Loneliness in Early Adolescence: A Test of the Cognitive Discrepancy Model of Loneliness

Abstract

The cognitive discrepancy model of loneliness postulates that people experience loneliness when they perceive a discrepancy between their actual and desired levels of interpersonal contact. In contrast, a social needs model proposes that loneliness arises from actual deficits in social contact. The incremental value of the cognitive discrepancy model over the social needs model was tested by examining whether cognitive discrepancies predict adolescent loneliness over and above the influence of actual levels of social contact. A total of 217 Grade 10 students participated. Loneliness, actual levels of social contact, and discrepancies from a personally defined ideal standard and a socially defined normative standard of social activity were assessed. The results provided limited support for a cognitive discrepancy model of loneliness. After controlling for actual levels of social activity, actual-ideal and actual-typical discrepancies added only minimally to the prediction of loneliness.