DOCUMENT RESUME PS 019 818 AUTHOR Renshaw, Peter D.; Brown … · Peter D. Renshaw and Peter J. Brown. School of Education. Murdoch University Author Notes. The authors wish to thank

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 337 260 PS 019 818

AUTHOR Renshaw, Peter D.; Brown, Peter J.TITLE Loneliness in Middle Childhood: Concurrent and

Longitudinal Predictors.PUB DATE Apr 91NOTE 20p.; An earlier version of this paper was presented

at the Annual Meeting of the American EducationalResearch Association (Chicago, IL, April 3-7,1991).

PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143) --Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Attribution Theory; Elementary Education;

*Elementary School Students; Foreign Countries;*Friendship; Interpersonal Competence; *Loneliness;Longitudinal Studies; *Peer Acceptance; *SocialBehavior; Withdrawal (Psychology)

IDENTIFIERS Australia (Perth)

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relation of loneliness in

middle childhood to behavioral, sociometric, and attributionalmeasures of social functioning. Data for 128 third- throughsixth-graders were collected on three occasions during a 1-year span.Teachers completed a rating scale assessing students' socialbehavior. Children's peer acceptance was assessed using a sociometricrating scale; causal attributions for social rebuke were collectedfrom each child using vignettes; and children's loneliness wasassessed using the adapted Asher et al. (1984) loneliness measure.Results indicated that concurrent loneliness was related to withdrawnsocial behavior, poor peer acceptance, few or no friendships, and aninternal-stable attributional style. After prior loneliness wascontrolled for, no other measures of social functioning predictedloneliness at 10 weeks, but sociometric and attributional measurespredicted loneliness at 40 weeks. Loneliness also predicted changesin later social functioning. Analyses indicated that children withoutfriends were lonelier than children with friends, and as time passed,friendless children became more lonely. Findings suggest thatloneliness in middle childhood is a stable phenomenon. A list of 31references is included. (BC)

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Loneliness in Middle Childhood: Concurrent and Longitudinal Predictors.

Peter D. Renshaw and Peter J. Brown

School of Education

Murdoch University

Author Notes

The authors wish to thank the children, teachers, and Fcliool personnel at Bullcreek Primary

School for their participation in this research. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the

Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April, 1991, Chicago.

Requests for reprints should bt addressed to Peter D. Renshaw, School of Education, Murdoch

UniversIty, Murdoch, Western Australia, 6150, or to Peter J. Brown, School of Education, Murdoch

University, Murdoch, Western Austras.a, 6150.

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

OD bccks,:n

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TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)"

0.7)rugC)cn1264 2

Loneliness in Middle Childhood 2

AbstractConcurrent and longer-term loneliness in

middle childhocd was investigated in relationto behavioral, sociometric, and attributionalmeasures of social functioning. Data were col-lected across a one year time-span on threeoccasions from 128 third- through sixth-graders. Results were consistent with an exec-erbatory model of loneliness - concurrent lone-liness was related to withdrawn social behav-ior, poor peer acceptance, few or no friendships,and an internal-stable attributional style.After controlling for prior loneliness, none ofthe other measures of social functioningpredicted loneliness over a short time-span (10weeks), but over a longer time-span (40 weeks)sociometric and attributional measures didpredict children's loneliness. Loneliness alsopredicted changes in later social functioning.Subgroup analyses indicated that childrenwho remained without friends were morelonely than children with friends, and acrosstime the friendless children became morelonely. Taken together, the findings suggestthat loneliness in middle childhood is a sur-prisingly stable phenomenon that is located ina web of interrelated aspects of socialfunctioning.

Loneliness in Middle Childhood: Concurrentand Longitudinal Predictors.

Children as well as adults associate lone-liness with unpleasant emotions, perceptions ofsocial relationship deficits, and an apprecia-tion that loneliness can be triggered by situat-ional factors (Hayden, Tarulli, & Hymel,1988). Although certain behavioral, sociomet-ric, and attributional characteristics have beenassociated with loneliness in middle child-hood (Asher, Parkhurst, Hymel, & Williams,1990), most research has documented the con-current relations between these characteristicsand loneliness. Very little is known about theimportance of these characteristics as longi-tudinal predictors of loneliness or altern-atively the relative importance of lonelinessas a longitudinal predictor of the social char-acteristics.

Asher et aL (1990) proposed an exacerb,tory model of loneliness in which variousaspects of social functioning combine to predi.:tincreasing levels of loneliness, specificallywithdrawn behavior, low peer status, few or nofriendships, and an internal-stable attributionstyle. Two lines of research, one examiningrejected subgroups of children and the otheraftributional patterns of low-status children,provide partial support for the model.Williams and Asher (1987) examined whetheraggressive and withdrawn subgroups of peer-rejected children differed in their lonelinessand social dissatisfaction. Their study indi-cated that withdrawn-rejected children weremost disliked by peers, had the fewest bestfriends, and reported the highest levels ofloneliness. Similar results have been obtainedby Boivin, Thomassin, and Alain (1988) andParkhurst and Asher (1989), suggesting that itmay be the combination of withdrawn behav-ior, dislike by peers, and few or no friendshipswhich is associated with particularly highlevels of loneliness and social dissatisfaction.

