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Journal of Adolescence 2002, 25, 327339doi:10.1006/yjado.475, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com onbetween loneliness and personality traits (Stokes, 1985; Saklofske and Yackulic, 19loneliness and locus of control (Solano, 1978); loneliness and social skills, social sup(Ponzetti and Cate, 1988; Riggio et al., 1993); loneliness and interpersonal trust (Rotenb1994); gender differences in loneliness and depression (Upmanyu et al., 1992; Koenig e1994; Wiseman et al., 1995); loneliness and self-esteem (Haines et al., 1993; McWh1997); loneliness and self-criticism (Wiseman, 1997); loneliness and social strategies (Net al., 1997); and loneliness and creativity (Mahon et al., 1999).

However, few studies have examined the relationship between happiness and lonelilooking particularly at whether they have similar or different psychological correlates.

Loneliness, peer relations, and self-confidenceLoneliness has been linked to various maladjustments like alcoholism (Bell, 1956)suicide (Wenz, 1977). Whilst loneliness and depression are both forms of sadnesunhappiness, depression is seen as broader in scale and is roughly synonymwith unhappiness. Moreover, loneliness is seen as mainly due to the deficiency ininterpersonal realm whereas depression can be due to both interpersonal and ofactors both social and non-social (Shaver and Brennan, 1991). Weiss (1973, 1hypothesized that two distinct types of loneliness exist: emotional loneliness wresults from the lack of close, intimate attachment to another specific person;Personality, peer relations, and self-confidence aspredictors of happiness and loneliness

HELEN CHENG AND ADRIAN FURNHAM

This study is set out to examine to what extent peer relations, self-confidence, andschool performance correlated with self-rated happiness (OHI) and loneliness (UCLALS) in adolescents. Personality traits (EPQ), self-confidence (PEI), friendship andschool grades were all significantly oppositely correlated with happiness and loneliness.Regressional analysis revealed that extraversion and neuroticism were direct predictorsof happiness and self-confidence, while psychoticism and extraversion were directpredictors of loneliness. The effect of sex on happiness and loneliness was moderatedby friendship and neuroticism, and by neuroticism and psychoticism, respectively.Extraversion was also a significant predictor of general confidence and socialinteractions which directly influenced loneliness whilst psychoticism was a directpredictor of loneliness. Self-rated school performance was the only direct predictor ofhappiness whereas general confidence and social interactions were related toadolescents self-reported loneliness.

r 2002 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.

Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Introduction

Although loneliness has not been as extensively researched as depression over the past 30years, it has consistently attracted researchers interests, particularly those concerned withyoung people. As such, a number of studies have appeared which looked at the relationshipsReprint requests and corresspondence should be addressed to Prof. A. Furnham, Department of Psychology,University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1 0AP, U.K. (E-mail: a.furnham@ucl.ac.uk).

0140-1971/02/$3500+000 # 2002 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

328 H. Cheng and A. Furnhamsocial loneliness which results from the lack of a network of social relationships in whichthe person is part of a group of friends who share interests and activities. Russell et al.(1978) developed a scale: UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA LS) which measures thesetwo distinct types of loneliness named intimate others and social others. This scale laterwas revised by Russell et al. (1980) and has been widely used in the area (Shaver andBrennan 1991).

In recent years, various studies have looked at correlates of loneliness among adolescents.Saklofske and Yackulic (1989) explored the relationship of Eysencks major personalitydimensions with measures of general, social, and emotional loneliness as well as copingstrategies in a group of young people. General and social loneliness were inversely related toextraversion, but positively to neuroticism (along with emotional loneliness). The threevariables explained 45% and 37% of the UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA LS) scores for malesand females, respectively, which suggests personality variables are major predictors ofloneliness.

Stokes (1985) examined the role of social networks in loneliness and found that bothsocial network variables and individual differences measures (EPQ) were predictive of self-reported loneliness. The density of the network showed the strongest and most consistentrelation to loneliness, with a denser network being associated with less loneliness. Bothextraversion and neuroticism were significantly correlated with loneliness. The relation ofextraversion and loneliness was mediated largely by social network variables. Partialing outvariance attributable to the social network variables reduced the relation of extraversion andloneliness, but the relation of neuroticism and loneliness was not mediated by social networkvariables.

