Loneliness and coping with stress in people raised as only children and people with siblings in early adulthood

Abstract

The aim of the conducted research was to compare the preferred styles of coping with stress and the feeling of loneliness in the groups of persons with and without siblings. We looked for correlations between loneliness and coping with stress as well as for the relational determinants of the styles of coping with stress and loneliness. There were 180 participants (63.9% of women; 36.1% of men), coming from the district of Łodź, Poland. These persons were in the period of early adulthood. The following methods were used in the study: Adult Siblings Relationships Questionnaire C. Stockera i in. (1997) in Polish adaptation by K.Waleckiej-Matyji (2014), Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA-S) E. DiTommasso, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) by N.S. Endler and J.D.A. Parker in Polish adaptation by J. Strelau i in. (2007) and the author’s own questionnaire. The conducted analyses show that there are significant differences in styles and ways of coping with stress between persons with and without siblings. Persons with siblings take action to combat stress, whereas those without cease their activities in stressful situations. The same results were obtained by comparing separately a group of women and men. Persons with siblings more often experienced loneliness in the romantic dimension than only children, who, on the other hand, more frequently declared experiencing loneliness in the family dimension. In the group of sibling dyads, gender was a factor that differentiated the dimensions in which the young adults experienced loneliness. We noted the occurrence of numerous correlations between the styles of coping with stress and loneliness in the compared groups of only children and persons with siblings. The variables of Opposition and Domination had predictive value for the loneliness. It was found out that conflictual relationships with adult siblings are a mediator of the correlation between romantic loneliness and engaging in surrogate activities.