In light of research with adults whichshows that lonely adults tend to attributesocial failure to stable-internal circumstances(Anderson, Horowitz, & French, 1983; Pep lau,Miceli, & Morasch, 1982; Peplau, Russell, &Heim, 1979) and findings from the childhoodliterature which indicate that unpopularchildren tend to blame themselves for socialfailure (Goetz & Dweck, 1980; Sobol & Earn,1985), researchers have also examined the re-lation between causal attributions, peeracceptance, and loneliness. Again, consistentwith an exaceibatory model of loneliness, this


research indicates that children who are un-popular with their peers and who attributesocial rebuke to internal-stable causes tend tohave the highest levels of loneliness andsocial dissatisfaction (Bukowski & Ferber,1987).

A step towards identifying potential an-tecedents of childhood loneliness is evident inthe work of Hymel, Rubin, Rowden, andLe Mare (1990) who examined the longitudinalprediction of internalizing (e.g., loneliness)and externalizing (e.g., aggression) problemsfrom middle to late childhood. They foundthat peer assessments of isolate social behav-ior, unpopularity, and self-perceptions ofsocial incompetence were correlated with laterinternalizing problems. Based on these findings and the research reviewed above, in thepresent study we expected behavioral, socio-metric, and attributional indices of social func-tioning to contribute cumulatively to the pre-diction of later loneliness.

Conceptualizations of causality in nonex-perimental research have highlighted theimportance of examining differential time-lagsin order to avoid biased estimates of effectsizes and potentially misleading conclusions(James, Mulaik, & Brett, 1982; Gollob &Reichardt, 1987). According to Gollob andReichardt (1987), such problems can arise if in-vestigators fail to take into account the follow-ing three principles: that values of a variablecan only be caused by values of prior variables;that values of a variable can be caused by priorvalues of the same variable; and that effectsizes can vary as a function of the length of thetime-lag I etween a cause and the time forwhich its effect is assessed. These points takeon added significance when it is consideredthat research on childhood loneliness has yetto examine whether measures of social func-tioning remain predictive of loneliness, afteradjusting for the effects of prior loneliness. Forexample, in the Hymel et al. (1990) study, ini-tial loneliness scores were not collected. Aschildren's feelings of loneliness and socialdissatisfaction are known to be stable over time(Hymel & Franke, 1985; Hymel et al., 1983), itis possible that the predictive relations re-ported would not be significant after the effectsof prior loneliness had been taken into account.

In addition to controlling for the prior ef-fects of loneliness, in the present study we col-lected initial information about social func-tioning (Time 1) and subsequent informationten-weeks (Time 2), and one-year later (Time3), to examine the importance of differential

time-lags. Finally, we examined whetherthere was support for alternative directions ofeffect among the study variables, that is,whether loneliness is not only predicted by, butis predictive of later social functioning. Onereason for proposing an alt,:rnative direction ofeffect is that social dysfunctioning may bothprecede and follow experiences of loneliness(Rubin, Le Mare, & Lollis, 1990). For example,it may be that lonely children interpret thebehavior of their peers in a negative and self-blaming manner that in turn influences their in-teraction with peers, and leads them to becomemarginal group members. This cycle may provedifficult to change and over time may result inchildren experiencing even more aversive peerinteractions and heightened loneliness (Asheret al., 1990). A second reason for examining thealternative direction of effect is that measuresof loneliness may not only be sensitive to exist-ing difficulties children face in their peer rela-tionships but may also be sensitive to futuredisruption of these relationships. For exam-ple, it is conceivable that a child may haveseveral friends but still report moderate feel-ings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction be-cause the friendships are not particularly sup-portive, or the child would prefer to have adifferent set of friends, or because of emergingdifficulties within the friendship. If not re-solved these problems may lead to the disrup-tion of the child's existing network of friends.Thus, initial levels of loneliness and social dis-satisfaction may in the short-term highlightpotential difficulties that children face intheir peer relationships, and over time, mayforecast the disruption of the children's peerrelationships.

In summary, the present study examinedthe concurrent and predictive correlates ofloneliness within a longitudinal design involv-ing a ten week and year-long time-lag. Themeasures of social functioning included socio-metric measures (friendship and acceptance)behavior (withdrawn and aggressive) andcausal attributions for social rebuke.

MethodSubjects

Participants were one hundred twenty-eight children (66 males, 62 females) fromthird- through sixth-grade classrooms in anelementary school in Perth, WesternAustralia. The children came from white,middle-class families. Data were collected forthe sample on three occasions: at the beginningof the second school term, which was in early


May (Time 1), ten weeks later (Time 2), and oneyear after the first assessment (Time 3).Measures were administered in counterbal-anced order in each class during one session bythe first author. Children took about 30-40minutes to complete the sociometrw, attribu-tional, and loneliness measures. While theywere doing so, teachers completed the socialbehavior rating scale.

