Loneliness and Social Support

Important research literatures have grown independently around the study of loneliness and social support. However, it is not clear whether these constructs are empirically or conceptually different. In this study, data from 739 young adults are used to examine the factor structure of two sets of loneliness scales and two sets of social support measures. Results indicated that four substantive factors related to the original scales and two support-specific factors accounted for the variation in 14 loneliness and social support variables. The substantive factors representing the Differential Loneliness Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, Socially Supportive Relationships, and Social Resources were all highly intercorrelated, but significantly less than 1.0. A second-order factor was fit to the four substantive factors and found to be an acceptable representation of their intercorrelations. The support-specific factors were negatively correlated, indicating that Family-Specific Support was inversely associated with Peer-Specific Support. The separate measures of loneliness and social support were found to be endpoints of a higher-order construct of Attachment to Social Network. Thus, although loneliness and social support may be conceptually distinct among lower-order factors, they can be construed as generated by a higher-order construct of general social attachment.