A study on the developmental process of personal and social orientedness in relation to changes in loneliness types

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine the developmental process of personal and social orientedness in young adults in relation to changes in loneliness types. Two hundred and sixty-two male and 416 female college students completed the loneliness, personal and social orientedness, and self-esteem scales. They were classified into four loneliness types (by Ochiai, 1983), and Type A (Loneliness from conformity to others) and D (Loneliness from independence) were compared, in accordance with a previous finding that youths tend to change from the former to latter. Although students of the two types scores was high for Type A, but was not significant for Type D. Second, self-esteem was correlated with only personal orientedness for Type A, but with both scores of orientedness for Type D. It is argued from the results that in the development of personal and social orientedness in young adults, the stage where the self emerges from a fused state of self and other, evolves on the basis of self-other independence, to the stage where both personal and social orientedness become important after only personal orientedness has played a central role.