Study of Loneliness in Relation to Depression and Sex-Role Orientation

This study concerns with the prevalence of loneliness in a sample of college students and examines gender - differences in loneliness as a function of sex-role orientation and depression. Two hundred college students (100 male and 100 female) aged between 16 and 18 years were tested to ascertain the level of experienced loneliness. The study revealed: (1) college students experienced moderate degree of loneliness, (2) the two genders differed significantly in sex-role identity (3) males with androgynous and masculine sex-role identity did not differ significantly in perceived loneliness; the additional presence of feminine characteristics in androgynous sex-role identity failed to provide any special benefits in terms of vulnerability to loneliness, (4) males with androgynous and masculine sex-role orientation, however, were less lonely than feminine or undifferentiated characteristics, (5) for female, there was no significant difference in loneliness among different types of sex-roles orientation, and (6) gender differences in loneliness failed to reach statistical significance among groups low on depression.