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Knowing Who You Are for Not Feeling Lonely? A Longitudinal Study on Identity and Loneliness
Author(s) -
Kaniušonytė Goda,
TruskauskaitėKunevičienė Inga,
Žukauskienė Rita,
Crocetti Elisabetta
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13294
Subject(s) - loneliness , psychology , feeling , interpersonal communication , developmental psychology , identity (music) , longitudinal study , interpersonal relationship , social psychology , statistics , physics , mathematics , acoustics
In adolescence, both identity concerns and feelings of loneliness are of utmost importance to the experiences of young people. Yet, a theoretically grounded hypothesis that identity and loneliness are developmentally related has never been tested. Thus, the aim of this study was to disentangle the longitudinal associations between identity processes in educational and interpersonal domains and loneliness in adolescence. The sample consisted of 632 Lithuanian adolescents (53.2% girls; M age = 14.32; SD age = 1.09) participating in a four‐wave study with 6‐month intervals between assessments. Cross‐lagged analyses revealed reciprocal associations between identity processes and loneliness in the educational domain and unidirectional effects of adolescents' reconsideration of commitment on loneliness in the interpersonal domain.