In past research, loneliness has been found to be associated with social skill deficits. In the present study, loneliness was also demonstrated to be strongly associated with anxiety over social skills, for both male and female undergraduates and for a variety of social relationships. In a second study, male and female undergraduates were rated on both social skill deficits and anxiety over social skills to determine whether the two factors interacted to produce greater loneliness. Both factors were related significantly but independently to loneliness, with anxiety having a larger effect size.
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