MeasuresTeacher assessment of social behavior.

Each classroom teacher completed an eight-item rating scale for each study child. Twodimensions of peer-related social behaviorwere assessed - withdrawal and aggression.High scores on withdrawal indicated highratings for "ignores other children", and "shiesaway from other children", and low ratings for"participation in peer activities", and"leadership in peer activities". High scores onaggression indicated high ratings on"bossiness" and "aggressiveness", and low rat-ings for "compliance" and "cooperativeness".Ratings for each item (from one [never] to five[very often]) were standardized to account forindividual differences in teachers' use of thescale and summed to form scores for withdrawnand aggressive social behavior. Retest-stabil-ity correlations were moderately high for theindividual social behavior items (total sam-ple: correlation coefficients = .79 to .60) and thetwo social behavior dimensions (see Table 1))Correlations between the two dimensions werelow in magnitude.

Prior to calculating the withdrawn andaggressive composite scores, a series of factoranalyses (quartimax rotation, eigen values>1)were conducted in order to determine whethertwo dimensions of social behavior were repre-sented in the checklist, and whether items con-sistently loaded on the dimension they werethought to represent. For each assessment occa-sion, the same two-factor solution was found.Items corresponding to the withdrawn dimen-sion loaded on one factor (Time 1 eigen value =3.18, factor loadings = .84 to .70; Time 2 eigenvalue = 2.08, factor loadings = .77 to .64) anditems corresponding to the aggressive dimen-sion loaded on the other factor (Time 1 eigenvalue = 2.36, factor loadings = .88 to .73; Time 2eigen value = 3.17, factor loadings = .87 to .69).In addition, both dimensions were found to beinternally consistent (Cronbach's alpha ex-ceeded .78 for each dimension at Time 1 andTime 2).

Socinmetric assessment. Children's peeracceptance was assessed using a rating-scale so-ciometric. Children indicated on a scale rang-ing from one ("Not at all") to five ("Verymuch") whether they liked playing with eachclass member at school. An average play-rat-ing received from same-sex peers within eachclassroom was calculated and scores were stan-dardized. Friendship nominations were ob-tainel by asking children to designate up tothree best friends in their class. Friendshipscores were created by summing the number ofsame-sex nominations received by each childand standardizing within classrooms. In gen-eral, retest-stability correlations for both so-ciometric measures were high (see Table 1).Friendship nominations, however, were notstable over the one year interval indicatingthe changeable nature of same-sex friendshipsacross the transition from one school year tothe next. Correlations between peer acceptanceand friendship nominations at each of theassessment periods were moderate in magni-tude.

Causal attributions for social rebuke.Causal attributions for social rebuke were col-lected from each child using two vignettesadapted from Goetz and Dweck (1980). Eachvignette described a situation that was am-biguous but could be interpreted as an instanceof rejection by peers. The vignettes were: (a)Suppose a friend stops playing with you. Whywould this happen to you? (b) Suppose some-one in your class keeps away from you all thetime. Why would this happen to you? Using atypology similar to Hymel et al. (1983), fourchoices were prescribed for each vignette thatvaried along the dimensions of internality-ex-ternality and stability-instability. Children'sranking of the four attributions were combinedacross the two vignettes and yielded scores foreach attributional choice that could vary from2 to 8. Scores for internal-stable attributionsand external-stable attributions are reported inthe analyses below. These two scores provideevieence of a child's tendency to blame the selfWiternal-stable attribution.. f.yr the other(,sxternal-stable attributions) for the apparentsocial rebuke rather than momentary and un-stable circumstances. As indicated in Table 1,retest-stability correlations were low to mod-erate in magnitude for each of these attribu-ions. Correlations between the attributionswere low to moderate in magnitude.


School-related loneliness. The Asher andWheeler (1985) adaptation of the Asher et al.(1984) loneliness measure was employed toassess children's loneliness. The measure con-sists of 16 primary items which focus on feel-ings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction atschool (e.g., "I am lonely at school", "I havenobody to talk to in class") and 8 filler itemswhich focus on hobbies and interests. Childrenindicated how true each item was for them on ascale from I ('That's always true al out me") to5 ('That's not true about me"). Scores can rangefrom a low of 16 to a high of 80, with higherscores indicating greater feelinga of loneliness.Children's reported loneliness was stable overtime (see Table 1).