There is also a literature looking at the relationship between social skills, socialsupport and loneliness which suggests that socially inadequate and unskilled peopleattract less social support and are hence more lonely. Previous studies indicated thatthere appeared to have a link between social skills and social support (Sarason et al., 1985;Argyle, 1992) in which people who had higher social skills tended to receive greater socialsupport than people who had lower social skills. Riggio et al. (1993) examined social skills,social support, and psychological adjustment. They found that improved social skillscombined with perceived social support predicted adjustment and reduced perceptions ofloneliness.

A number of studies examined gender differences in loneliness and depression. Upmanyuet al. (1992), Koenig et al. (1994), and Wiseman et al. (1995) demonstrated that althoughloneliness and depression were highly or moderately correlated, there was a gender differencein which males reported significantly higher loneliness whilst females reported significantlyhigher depression.

Various studies examined the link between problem relations during adolescenceand maladaptive behaviour. Wadell (1984) found that adolescents experiencinglittle contact with their friends would have low self-confidence and feelings ofinadequacy. In another study, using multiple regression analyses, Claes (1992) foundthat the quality of attachment maintained with friends and the absence of conflictexperiences in friendship accounted for a low but significant proportion of the scorevariance obtained from the personal adjustment scale. Previous studies also revealed agender differences in that at all ages girls expect more from their friends than boys and

appear to experience greater levels of intimacy and self-disclosure than boys do (Argyle,1987; Claes, 1992).

Predictors of happiness and loneliness 329HappinessThrough the past century, psychologists have mainly focused on human unhappiness(such as anxiety and depression) and neglected the positive aspect of human potential.Only until comparatively recently, especially after Bradburns (1969) discovery of theindependence of positive and negative affect, that psychologists have started to look atthe correlates, definitions and predictors of happiness (Argyle, 1987; Eysenck, 1990;Myers, 1992; Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Argyle et al. (1989) definedhappiness as having three partly independent components: (1) the average level ofsatisfaction over a specific time period; (2) the frequency and degree of positive affect;and (3) the relative absence of negative affect. They, therefore, devised a measure ofhappiness that has proved a robust and comprehensive measure of both reliability andvalidity (Furnham and Brewin, 1990).

Personality traits (particularly extraversion and neuroticism) have been consistently foundto be the main causes of individuals general happiness accounting for up to half of the totalvariance (Eysenck, 1990; Argyle and Lu, 1990; Furnham and Brewin, 1990; Headey andWearing, 1991; Myers and Diener, 1995; Brebner et al., 1995; Furnham and Cheng, 1997,2000; Francis et al., 1998).

High self-esteem has been reported to be one of the strongest predictors of psycho-logical well-being (Rosenberg, 1965; Campbell, 1981; Diener, 1984). Shrauger (1995)developed a scale: the Personal Evaluation Inventory (PEI) which measures specificself-esteem and self-confidence in different aspects (speaking in public; academicperformance; physical appearance; social interactions; athleticism; together with generalconfidence and mood state subscales) of individuals life. The convergent validity wasreported by Shrauger (1995) that the total PEI correlated r=0?58 with the RosenbergSelf-Esteem Scale which suggests it is a useful multi-dimensional measure of self-esteemand which will be used in this study.

Friendship has been found to be one of the predictors of happiness (Argyle, 1987). Thereis a significant evolution in the characteristics that define friendships from infancy to olderadolescence, evolving from common interest for games and activities, to the sharing offeelings, emotions and self-disclosure (Berndt, 1982). Peer friendship has been found to playan important role in adolescence, mainly in providing social support and shared interests andjoined activities (Argyle, 1987). It is, therefore, expected to be related to both happiness andloneliness but in opposite directions.

This study set out to examine whether happiness and loneliness had similar but oppositecorrelates particularly personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism), self-esteem (measured multi-dimensionally), and social support (friendship). It also set out toexamine demographic (particularly sex) differences in these two variables. Based on both thehappiness and loneliness literature, three specific hypotheses were tested:

1. extraversion would be significantly positively related to happiness but significantlynegatively related to loneliness while for neuroticism the opposite pattern would occur(significant negative correlations with happiness but significant positive correlations withloneliness);

2. self-esteem at both single-factor level and the total level would be significantlynegatively correlated with loneliness but positively correlated with happiness;

3. females would have higher friendship scores and consequently would be less lonely

than males.

