The development and initial validation of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA)

Abstract

This paper presents the development and initial validation of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA), a multidimensional measure of loneliness. The results from principal components analyses support Weiss' (1973; The experience of emotional and social isolation Cambridge: MIT Press) conception that social and emotional loneliness are distinct states. They also indicate that emotional loneliness can be broken into two types: romantic and family emotional loneliness. All subscales have high internal consistencies, with Cronbach alphas ranging from 0.89 to 0.93. Examination of the SELSA's relationship to several other criteria, including the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and dating frequency, indicate it has good concurrent, discriminant and convergent validity.