ResultsPrvliminary analyses: vffe ttime on measures of social functioning and lone-liness. A series of three-way multivariateanalyses of variance were conducted sepa-rately for the behavioral (aggressive andwithdrawn behavior), sociometric (peer accep-tance and friendship), and attributional datasets (internal-stable and external-stable attri-butions). In each analysis, sex and grade werethe between-subjects measures and time of test-ing was the within-subjects measure. Theanalysis of the behavioral dimensions yieldeda significant multivariate effect for sex, F(2,107) = 3.91, p<.05, and for the interaction ofsex and time, F (2,228) = 8.07, p<.001. Follow-up analyses indicated that boys were rated bytheir teachers as significantly more aggressivethan girls, F (1,126) = 11.47, p<.001, girls wererated by their teachers as significantly morewithdrawn than boys at the second assessmentoccasion, F (1,126) = 9.30, p<.01, and girls wererated as significantly more withdrawn at thesecond assessment occasion than the firstassessment occasion, t (61) = 2.68, p<.01. Nosignificant main or interaction effects werefound for the sociometric or attributional mea-sures. Finally, a three-way ANOVA (sex xgrade x time of testing) with repeated mea-sures across the third factor revealed no signif-icant main or interaction effects for loneliness.

con ses . Concurrentcorrelations between measures of social func-tioning and loneliness at each assessment occa-sion are presented in Table 1. The pattern ofcorrelations indicates that at Time 1 lonelinesswas positively correlated with withdrawn so-cial behavior and internal-stable attributionsfor social rebuke, and negatively correlated

with peer acceptance and friendship nomina-tions. At Time 2 and Time 3, this pattern of re-lations was reproduced with one exception. AtTime 3, loneliness was negatively correlatedwith external-stable attributions. That is,childrm who were likely to attribute socialrebuke to external-stable circumstances wereless lonely.

Insert Table 1 about here

Regression analyses: Concurrent predizors, Toexamine the importance of the measures of so-cial functioning as predictors of loneliness, con-current regression analyses were employed. Inthese analyses concurrent measures of socialfunctioning were used to predict loneliness,after adjusting for the effects of prior loneliness(Gollob & Reichardt, 1987).

Regression analyses were conducted in thefollowing manner. For the second and thirdassessment occasions, loneliness scores from theprior assessment occasion, sex, and grade wereentered initially to control for their effects onsubsequent predictors. Then concurrent mea-sures of social functioning were entered as sets(i.e., the social behavior set, the sociometricset, and the attribution set) on successive stepsof the analysis (Cohen & Cohen, 1983).Univariate tests were employed only if the re-spective set accounted for significant .cldi-tional variance in partialed loneliness.Finally, a multiplicative interaction term (sexx social functioning index) was alternately en-tered on the final step of each analysis (Biddle& Marlin, 1987; Cohen & Cohen, 1983).

In the absence of an articulated causalmodel of loneliness, the following rationalewas used for the ordering of the independentvariables. The observable and external mea-sures of social functioning (behavioral and so-ciometric measures) were entered in the regres-sion analysis followed by the more internalmeasure of social functioning (attributions).This ordering is consistent with evidence thatinternalizing problems follow social behav-ioral and peer relation difficulties (Hymel etal., 1990; Rubin et al., 1990). Results for the re-gression analyses are presented in Table 2.Unless significant, interaction terms are not re-ported.

The regression analysis at Time 2 showsthat the indices of social functioning are pre-dictive of concurrent feelings of loneliness andsocial dissatisfaction. After controlling forTime I loneliness, additional significant vari-


ance in Time 2 loneliness was attributable tothe set of Time 2 social behavior indices (4%),the set of Time 2 sociometric indices (6%), andthe set of Time 2 attribution indices (3%).Univariate analyses indicated that with-drawn social behavior, low peer acceptance,few friendship nominations, and internal-stable attributions for social rebuke were pre-dictive of greater loneliness.2 With regard thethird assessment occasion, results replicatedthose found at Time 2 (see Table 2).

insert Table 2 about here

Correlates of later loneliness. The pattern ofcorrelations between measures of social func-tioning and later loneliness (see Table 1) indi-cated that more loneliness at Time 2 was asso-ciated with the following Time 1 measures:lower peer acceptance, fewer friendship nomi-nations, more withdrawn social behavior, andan internal-stable attribution style. In examin-ing the relation between Time 3 loneliness andTime 2 measures of social functioning, the samepattern of correlations was found.

Regression analyses: Longitudinal predictors.To examine the importance of the measures ofsocial functioning as predictors of later loneli-ness, prospective regression analyses were used.In these analyses prior measures of social func-tioning were used to rredict later loneliness,after adjusting for the effects of prior loneli-ness. Prospective analyses provide a stringenttest of the relationships between variables be-cause they take into account autoregressive ef-fects and assume that variables take time toexert their influence (Gollob & Reichardt,1987).

Regression analyses were conducted in thesame manner as outlined for the concurrentanalyses with the exception that prior mea-sures of social functioning served as predictorsof subsequent loneliness after controlling forprior loneliness. After partialing out Time 1loneliness none of the Time 1 indices of socialfunctioning were predictive of Time 2 loneliness(see Table With regard the third assess-ment occasion, prospective analyses indicatedthat after controlling for Time 2 loneliness, theset of Time 2 sociometric indices and the set ofTime 2 attribution indices accounted for an ad-ditional 10% of the partialed variance in Time3 loneliness. Univariate analyses indicated

that poorer peer acceptance, fewer friendshipnominations, and a reduced ;endency to at-tribute peer rebuke to external-stable attribu-tions predicted greater loneliness over theforty-week interval.