330 H. Cheng and A. FurnhamMethod

ParticipantsNinety adolescents participated in this study (49 males and 41 females). They ranged in agefrom 16 to 18 and the mean age was 17?23 (S.D.=0?65). They were senior pupils of threeschools in the U.K.

Measures1. Personal Evaluation Inventory (PEI) (Shrauger, 1990). This is a 54-item scale (with

four choices from strongly agree to strongly disagree) measuring self-confidencedefined as a persons sense of his or her own competence or skill and perceivedcapability to deal effectively with various situations. It was designed to measure thespecific domains of self-confidence: academic performance; athletics; physicalappearance; romantic relationships; social interactions; and speaking with people.In addition to the six subscales, there were also general confidence and mood statefactors thus forming eight subscales with seven items in each (except the subscale ofathletics, which had five items).

2. Love and Liking Scales (Rubin, 1970). The Love and Liking Scales each contains 13items with nine choices from disagree completely to agree completely which measureromantic love and interpersonal attraction. In this study, the internal consistency a for LoveScale was 0?88 and that for Liking Scale was 0?87.

3. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975). This is a 90-item YesNo questionnaire which measures extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie. Thequestionnaire has been noted for its impressive psychometrically assessed high reliability andvalidity (Furnham and Brewin, 1990).

4. Affectometer 2. This is a 40-item self-report scale containing positive andnegative affects with five choices from not at all to all of the time. A coefficient aof 0?95 is reported and it correlated 0?84 with the Beck Depression Inventory andthe negative items correlated more highly with the BDI than the positive items (Kammannand Flett, 1983).

5. The Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle et al., 1989). This is a 29-item question-naire, based on a seven point rating scale from (7) agree through to (1) disagree. Ithas a testretest reliability of 0?78 and a Cronbach coefficient a of between 0?64 and0?87 which seems adequate rather than high. It has a reported validity of 0?43 withfriends ratings of happiness on a 10-point scale. It correlates with all happiness com-ponents: positive affect, life satisfaction, and also negative affect, depression and distress atr=0?40 to 0?60.

6. UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell et al., 1980). This is a revised 20-item scale measuringloneliness which contains two subscales named intimate others and social others. It hada reported internal consistency coefficient a of 0?94. The scale correlated significantly withmeasures of depression (r values of approximately 0?50) and anxiety (r values in the 0?30s)(Russell et al., 1980).

Procedure

Participants were asked to fill out the questionnaire in the school environment. It took about50 min to complete. The confidentiality was stressed and the response rate was above 95%.

Results

Sex differencesTable 1 shows the mean (and standard deviations) for both sexes. Six of the 27 ANOVAs weresignificant which confirmed both past research and, in part, hypotheses in this study. As hasbeen found in many other studies females had significantly higher neuroticism, but lowerpsychoticism scores than males. There was only one self-confidence factor difference: malesscore higher on athletics than females. The overall PEI total was not significant despiteprevious studies showing females with lower scores than males. Females also had significantly

Table 1 Means and S.D. of peer relations (RLLS), personal evaluation (PEI), school grades(GCSE), personality (EPQ), affect (Affectometer), loneliness (UCLA LS), happiness (OHI),and demographic variables by sex

Measures a Male (n=49) Female (n=41)

X S.D. X S.D. F

Age 16?27 0?57 16?20 0?75 0?25Mothers employment 0?81 0?68 0?73 0?87 0?02Brother 1?02 0?72 0?88 0?64 0?96Sister 0?71 0?68 0?73 0?87 0?02

Extraversion 0?84 14?73 4?37 15?36 4?81 0?35Neuroticism 0?84 12?35 4?92 16?12 4?28 12?26***Psychoticism 0?73 8?05 3?84 4?68 3?34 15?19***Lie scale 0?72 6?19 3?64 6?09 3?42 0?01

PEI Factor 1 0?72 18?51 3?63 17?73 3?30 1?10PEI Factor 2 0?69 18?60 3?77 18?35 3?42 0?10PEI Factor 3 0?84 18?96 3?84 17?90 5?45 1?12PEI Factor 4 0?79 19?98 3?36 19?08 4?44 1?08PEI Factor 5 0?79 19?43 3?54 17?77 4?35 3?79PEI Factor 6 0?73 20?75 3?15 21?50 3?93 0?94PEI Factor 7 0?77 14?80 3?66 12?07 2?94 14?50***PEI Factor 8 0?67 17?37 5?44 17?77 4?50 0?13PEI Total 0?89 147?94 19?20 143?50 19?81 0?88

