Date of Award

12-2-1990

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Microbiology & Immunology

Abstract

Loneliness is considered one of the most prevalent social problems. Difficulties in definition, measurement, and conceptualization have hindered its investigation. In an attempt to address these difficulties, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale was developed in 1976 and subsequently revised. It has become one of the most widely used measurements of loneliness.This investigation was an attempt to address further some of the lingering concerns about the psychometric properties of the Scale. Two hundred women enrolled in undergraduate classes at the University of North Dakota were administered the UCLA Loneliness Scale along with a battery of other instruments, which included the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Rotter Internal-External (I-E) Locus of Control Scale, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Demographic information on rural and urban background was also collected.Alpha factor extraction and varimax rotation were used to determine the factor structure of the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and interpretation of the factors included use of multiple regression. Four factors, which accounted for 53.2% of the total variance of the Scale, were extracted, but only three of the factors were interpretable. The first factor, Intimacy Anxiety, accounted for over 75% of the accountable variance. The second factor was labeled Isolation Anxiety, and the third factor was identified as Shyness Anxiety. Trait anxiety was highly related to all the factors. To a lesser degree, self-esteem, social desirability, and rural background were also predictors of the factors.Both consistencies and differences with the relevant literature emerged from this study. The unidimensionality and reliability of the UCLA Loneliness Scale were reaffirmed. Complementing the previous literature was the finding that a very strong trait anxiety dimension permeates the Scale. Different was the observation that depression, while a correlate of loneliness, was not a reliable predictor of it in combination with other instruments. A further difference was that locus of control showed no relationship to the Scale. A unique finding was that rural background was related to the Scale.

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