Alternative directions of effect. To examinealternative directions of effect among thevariables, prospective regression analyseswere employed. In these analyses we exam-ined whether Time 1 loneliness was predictiveof Time 2 measures of social functioning, andwhether Time 2 loneliness was predictive ofTime 3 measures of social functioning. To ac-count for autoregressive effects in each analy-sis, scores for the prior measure of social func-tioning were entered on the first step of eachanalysis followed by scores for sex and grade.Results are presented in Tabl.? 3.

After controlling for the Time 1 measuresof social functioning, sex and grade, Time 1loneliness predicted more withdrawn socialbehavior and fewer friendship nominationsover the ten-week interval. Wip.`n regard Time3 (the forty-week interval), after controllingfor the Time 2 measures of social functioning,Time 2 loneliness predicted lower peer accep-tance, a greater tendency to attribute social re-jection to internal-stable circumstances, and aredumd tendency to attribute social rejection toexternal-stable circumstances.


Friendship and loneliness. It has been claimedthat at least one friendship may be of suffi-cient adaptive value to prevent children fromexperiencing extreme feelings of loneliness andsocial dissatisfaction (Asher et al., 1984;

Asher et al., 1990). Although the correla-tional and regression analyses indicate thatloneliness is associated with fewer friendshipnominations, these analyses do not directlyaddress the issue. To determine whether therewas support for this view, a one-way ANOVA

was conducted for each assessment occasion,with friendship subgroup (No friends, Onefriend, and Two or more friends) as the be-tween-subjects measure. Each of the analysesshowed a significant effect for friendship nom-inations (see Table 4 for means and standarddeviations). Newman-Keuls planned compar-isons indicated that at Time 1 children with nofriends and children with one friendshipnomination were significantly more lonelythan children with two or more friendshfp


nominations. For the second and thirdassessment occasions, children with nofriendship nominations were significantlymore lonely than children with one friendshipnomination, who in turn were significantlymore lonely than children with two or morefriendship nominations.


Maintaining friends and loneliness. To

explore further the relationship betweenfriendship and loneliness, the effect of friend-ship maintenance on loneliness and social dis-satisfaction das examined. For this analysiswe identified three subgroups of children:friendless maintainers children who main-tained their friendless status across time; sin-gle-friend maintaintrs - children who main-tained a single friendship across time; andmultiple-friend maintainers - children whomaintained two or more friendships acrosstime. A two-factor ANOVA (subgroup x timeof testing) with repeated measures across thesecond factor revealed a significant effect forsubgroup, F (2,96) = 44.03, p<.001, and for theinteraction of subgroup x time, F (4,192) = 2.55,p<A)5. Newman-Keuls post-hoc comparisonsindicated that for each assessment occasion,friendless-maintainers were significantly morelonely than single-maintainers who in turnwere significantly more lonely than multiple-maintainers (means and standard deviationsare presented in Table 5. In addition, friend-less-maintainers became more lonely ovei theforty-week interval, t (8) = 2.73, p <.05,whereas multiple-maintainers became lesslonely over the ferty-week interval, t (71)2.14, p


DiscussionThe results of the present study suggest

that the experience of loneliness and socialdissatisfaction in middle childhood is a sur-prisingly stable phenomenon. Consistent withprevious research (Hymel & Franke, 1985;Hymel et al., 1983), initial lonelincss scorespredicted loneliness ten weeks (r=.66) and oneyear later (r=.56). The loneliness measure wasas stable as peer acceptance, and more stablethan the friendship nomination measure.These findings suggest that loneliness in mid-

dle childhood is not a readily changeablemood state. For this sample of children, self-reported loneliness remained relatively consis-tent across the one-year interval even thoughit included a change in grade, a new teacher,and some reorganization of classmates.

The concurrent regression analyses indi-cated that loneliness is predicted by a cumula-tive set of measures of social functioning.Children most likely to be lonely are thewithdrawn and low-accepted children whohave few if any friends and who attribute per-ceived social rebuke to internal-stable factorsrather than to external-stable factors. The re-gression analyses showed that each aspect ofsocial functioning added significantly to theprediction, which supports the exacerbatorymodel proposed by Asher et al. (1990).

The prospective regression analyses indi-cated the importance of considering differen-tial time-lags. After controlling for children'sinitial loneliness (Time 1) none of the otherTime 1 measures predicted loneliness across theten-week interval (Time 2). However, acrossthe forty-week interval after controlling forprior loneliness, the sociometric and attribu-tion measures predicted loneliness (Time 3).These results indicate that the children likelyto experience greater loneliness over time arethose who currently have few friends, arepoorly accepted by classmates, and tend not toattribute social rebuke to external-stable fac-tors.