Friends (Liking Scale) 0?87 78?07 14?63 91?03 15?33 15?51***Romance (Love Scale) 0?88 81?93 17?98 84?00 15?17 0?29School grades 35?38 11?81 42?21 10?49 7?74**

Predictors of happiness and loneliness 331UCLA Factor 1 0?85 19?72 5?73 19?42 5?61 0?57UCLA Factor 2 0?86 13?35 4?70 11?37 2?88 5?37*UCLA total 0?89 38?26 10?06 35?62 6?75 1?90Positive affect 0?90 68?83 12?57 67?56 10?79 0?25Negative affect 0?87 44?43 12?86 44?08 10?85 0?02Affectometer total 0?89 146?63 23?99 142?58 18?63 0?72OHI 0?93 155?39 29?53 153?54 25?66 0?09

Note: *po0?05; **po0?01; ***po0?001. Employment coded as 1, unemployment as 0.PEI=Personal Evaluation Inventory. Factor 1=General confidence; Factor 2=Mood state; Factor 3=Talking inpublic; Factor 4=Academic performance; Factor 5=Physical appearance; Factor 6=Social participation; Factor7=Athletics; Factor 8=Romantic relationships.RLLS=Rubin Love and Liking Scale.

UCLA LS=Loneliness Scale. Factor 1=Intimate others; Factor 2=Social others. OHI=Oxford HappinessInventory.

332 H. Cheng and A. Furnhamlower loneliness (social others) scores and higher friendship scores than males as predicted.Females in this sample tended to do better than males in schools, at least in terms of theirself-reported grade results. There were no significant differences in the social class ofparticipants (based on parental employment) or happiness level. Most of these significant sexdifferences have been reported before in the literature.

Table 1 also shows the a reliability scores for the various measures. All were satisfactory,possibly with the exception of PEI subscales mood state and romantic relationships which didnot reach the usually acceptable 0?70 cut-off score.

IntercorrelatesTable 2 shows the intercorrelation between the scores of eight PEI subscales and the othermeasures (controlling for sex and age of participants).

PEI total scores were significantly correlated with affect, happiness, and loneliness in thepredicted direction. It seems that some of the PEI subscales were mainly associated withpositive affect but not with negative affect which indicated the partial independencebetween positive and negative affect (in the present study, the correlation between positiveand negative affect was r=0?57, po0?001 which is in accordance with previous findingsusing the same affect measure). Factors 1, 2 and 6 were most highly and consistently relatedto both loneliness (on both factors) and happiness (as measured by different measures).Extraversion and neuroticism were significantly correlated with both positive and negativeaffects, happiness and loneliness (both intimate and social aspects of loneliness forextraversion and intimate aspect of loneliness for neuroticism) whereas psychoticism wassignificantly correlated (positively) with negative affects and loneliness (both intimate andsocial aspects). Friendship was positively correlated with positive affect, happiness, andnegatively correlated with loneliness (intimate aspect). Extraversion and neuroticism weresignificantly correlated with both positive and negative affects and happiness. Psychoticismwas significantly correlated with loneliness (both intimate and social aspects). Whilst schoolgrades were significantly correlated with both positive and negative affects, happiness andloneliness (social aspect) indicating that good quality of friendship (since the measure wasdesigned for assessing the best friend) and doing well in school would generate pupilspositive affect, general happiness, as well as reducing their intimate and social loneliness,respectively.

Table 2 thus provides evidence for both hypotheses 1 and 2. The size of the correlationsindicates that extraversion is more powerfully related to both happiness and loneliness andthat it accounts for between 15% and 25% of the variance. Secondly self-esteem isconsistently related to both loneliness and happiness but more strongly the latter.

