The Role of Peers and Families in Predicting the Loneliness Level of Adolescents

The March edition of the Journal of Psychology describes how peer or demographic variables in birth order, number of siblings and education level, and family structure affect the loneliness level of adolescents through a survey conducted on 756 Turkish high school students. The research hypothesizes that peer, demographic, and family variables are significant predictors of adolescent loneliness. The result shows that peer relation is the most important predictor for loneliness level; and peer intimacy, peer pressure and influence are significantly correlated with loneliness among peer variables. Other research is used to support this finding; peer influence in terms of peer acceptance and rejection is also correlated with loneliness (Rotenberg &Bartley, 1997;Sletta et al., 1996), and the variables such like personal characteristics, cognitive skills, or social behaviors contribute to this phenomenon (Conger, 1991).…