In considering the relation between friend-ship and loneliness, our findings showed thatremaining without friends over time was asso-ciated with increasing levels of loneliness,while maintaining a number of friends (two ormore) was associated with decreasing levels ofloneliness. One explanation for this finding isthat by providing children with access to im-portant social and emotional provisions(Berndt, 1989; Cauce, 1986; Parker & Gottman,1989), friendships function to reduce feelings ofloneliness and social dissatisfaction. For ex-ample, Cohn, Lohrmann, and Patterson (1985)found that loneliness, as determined by theAsher and Wheeler (1985) measure, was mod-erately and negatively related to the numberof friends with whom children could talk inti-mately in their friendship networks.Interestingly, this relationship was consider-ably larger than that found between lonelinessand the actual number of friends, suggestingthat it may not be number of friends per sewhich leads to lower loneliness but rather thequalities associated with these friendships


(Parker & Asher, 1989). A second explanationas to why two or more friendships result in re-duced feelings of loneliness is that multiplefriendships provide diverse sources of supportin times of social hardship and stress (Berndt,1989; Ladd, 1990).

It appears that both peer acceptance andfriendship serve distinct functions in the expe-rience of loneliness in middle childhood(Asher et al., 1990). In support of this view, wefound that each sociometric measure accountedfor significant and additional variance in lone-liness, even after the effect of the other mea-sure had been statistically controlled (see Note2). As Asher et al. (1990) have spci.lated, lowpeer acceptance may lead to feeIin of socialisolation and few or no friendships may lead tofeelings of emotional isolation (Weiss, 1973).This is consistent with Sullivan's (1953) viewthat a close friendship provides children witha sense of self worth and security which in turnfunctions to reduce anxiety about not belongingto the peer group. It is consistent also withFine's (1981) qualitative research which sug-gests that friendships provide children with asolid base from which to develop interpersonalconfilence in the wider group. In addition, ac-ceptance by the peer group may be important ifchildren are to develop a healthy and stableself-concept and avoid developing feelings ofinferiority and worthlessness (Sullivan, 1953).

With regard social behavior, the presentstudy assessed a narrow range of social behav-iors. While the results of the study providedevidence to suggest (i) that withdrawn behav-ior is predictive of concurrent loneliness, and(ii) over time lonely children become morewithdrawn, it should be stressed that other so-cial behaviors not assessed in this study mayalso be associated with loneliness. For exam-ple, the second of two developmental path-ways leading to peer rejection outlined byRubin et al. (1990), proposed that social anxi-ety, negative self-regard, insecurity, and im-maturity may also result in children experienc-ing heightened feelings of loneliness. Futureresearch needs to employ a wider set of behav-iors (for example, items assessing social imma-turity) to determine whether there is supportfor this view. In addition, although teacherratings of social behavior are known to bevalid and reliable they may not be the bestmethod for detecting ;solate behavior in chil-dren. Research by Coie and Dodge (1988) sug-gests that observational data may be of mostuse in assessing isolate behavior, whereasteacher ratings of withdrawn behavior may be

more useful in assessing the degree to whichchildren are socially acceptable to, and so-cially interact with their peers. The methodfuture investigators choose to employ will de-pend on the particu7ar facet of withdrawn be-havior that is of prime consideration.

Self-reported loneliness reflects currentdifficulties in a child's social functioning, butit also seems to be sensitive to emerging diffi-culties. Support for this suggestion comes fromresults of the regression analyses which indi-cated that prior loneliness was predictive ofmore withdrawn behavior, a more internal-stable attributional style, fewer friendships,and lowered peer acceptance. One explanationfor these findings is that the loneliness mea-sure is picking-up feelings of dissatisfactionwith existing peer relationships that have yetto be fully resolved. Over time, the strains inthe peer relationships (indicated by the ini-tial loneliness scores) lead to fewer friends,more withdrawn behavior, loss of peer accep-tance, which in turn is likely to further exacer-bate feelings of loneliness and a self-blaminga ttributional style.

Reflecting the importance of accounting fordifferential time-lags in longitudinal re-search, regression analyses indicated that so-ciometric and attributional indices of socialfunctioning were predictive of changes in lone-liness and social dissatisfaction over tho forty-week interval but not over the ten-week inter-val. These findings indicate that a longertime-lag than ten weeks may be required if theeffects of measures of social functioning on laterloneliness are to tv detected. In support of thisexplanation, subb, oup analyses indicated thatchildren who maintained their number offriends over the ten-week interval also main-tained their level of loneliness. In contrast,over the forty-week interval children whomaintained their friendless status developedmore extreme feelings of loneliness and socialdissatisfaction, whereas children who main-tained two or more friends across this intervalexpressed less loneliness and social dissatisfac-tion. Taken together, these findings suggestthat children who are without friends for anextended time may be locked within a particu-larly debilitating social milieu of emotionaldistress and exclusion from social resources.

