Social strategies and loneliness: A prospective study

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine whether the feeling of loneliness is rather an antecedent or a consequence of the strategies young adults apply in social situations. To investigate this, university students were asked to fill in the Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire at the beginning of their first and third years at university, and the revised UCLA Loneliness scale at the beginning of their second and fourth years. The results showed that the more the young adults reported the use of a pessimistic-avoidance strategy, the less lonely they were later on. In turn, the more lonely the students were, the less they used an approach-oriented strategy later on. Finally, controlling the levels of self-esteem or depressive symptomatology at the first measurement did not change the results.