In recent years, plentiful data has emerged indicating the detrimental effects of loneliness on well-being. One of the challenges for researchers dealing with this issue is to find the mechanism underlying the relationship. The present study investigated 293 adults, aged 19-40, and examined whether authenticity and rumination functioned as mediators in the relationship between loneliness and well-being (and its three domainspleasure, engagement, and meaning). The results of the study confirmed the lonelinesswell-being link and, additionally, revealed potential mechanisms explaining this relationship, which were of different character in the cases of the particular domains of well-being. As it turned out, authenticity was the sole significant mediator in the relationship between loneliness and meaning, and rumination played the role of key mediator between loneliness and pleasure. Both these mediators had their share in the indirect effects of loneliness on engagement and overall well-being. The relations revealed between loneliness and authenticity are, in turn, congruent with recent conceptualizations of authenticity, which emphasize the interpersonal sources of this variable.
The article presents internal dialogical activity as one of the possible ways of developing wisdom, understood here primarily in terms of dialectical thinking. The author explains the relationships between internal dialogical activity and dialectical thinking and describes the cognitive processes that accompany inner dialogs, related to imaginative thinking, attention management, metacognition, and the use of conceptual knowledge with ambiguous contents. The active involvement of these processes seems indispensable for achieving dialectic effects through dialogical activity, including the acceptance of contradictions and the integration of different viewpoints. The final part of the article discusses practical methods of supporting wisdom based on three manifestations of inner dialogical activity: identity dialogs, temporal dialogs, and dialogs simulating social interactions.
The main purpose of this study was to examine the roles of parental attachment styles and emotional contagion in predicting the level of loneliness. Based on the theoretical and empirical premises, we have decided to investigate whether emotional contagion can be associated with loneliness, when the attachment styles are controlled for, and whether emotional contagion can function as a mediator in the relationship between attachment avoidance and loneliness. The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, and the Emotional Contagion Scale were applied to the research. In our results, attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were demonstrated to be positive predictors, while positive emotional contagion was shown to be a negative predictor of loneliness. Moreover, our data revealed that catching the positive (but not negative) emotions of others was a mediator in the relationship between attachment avoidance and loneliness.
(1) Background: Previous research revealed that increased loneliness resulted in decreased meaning in life (MIL). Little is known, however, about the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. The aim of the study was to determine if the set of positive evaluations of oneself, one’s life, and one’s future discussed by Caprara as positive orientation (POS) was a mediator between loneliness and MIL. (2) Methods: A sample of 304 Polish participants aged 19–45 (M = 25.61 years, SD = 6.1) completed the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, the Presence subscale of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, and the Positivity Scale. (3) Results: The study showed that loneliness was negatively associated with POS and MIL, while POS and MIL were positively correlated with each other. It also turned out that POS partially mediated the relationship between loneliness and MIL. (4) Conclusions: The results suggest that, by inhibiting POS, loneliness makes it difficult to perceive life as meaningful. The interrelationships between loneliness, POS, and MIL are discussed in light of the evolutionary theory of loneliness.
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