated between the different coping strategies and the age categories to see exactly where these differences lie (i.e., in adolescents, young adults or both).  Table 7 shows that EES coping is the only category that is significant.

Table 7

Analysis of Variance of coping categories for age categories.

Coping strategy

 Adolescent Mean

Young Adult Mean

Adult Mean

F

p

RPA Coping

21.08

20.56

18.80

1.53

.22

EES Coping

33.42

33.19

29.03

3.83

.02

CA Coping

22.17

23.69

21.88

1.83

.16

 
 

Post Hoc multiple comparison Scheffé tests yielded significant differences between adolescent and adult (p = .04) and young adult and adult (p = .05) for EES coping.  This suggests that adolescents and young adults use EES coping significantly more than adults.

Objective 4: Internet use, loneliness and coping strategies.

A. Coping with loneliness using the Internet.  The results from Table 4 show that use of the Internet as a coping strategy (measured by the additional coping item) is significantly positively correlated with loneliness (r = .41, p < .01).  Table 5 also shows that the Internet as a coping strategy factors well into the coping category, RPA coping and had the third highest loading on that factor.

            B. Differences in the level of loneliness for different uses of the Internet.  Two different dimensions of using the Internet were measured, namely, regular uses of the Internet and the most important use of the Internet for a participant.  There were 12 separate items for different uses of the Internet and t-tests were performed on these 12 to determine if, within any item, there was a significant mean difference in the level of loneliness.  Table 8 displays the results. 

Table 8

T-test of loneliness mean differences by Internet Use

Use of Internet

 

Percentage of Yes Responses (N=353)

Mean Difference

t

SD

Yes

No

Work

49.29

20.72

18.25

  2.52*

.98

Entertainment

77.34

17.68

20.04

 -2.02*

1.17

News/Weather

50.71

19.07

19.92

-8.58

.99

Reference Information

67.71

19.39

19.56

-  .16

1.06

Instant Messaging

57.79

19.76

19.32

   .44

1.00

Email

95.18

19.65

19.55

-  .39

.70

Chatrooms

24.36

19.01

21.03

-1.77

1.15

Newsgroups

15.58

18.95

22.53

  -2.65**

1.35