Social Skills, Family Conflict, and Loneliness in Families

The primary aim of this study was to examine associations between family conflict, social skills, and loneliness among a sample of 255 father–mother–adult child triads. We examined two dimensions of social skills, self-disclosure skills and positive relations with others, as moderators of the association between family environment conflict and loneliness using triadic models in SAS PROC MIXED. Self-disclosure skills moderated the association between family conflict and loneliness; however, positive relations with others did not moderate this association. Thus, our hypothesis was partially supported. Implications for taking a multidimensional view to examining social skills in conjunction with family conflict and loneliness are discussed.