The effects of childhood parental separation and divorce on adult loneliness were studied. Eighty-seven volunteer male and female participants completed the UCLA Revised Loneliness Scale and the Reported Mourning Behavior Checklist. Data were analyzed using stepwise multiple regression, and results were acceptable at the .05 level of significance. Analysis of the data revealed that there were significant relationships between reported mourning behaviors, as well as the respondents' ages at the time of parent separation, and loneliness.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
SchoettleU. C. and CantwellD. P., Children of Divorce-Demographic Variables, Symptoms and Diagnoses, Journal of American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 19, pp. 453–475, 1980.
2.
GardnerR. A., Psychotherapy with Children of Divorce, Aronson, New York, 1976.
3.
WallersteinJ. and KellyJ. B., Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce, Basic Books, New York, 1980.
4.
FreudS., Mourning and Melancholia, in Standard Edition, 14, Hogard, London, 1957.
5.
BowlbyJ., Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 15, International Universities Press, New York, 1960.
6.
BowlbyJ., Process of Mourning, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 42, pp. 317–340, 1961.
7.
BowlbyJ., Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1969.
8.
ShanerP. and RubensteinC., Childhood Attachment Experiences and Adult Loneliness, Review of Personality and Social Psychology, WheelerL., (ed.), Sage Press, Beverly Hills, California, 1980.
9.
AnthonyE. J. and KoupennikC., Children at Risk from Divorce, The Child and His Family, Wiley, New York, 1974.
10.
FurmanE., A Child's Parent Dies, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1974.
11.
WallersteinJ. and BlaksleeS., Second Chances, Men, Women and Children a Decade after Divorce, Ticknor and Fields, New York, 1989.
12.
HetheringtonE. M., Divorce, a Child's Perspective, American Psychologist, 34, pp. 841–858, 1979.
13.
BlockJ. H.BlockJ., and MorrisonA., Parental Agreement-Disagreement on Child Rearing Orientations and Gender-Related Personality Correlates in Children, Child Development, 52, pp. 965–974, 1981.
14.
DerlegaV. and MargulisS., Why Loneliness Occurs: The Interrelationship of Social Psychological and Privacy Concepts, in PeplauL. and PerlmanD., Loneliness: A Source of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, Wiley, New York, 1982.
15.
SullivanH. S., The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, W. W. Norton, New York, 1953.
16.
WeissR. S., Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1973.
17.
SlaterP., The Pursuit of Loneliness, Beacon Press, Boston, 1970.
18.
LeidermanP., Loneliness a Psychodynamic Interpretation, International Psychiatric Clinics, 6, pp. 155–174, 1969.
19.
RussellD.PeplauL., and CutronaC., The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and Discriminant Validity Evidence, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, pp. 472–480, 1980.
20.
RubensteinC. and ShanerP., The Experience of Loneliness, in Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, PeplauL. and PerlmanD. (eds.), Wiley, New York, 1982.
21.
EricksonE., The Problem of Ego Identity, Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association, 4, pp. 56–121, 1956.
22.
PeplauL. and PerlmanD., Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, Wiley, New York, 1982.
23.
MurphyP. A., Parental Death in Childhood and Loneliness in Young Adults, Omega, 17, pp. 219–228, 1986.
24.
MahonN. and YarcheskiA., Loneliness in Early Adolescents: An Empirical Test of Alternate Explanations, Nursing Research, 37:6, pp. 330–334, 1988.