This test is provided for educational and entertainment use only. It is not intended to be a psychological advice of any kind, and come without any guarantee of accuracy or validity.
Studies show that people who have high scores on the UCLA Loneliness Scale tend to have trouble in other areas related to social mobility. For instance, people with higher loneliness scores have worse friendships and romantic relationships than do people with lower scores (Russell et al., 1994). Other studies suggest that poor relationships can be both a cause and an effect of poverty (Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010).
Loneliness is also related to job burnout (Russell, 1996), chronic illnesses (Russell, 1996), physical inactivity (Hawkley, Thisted, & Cacioppo, 2009), and early death (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015). Employment and health problems, in turn, hinder social mobility (Halleröd & Gustafsson, 2011).
In addition, a study in the United States found that having a good balance of sleep, work, time with family and friends, and “me time” is connected to being less lonely (Cigna, 2018). Yet balancing sleep, work, a social life, and personal time is more difficult for people in poverty (Adler & Newman, 2002). And so loneliness may both result from being in poverty and make it harder to get out of poverty.
References
Adler, N. E., & Newman, K. (2002). Socioeconomic disparities in health: Pathways and policies. Health Affairs, 21(2), 60-76.
Barth, R. P., Schinke, S. P., & Maxwell, J. S. (1983). Psychological correlates of teenage motherhood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 12(6), 471-487.
Cigna. (2018). Cigna U.S. loneliness index: Survey of 20,000 Americans examining behaviors driving loneliness in the United States. Retrieved from: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8294451-cigna-us-loneliness-survey/
Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., & Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(3), 685-704.
DeLiema, M., Gassoumis, Z. D., Homeier, D. C., & Wilber, K. H. (2012). Determining prevalence and correlates of elder abuse using promotores: Low‐income immigrant Latinos report high rates of abuse and neglect. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 60(7), 1333-1339.
Halleröd, B., & Gustafsson, J. E. (2011). A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between changes in socio-economic status and changes in health. Social Science & Medicine, 72(1), 116-123.
Hawkley, L. C., Thisted, R. A., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2009). Loneliness predicts reduced physical activity: Cross-sectional & longitudinal analyses. Health Psychology, 28(3), 354-363.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227-237.
Kidd, S. A. (2007). Youth homelessness and social stigma. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36(3), 291-299.
Russell, D. W. (1996). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3): Reliability, validity, and factor structure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66(1), 20-40.
Russell, D., Cutrona, C. E., Rose, J., & Yurko, K. (1984). Social and emotional loneliness: an examination of Weiss’s typology of loneliness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(6), 1313-1321.
