Poster #57 - Loneliness and Fear of Negative Evaluation in Adolescence: Self-Esteem and Need to Belong as Mediators

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Loneliness is an aversive and subjective state in which people feel dissatisfied with their social relationships. Feelings of loneliness are associated with a variety of problem behaviors, including fear of negative evaluation, which is a key aspect of social anxiety. The present study examined whether two constructs, self-esteem and the need to belong, mediated the association between loneliness and fear of negative evaluation in adolescence. Self-esteem is defined as individuals’ subjective evaluation of their own worth as a person. The need to belong refers to the basic need that all humans have to create and maintain social bonds. Previous research has found significant associations among all four constructs involved (i.e., loneliness, fear of negative evaluation, self-esteem, and need to belong), although some studies have found that the degree to which the need to belong was met rather than the need to belong itself was related to loneliness. We examined the direct association between loneliness and fear of negative evaluation and tested whether self-esteem and need to belong mediated this association (i.e., indirect associations). The statistical model is presented in Figure 1.

Method: Participants were adolescents in the Kandinsky Longitudinal Study, a multi-wave cohort-sequential study on psychosocial well-being in secondary school conducted in the Netherlands. Participants were students in Grades 7 to 10. The analytical sample comprised 1201, 1277, 1031 and 594 adolescents, respectively, in Grades 7 to 10. The average age in Grade 7 was 12.67 years (SD = 0.42) and 15.74 years in Grade 10 (SD = 0.48). Loneliness, need to belong, self-esteem, and fear of negative evaluation were measured using the peer-related loneliness subscale of the Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents (LACA), the Need to Belong Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and a brief version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale. To test our hypotheses that self-esteem and need to belong mediated the association between loneliness and fear of negative evaluation, we ran a multiple mediation model on the data from the 7th to 10th grade participants in Mplus Version 8.

Results: We ran the same model in Grades 7 to 10 and found similar results for each grade. Model fit was adequate in all grades. All paths in the model were significant based on the 99% confidence intervals, as well as the indirect effects (see Table 1). Based on these results, we concluded that there was a significant direct effect of loneliness on fear of negative evaluation throughout early adolescence. Additionally, there were two indirect effects of loneliness on fear of negative evaluation, that is, through self-esteem and need to belong. Both indirect effects were significant in all four grades. Thus, self-esteem and need to belong mediated the association between loneliness and fear of negative evaluation.

Discussion: Implications of the findings for current understanding of the association between loneliness and fear of negative evaluation in adolescence will be discussed. Suggestions for future research into the underlying processes of this association will be provided.

Authors

• Flore Geukens, KU Leuven
  Presenting Author

• Yvonne van den Berg, Radboud University, Nijmegen
  Non-Presenting Author

• Toon Cillessen, Radboud University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luc Goossens, KU Leuven
  Non-Presenting Author