Communicative Characteristics of the Lonely Person's Friendship Circle

Abstract

The project described in this article examined several qualitative features of the friendship circles of lonely college students. It was expected that because communication is the cornerstone of young adult friendship, individuals whose social companions lacked important communicative attributes would experience poor peer relationships and, therefore, greater loneliness than individuals whose social companions possessed relevant communicative attributes. The liked peers of 208 participants (102 male, 106 female) were identified. Aggregate measures of social acceptance, loneliness, communication attitudes, communication values, and communication skills were obtained from liked peers, as were indices reflecting the extent to which individual participants were accepted by peers and felt lonely. Results indicated that some communicative attributes of the friendship circle predicted participants' levels of social acceptance and loneliness. A few significant gender differences in these relationships were also observed.