In conclusion, the findings from the presentstudy confirm the view that childhood loveli-ness occurs within, and is sustained over timeby a web of interrelated aspects of social func-tioning. Of particular interest to researcherstrying to identify 'at risk' groups of children, is

Loneliness In Middle Childhood 9

the finding that heightened loneliness at aparticular time, foreshadowed disruption tomultiple aspects of children's social function-ing. The loneliness measure, therefore, mayprovide teachers, school counsellors, and par-ents with advanced warning of a deteriorationin the child's social functioning. It suggestsalso that loneliness should be included as anoutcome measure of intervention programs sinceit provides data on children's current socialfunctioning, and may indicate the longer-termprospects.

FootnotesI Preliminary analyses were conducted todetermine whether stability coefficients wereconsistent across sex and grade using Fischer's ztransformation procedure. Of the 72 stabilitycoefficients computed, three showed sex differ-ences and two showed grade differences. Asthis number is no more frequent than one wouldexpect by chance, it was concluded that stabil-ity coefficients were consistent across sex andgrade.

2 For the sake of clarity, Table 2 does notpresent results of regressions in which peer ac-ceptance was entered in the regression analysisafter friendship nominations. These analysesindicated that after partialing out friendshipnominations, peer acceptance accounted for sig-nificant and additional variance in all regres-sions for which friendship nominations weresignificant predictors of loneliness. Thus, ourresults suggest that friendship nominations indpeer acceptance have independent effects onchildren's levels of loneliness. Futher informa-tion about these analyses are available fromthe authors.

3 To maintain parsimony with previousanalyses, we present but do not interpret resultsof t-tests for the one-year interval (see Table5).

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12

Table 1

Correlafions Between Loneliness and Measures of Social Functioning

withltonal.23

withl aggi paccl frndl isall (mall lone2 with2 agg2 pacc2 frnd2 isat2 esat2 lone3 pacc3 frnd3 isat3

aggl .04 -.21

pacct -.35 -.34 .25

frndl -.23 -.13 .00 .33

isall .33 .05 .01 -.10 -.04

(matt -.16 -.24 .10 .01 .09 -.44

lone2 .68 .27 - .10 -.24 -.18 .28 .03

with2 .36 .71 -.23 -.40 -.22 .09 -.05 .40

agg2 .06 -.22 .70 .17 .00 -.01 .0.1) -.03 27

pacc2 -.34 -.32 .34 .74 .19 -.09 .08 -.35 - 35 27

frnd2 -.33 -.23 .22 .32 .57 - 17 .02 -.46 - 22 12 53

isal2 .15 .01 -.06 -.03 - 07 .37 -.25 .31 13 02 01 -.17

esal2 -.07 -.11 -.03 .13 .06 -.02 25 -.06 -.02 00 07 .07 30

ione3 .56 .12 -.12 -.28 - 25 .22 .01 .66 .33 -.10 - 44 -.34 24 - 06

pacc3 -.33 -.12 .07 .39 10 -.11 09 33 ..26 09 36 .40 -.17 03 - 58

tr nd3 27 -.30 .19 .39 .13 -.09 04 34 -.27 .19 42 39 11 16 - 56 .39

is at3 .52 .14 .03 -.29 -.19 41 -.16 .46 21 -.04 - 35 25 .25 - 06 56 - 29 - 31

esal3 -.32 -.02 14 .10 .04 - 11 34 -,18 06 07 09 .06 00 04 23 20 03 56

NOTE. -- lone loneliness; with - withdrawn social behavior: agg ag0res4ive social behavior: pacc peer acceptance: frnd same-sex fnendstup nominations; isat - internal-

-stable attributions; esat external-stable annbulions; I . Time 1; 2 Time 2; 3 - Time 3. rs ? ±18 are signdicaw. p<.05, rs t .23 are significant. pc.01 based on two-taited tests.

I 4

1 3

Tabie 2

Regression Analyses: Predicting Loneliness From Concurrent and Prior Measures of Social Functioning

Predictors

Loneliness Time 2 Loneliness Time 3

Reg Rine E Beta a Rsq Rine Beta a

Concurrent Analyses;

Ione .44 .44 77.13c .66 .76 .44 .44 68.62c .66 .70

sex .44 .00 .05 -.02 -.39 .44 .00 .43 -.05 -1.32

grade .45 .01 1.71 -.13 41 .44 .00 .70 07 .76

agg .46 .01 2.03 -.12 -.34 . _ ...