Predicting happiness and loneliness from self-confidence (PEI total scores),friendship, personality and demographic variablesA series of hierarchical regressions were conducted to test to what extent the variousindependent measures (demographic, self-esteem, personality traits) predicted thedependent variables of happiness and loneliness. As an initial measure the five demographicvariables, and the four personality variables were regressed on to happiness (along with thePEI total scores, friendship, and school grades) and then onto the PEI total scores, friendshipand romance and school grades, respectively. Thus, with the happiness score as thedependent variable, first sex and age were entered, followed by the number of siblings and

parental employment, then personality variables and finally self-confidence, friendship and

Table 2 Partial correlations between personal evaluation (PEI), personality (EPQ), peerrelationships (RLLS), school grades (GCSE), affect (Affectometer), loneliness (UCLA LS),happiness (OHI), and demographic variable controlling for age and sex

Measures ME LS-F1 LS-F2 A-PA A-NA OHI

Maternal employment 0?18 0?16 0?17 0?19 0?23*PEI Factor 1 0?15 0?47*** 0?33** 0?60*** 0?46*** 0?45***PEI Factor 2 0?08 0?34** 0?35** 0?41*** 0?36*** 0?41***PEI Factor 3 0?08 0?19 0?17 0?36*** 0?25* 0?24*PEI Factor 4 0?11 0?27* 0?21 0?46*** 0?33** 0?42***PEI Factor 5 0?03 0?29** 0?20 0?30** 0?17 0?33**PEI Factor 6 0?03 0?53*** 0?51*** 0?50*** 0?24* 0?47***PEI Factor 7 0?04 0?12 0?21 0?30** 0?03 0?07PEI Factor 8 0?20 0?27* 0?35** 0?32** 0?11 0?37***

Predictors of happiness and loneliness 333romance and school grades. The rationale was that the more stable and earlier occurringvariables were entered first. Once this regression was completed the pattern was repeatedwith self-confidence, friendship and romance and school grades as the dependent variables.Figure 1 shows the results.

The initial regression was significant (F(14,75)=3?56, po0?001; R2=0?40) and showedthat friendship (b=0?23, t=2?07, po0?05), extraversion (b=0?27, t=2?38, po0?05), andneuroticism (b=0?23, t=2?03, po0?05) were significant predictors of happiness. Withfriendship as dependent variable, sex was the only predictor (b=0?32, t=2?81, po0?01);with self-confidence as dependent variable, extraversion was the only predictor (b=0?40,t=3?62, po0?001); and with school grades as the dependent variable, psychoticism was theonly predictor (b=0?36, t=3?32, po0?01). Romance was neither the predictor nor beingpredicted by any other variables thus were omitted at this stage.

The same procedures were repeated with loneliness subfactors as the dependent variables.Figure 2 shows the results. The two initial regressions were both significant (F(14,75)=3?23,

PEI total 0?12 0?53*** 0?48*** 0?58*** 0?46*** 0?52***Extraversion 0?16 0?46*** 0?51*** 0?45*** 0?31** 0?44***Neuroticism 0?01 0?28* 0?11 0?32** 0?42*** 0?33**Psychoticism 0?13 0?35** 0?25* 0?18 0?39*** 0?18Lie Scale 0?01 0?04 0?22 0?04 0?03 0?04Romance (Love Scale) 0?11 0?00 0?06 0?01 0?19 0?14Friends (Liking Scale) 0?18 0?24* 0?17 0?31** 0?07 0?33**GCSE 0?26* 0?11 0?26* 0?29** 0?29** 0?25*

Note: *po0?05; **po0?01; ***po0?001.EPQ=Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.PEI=Personal Evaluation Inventory. Factor 1=General confidence; Factor 2=Mood state;Factor 3=Talking in public; Factor 4=Academic performance; Factor 5=Physical appearance;Factor 6=Social interactions; Factor 7=Athletics; Factor 8=Romantic relationships.LS-F1=UCLA Loneliness Scale Factor 1=Intimate others;LS-F2= UCLA Loneliness Scale Factor 2=Social others.A-PA=Affectometer Positive Affect;A-NA=Affectometer Negative Affect.RLLS=Rubin Love and Liking Scales.GCSE=School Grades.OHI=Oxford Happiness Inventory.

334 H. Cheng and A. Furnhampo0?001; R2=0?38 and F(14,75)=3?47, po0?001; R2=0?39). With intimate others asdependent variable, self-confidence and psychoticism were significant predictors (b=0?33,t=3?01; b=0?30, t=2?71; po0?01); and with social others as dependent variable, self-confidence and extraversion were significant predictors (b=0?28, t=2?52; b=0?27,t=2?47; po0?05).

