Loneliness And Social Interaction Anxiety

Abstract

Loneliness is the distressing feeling associated with the perceived absence of satisfying social relationships (Peplau and Perlman, 1982). Social interaction anxiety is the distress when meeting and talking with other people (Mattick & Clarke, 1998). The objective of this study is to find the relationship between perceived loneliness and social interaction anxiety in 10th grade students. The sample consisted of 60 students, (30 hostellers and 30 day scholars, with 15 boys and 15 girls in each group) taken from CBSE schools of Hyderabad. The method of sampling used was stratified sampling. Perceived Loneliness Scale and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale were administered to the students. The results report a positive correlation

It is the anguish experienced by a person when there is cognitive incongruity between desired and actual social relationships. A person feels lonely when he fails to establish close relationships inspite of wanting to. Loneliness is subjective; it is not positive and is an outcome of inadequate social relationships. Loneliness cannot be considered to be synonymous with being alone, nor can having people around assure protection from feeling lonely. Loneliness may be experienced in the presence of many people around or when not unaccompanied by anyone, loneliness may not be experienced. Loneliness is particularly upsetting and painful where as being alone may be pleasant or

Genetic predisposition is one of them. In a recent study conducted by Boomsma, Willemsen, Dolan, Hawkley and Cacioppo (2005), it was shown that genetic contributions to individual differences in loneliness was 48% in adults and the remaining variance of 52% was attributed to unique environmental factors. Apart from hereditary, socio-demographic factors like gender, age, race, education and economic status also contribute to individual differences in loneliness and are predictors of loneliness. Studies show that loneliness is found to be slightly more in females than males, when terms like “lonely” or “loneliness” are used in the measure (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003), more in adolescence and young adults (i.e 16-25 years) than any other group except the oldest old (above 80 years) (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003 ) and lesser in people having greater educational attainment and higher income (Pinquart & Sorensen, 2003). Social roles acts as shields against loneliness. When people are deprived of social roles they experience loneliness. Recent researches show that loneliness is more among divorced or never married people than people who are married (Dykstra & Fokkema, 2007; Pinquart, 2003), more among retired and unemployed people than employed ones (Hansson, Briggs, & Rule, 1990; Viney, 1985), less among people who are members of a voluntary group (Cattan, White, Bond, & Learmouth, 2005) and those having