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- Loneliness profiles in adolescence: Associations with sex and social adjustment to the peer groupPublication . Ribeiro, Olívia; Freitas, Miguel; Rubin, Kenneth; Santos, António J.Loneliness is a complex feeling associated with socio-emotional adjustment difficulties, particularly during adolescence. Such construct is often treated as unidimensional rather than multidimensional, moreover, studies consisting of both peer and family contexts, are very scarce. Adopting a multidimensional and person-centered approach, our study aimed to identify distinct clusters of adolescents with similar patterns of social and emotional loneliness with peers and family and to examine their differences in peer reported social adjustment, controlling for sex. Self-report and peer nomination data were collected from 691 participants (48.36% boys) aged between 11 and 16 years (M = 12.95, SD = 1.15). After controlling for age and preference for solitude, results revealed four clusters with specific configurations of loneliness forms and with different associations with positive or negative features of social adjustment to peer group. Two clusters exhibited adaptive profiles (lower vulnerability to maladjustment): less-lonely, and family-related loneliness profile, in which adolescents were viewed by peers as exhibiting more prosocial behaviors. The other two clusters displayed maladaptive profiles (higher vulnerability to maladjustment): more-lonely, and peer-related loneliness profile, in which adolescents were more likely viewed by their peers as socially withdrawn, peer-excluded, and peer-victimized. Additionally, our results revealed sex differences, with girls in the more-lonely profile showing significant higher social loneliness related to peer group, and higher social and emotional loneliness in family context. Our results highlight the importance of recognizing different forms of loneliness given the differences in adjustment to social contexts observed, shedding further light on this complex construct
- Loneliness and social functioning in adolescent peer victimizationPublication . Almeida, Telma Sousa; Ribeiro, Olívia; Freitas, Miguel; Rubin, Kenneth; Santos, António J.Interpersonal adversity such as peer victimization has been shown to have complex associations with other socio-emotional difficulties, particularly during adolescence. We used a multidimensional peer nomination measure on a sample of 440 (52% girls) 11- to 17-year-old (M = 13.14 years, SD = 1.26) Portuguese youths to identify three groups, classified by peers as (1) victimized adolescents who showed anxious withdrawn behaviors in the context of the peer group (n = 111), (2) victimized adolescents who did not exhibit anxious withdrawn behaviors (n = 104), and (3) non-victimized adolescents (n = 225). We compared these groups on their peer-reported social functioning and on their self-reported feelings of social and emotional loneliness (with peers and family). Anxiously withdrawn victims were viewed by peers as more excluded, less aggressive, less prosocial, and less popular than non-withdrawn victims and non-victims. Non-anxiously withdrawn victims were considered more excluded than non-victims, and more aggressive than both anxiously withdrawn victims and non-victims. Finally, anxiously withdrawn victims reported feeling less integrated and intimate with their peers than non-withdrawn victims and non-victims, which is indicative of greater feelings of social and emotional loneliness at school. Youths in the current study did not report feeling lonely in their family environment. Our findings thus provide further evidence that victimized youths constitute a heterogeneous group, which differ in the way they behave toward their peers and experience loneliness.