Predicting happiness and loneliness from PEI subscales, friendship,personality and demographic variablesIn order to ascertain the specific predictive power that PEI had on happiness and loneliness,

the PEI total scores were replaced by the PEI subscales in a series of hierarchical regressions

Figure 1. Regressional analysis. Happiness (OHI) from self-confidence (PEI), friendship, personality(EPQ) and demographic variables.(friendship ceased to be predictors of happiness and was omitted together with romance andschool grades). Among all the PEI subscales academic performance was the only significantdirect predictor of happiness (b=0?32, t=2?59, po0?01). Psychoticism predicted happinessmediating through self-rated academic performance (b=0?23, t=1?99, po0?05).

The set of regressions were then repeated using two loneliness factors (intimate others andsocial others) as the dependent variables. With intimate others as dependent variable,general confidence (b=0?35, t=2?71, po0?01), social interactions (b=0?34, t=2?66,po0?01), and psychoticism (b=0?29, t=2?67, po0?01) were direct predictors. With socialothers as dependent variable, social interactions (b=0?31, t=2?41, po0?01) was the onlydirect predictor. Neuroticism predicted intimate others mediating through generalconfidence whereas extraversion predicted loneliness mediating through general confidenceand social interactions (for intimate others) and social interactions only (for social others).Extraversion was also the significant predictor of other PEI subscales (talking in public,physical appearance, and romantic relationships) which, although they had no predictivepower of happiness or loneliness, they did have significant correlations with positive affectand happiness. Sex and number of brothers predicted neuroticism which had a predictivepower of general confidence meaning that in this sample girls had higher scores onneuroticism than boys which reduced their general confidence and in turn, increased theintimate aspect of their loneliness. However, sex was also a predictor of psychoticism which

Predictors of happiness and loneliness 335directly influenced intimate others meaning that girls had lower scores on psychoticismwhich in turn, reduced the same aspect of their loneliness and as the result, there were nosignificant differences between boys and girls on intimate aspect of loneliness scores. Amongother demographic variables, number of brothers was also a predictor of neuroticism meaningthat pupils with more brothers tended to have lower scores on neuroticism which in turn,increased their general confidence and consequently reduced their loneliness (intimateothers).

Figure 2. Regressional analysis. Predicting loneliness (UCLA LS) from self-confidence (PEI),friendship, personality (EPQ) and demographic variables.Discussion

Extraversion was a significant, direct, predictor of happiness. It was also, as predicted asignificant direct and indirect predictor of loneliness (social others). Neuroticism was alsoa significant, direct, negative predictor of happiness but predicted loneliness (the intimatefactor only) mediating through general confidence. Psychoticism was a significant directpredictor (positively) of loneliness (intimate aspect) but only indirectly predicted happinessmediating through academic performance.

Results also showed that friendship, self-confidence (specifically the factor academicperformance) were both direct and moderator variables for adolescents self-reportedhappiness whereas self-confidence (both the PEI total scores and two PEI subscales: generalconfidence and social interactions) was both a direct and a moderator variable foradolescents self-reported loneliness.

Unlike the global self-esteem (measured by Rosonberg Self-Esteem Scale) which has beenfound to be the most dominant and powerful predictor of happiness (Furnham and Cheng,2000), only the specific domain (academic performance) of self-confidence (measured by thePersonal Evaluation Inventory used in the present study) but not the self-confidence totalscores did predict happiness. However, both self-confidence total scores and the scores ofspecific domains (general confidence and social interactions) were significant predictors of

336 H. Cheng and A. Furnhamloneliness (both intimate others and social others). It seems that although happiness andloneliness are negatively correlated psychological constructs (in the present study thecorrelation was r=0?54, po0?001) they are conceptually distinct and have differentassociations with other variables. Friendship, extraversion and neuroticism were predictors ofhappiness whilst self-confidence and psychoticism were predictors of loneliness. Thus theabsence of certain factors that predict happiness do not imply the likelihood of loneliness andvice versa. This is an important finding.

Among the subscales of PEI, happiness was only predicted by academic performancewhereas loneliness was predicted by two self-esteem factors namely general confidence andsocial interactions. It is interesting to note that it was the self-evaluated academicperformance but not the actual grade points (measured by GCSE results) that predictedadolescents self-reported happiness, though these two variables were significantly positivelycorrelated (r=0?41, po0?001). It is possible that when IQ is equal, self-confidence in schoolperformance may play an important role not only in enhancing adolescents actual schoolperformance, but also increase their psychological well-being. Indeed, Boxtel and Monks(1992) concluded as A positive self-concept in all areas seems to be the driving force forachievements, which are in accordance with high potential intellectual aptitudes (p. 169).