with .49 .03 4.53a .17 1 20

Pa Cc .52 .03 5.18a -.21 -2.20 .51 .07 12.22c -.28 -2.92

frnd .55 .03 4.97a -.19 -2.88 .64 .13 29.87c -.39

isat .57 .02 4.81a .16 1.57 .66 .02 3 87a .16 1 27

esat ,58c .01 .47 -.07 -.36 .88c .00 .14 - 03 25

Prosgeglive Apalyses;

lone .44 .44 81.80c .66 .76 .44 .44 71.74c .66 .70

sex .44 .00 .05 -.02 -.39 .44 .00 .45 -.05 -1.32

grade .45 .01 1.62 -.13 -.41 .44 .00 .73 .07 76

agg .46 .01 L77 -.12 -.34 .45 .01 .86 .07 -.56

with .46 .00 1.71 .10 .66 .45 .00 .30 .05 .36

Pacc .46 .00 ,41 -.06 -.67 .49 .04 6.12b 23 -2.89

frnd .47 .01 .58 -.06 -.92 .53 .04 6 78P - 25 -4.59

isal .47 .00 .14 -.03 -.26 .53 .00 .86 .07 .79

esat .48c .01 .95 -.08 -.59 .58c .02 4.96a -.17 -1.47

NOTE. -- Reg = squared multiple correlation; Rine - increment to the squared multiple correlation; E F value for the change in R2: Bela - standardized regression

coefficient; a. - unstandardlzed regression coefficient: lone loneliness: agg - aggressive social behavior: with - withdrawn social behavior; pace - peer acceptance. frnd

same-sex friendship nominations; isat internal-stable attributions; esat = external-stable attributions.

a p < .05b p < .01c p < .001

1 5

Table 3

Prospective Analyses: Predicting Changes in Measures of Social Functioning From Antecedent Loneliness

PREDICTORS

with2 agg2 pacc2 frnd2

Rsq Rine Beta Rsq Rinc Beta Rsq Rint Beta Rsq Rine Beta

withl .50 .50c .70

aggl .49 .49c .70

pawl -- - - .51 .51c .71

Irnd1 . _ . _ ..- . - - -- -- .32 32c 57

sex .55 .05b -.23 .49 .00 .07 .51 00 -.02 .33 .01 .06

grade .55 .00 - 03 .49 .00 -.01 _51 .00 -.03 .33 .00 .04

tonal .59c .04c .19 ,50c .01 -.05 .52c .01 . 10 .38c 05c -.24

esat2 isat2

(mall .06 06a .25 -- --

isati - - - - .13 .13c .36 IP-

SO% .06 .00 .03 .14 .01 -.10

grade .07 .01 .11 .16 .02 .17

tonal .07 .00 -.02 .17 .01 .08

pacc2 .. ............

pacC, frnd3 esat3 isat3

.13 .l3e .36

frnd2 .10 .10c .32 -

esat200 .00c 04 . _ .. - - . _ _ _

isat2 ..... - - - .06 .06c 25

sex .13 .00 05 13 .03 17 .02 .02 .13 07 01 05

grade .18 .05 24 .14 .01 -.06 .04 02 16 07 00 04

Ione2 .21c .03a -.18 .15b .01 -.12 .10a .05b -.25 23c .16c .42

NOTE. Rsq - squared multiple correlation: Rine - increment to the squared multiple correlation: Beta standardized regression coefficient: lone loneliness.

with - withdrawn social behavior; agg aggressive social behavior; pace - peer acceptance; frnd . same-sex friendship nominations; isat - internal-stable

attributions; esat external-stable attrbutions; 1 Time 1, 2 Time 2; 3 - Time 3.

a p < .05b p < 01c p .001

s

17

Table 4

Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction as a Function of Friendship Nominations at Each Assessment

Occasion

Friendship Group

AssessmentOccasion

Sub-group, E0 friends 1 friend 2 friends

Time 1

Time 2

N

M

SD

N

1 3

34.87a

13.22

10

21

34.50b

15.56

2 5

94

28.59ab

8.51

84

3.56.

15.84**

M 47.00a 34.09a 27.84a

SD 15.83 10.54 9.90

Time 3 N 11 2 0 8 0 2 3.3 2

M 47.40a 33.55a 24.72a

SD 17.90 14.30 7.73

Note: Groups sharing horizontal superscript differ, p.05 by Student-Newman-Keuls tests.

. p.05p.001It 0

Table 5

Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction as a Function of Friendship Maintenance

Friendship Maintenance SubgroupAssessment

Occasion Subgroup, EF-M S-M M- M

N 9 1 8 7 2

Time I M 49.11a 35.11a 28.13a 1 3. 01*

SO 13.48 14.81 8.84

Time 2 M 50.00b 34.22b 28.03b 22.65"

SD 10.70 10.42 9.09

Time 3 M 58.55bc 34.56c 25.91abc 53. 1 8'

SD 11.31 10.58 8.44

Note: F-M = friendless-maintainers, S-M = single friend maintainers, M-M = multiple friend main-

tainers. Groups sharing horizontal or vertical superscripts differ, pc.05 by Newman-Keuls tests.

* p.001

20

Documents

DOCUMENT RESUME PS 019 818 AUTHOR Renshaw, Peter D.; Brown … · Peter D. Renshaw and Peter J. Brown. School of Education. Murdoch University Author Notes. The authors wish to thank