Loneliness (both intimate and social aspects), on the other hand, was predicted by thePersonal Evaluation Inventory (PEI), mainly through the PEI subscales of general confidenceand social interactions. These were also the mediating variables through which the lonelinesssubscales were predicted by neuroticism and extraversion. It seems that lack of generalconfidence (such as low self-esteem and poor self-concept) was the main source of theintimate aspect of loneliness whilst lack of the confidence in social interactions was the mainsource of both intimate and social aspect of loneliness. Since social interactions are theprecondition of acquiring or forming social networks, and social networks (especially thedensity of the network) were found to be the important predictor of loneliness (Stoke, 1985),it is understandable that social interactions are particularly important in reducingadolescents intimate and social loneliness.

There was a significant correlation between extraversion and social interactions (r=0?66,po0?001), and extraversion was also a direct predictor of social aspect of loneliness (whenthe PEI total scores were used) and indirect predictor of both intimate and social loneliness(when the PEI subscales scores were used). This shows the sociability dimension ofextraversion and the higher social skills extraverts (comparing with introverts) exhibittogether with their sociability. Neuroticism predicted the intimate aspect of lonelinessmediating through general confidence suggesting that with higher anxiety, shyness ordepression, emotionally less stable individuals tended to suffer particularly from the intimateaspect of loneliness (but not in the social aspect of loneliness) mainly due to that lack ofgeneral self-confidence. It is possible that it requires more general confidence to prevent orovercome intimate loneliness than social loneliness since the association between generalconfidence and intimate loneliness was stronger (r=0?47, po0?001) than between generalconfidence and social loneliness (r=0?33, po0?01). Moreover, in the present study,psychoticism was found to be the direct predictor (regardless whether the PEI total scores orsubscale scores were used) of loneliness (intimate aspect) indicating that those who areaggressive by nature, tough minded, low in agreeableness, and lacking in conscientiousnesstended to suffer especially in intimate relationships.

Peer friendship was found to be important in adolescents self-reported happiness (possibly

by generating positive affect since there was a significant correlation between these two

Predictors of happiness and loneliness 337variables with r=0?31, po0?01) which has been found in previous findings. The benefit(through reciprocal rewards) of such a social network is fairly obvious, such as shared interestand enjoyable activities, positive feedback, social support, etc. (Argyle, 1987). In the presentstudy, it was also a mediating variable that girls tended to have a better friendship andconsequently increased their scores on self-reported happiness.

In relation to gender differences, as found in the previous studies, girls in the present studywere also found slightly less lonely (social aspect) than boys. However, the more strikingdifferences between girls and boys was in the quality of friendship in which girls weremarkedly doing better than boys (b=0?32, t=2?81, po0?01), possibly due to their higherexpectations from friendship as well as their higher friend-making skills, and this in turn, maycontribute to the lower scores they achieved on social loneliness.

As to the affect and trait happiness measures used in this study, positive and negativeaffects were significantly negatively correlated (r=0?54, po0?001) though they associatewith other variables in somehow different ways. The main differences appeared to be thatsome of the variables (such as self-confidence subscales of physical appearance, athletics andromantic relationships) were significantly correlated with positive affect but not withnegative affect; among personality variables, psychoticism was significantly correlated withnegative affect but not with positive affect; and friendship was only significantly correlatedwith positive affect. Since the association between positive affect and happiness werestronger (r=0?70, po0?001) than the association between negative affect and happiness(r=0?36, po0?001), variables which were more strongly associated with positive affecttended to be also more strongly associated with happiness. The relatively highintercorrelation between affect total scores and happiness scores (r=0?62, po0?001)indicated the convergent validity of these happiness measures.

This study demonstrated that the individual difference predictors of happiness are notthose that predict loneliness and further that the two dimensions of loneliness have differentcorrelates. Personality traits per se are both direct predictors of both happiness and lonelinessbut are also mediated by self-esteem factors. More importantly, the absence of particularfactors that are correlated with happiness do not necessarily lead to an increase in either typeof loneliness.

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Predictors of happiness and loneliness 339

IntroductionMethodResultsTable 1Table 2Figure 1Figure 2

DiscussionReferences