Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Disclosure process: an introduction
- 2 Patterns and functions of self-disclosure during childhood and adolescence
- 3 Intimacy and self-disclosure in friendships
- 4 Self-disclosure and the sibling relationship: what did Romulus tell Remus?
- 5 Lonely preadolescents' disclosure to familiar peers and related social perceptions
- 6 Children's disclosure of vicariously induced emotions
- 7 Moral development and children' differential disclosure to adults versus peers
- 8 Parential influences on children's willingness to disclose
- 9 Disclosure processes: issues for child sexual abuse victims
- 10 Self-disclosure in adolescents: a family systems perspective
- Author index
- Subject index
5 - Lonely preadolescents' disclosure to familiar peers and related social perceptions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Disclosure process: an introduction
- 2 Patterns and functions of self-disclosure during childhood and adolescence
- 3 Intimacy and self-disclosure in friendships
- 4 Self-disclosure and the sibling relationship: what did Romulus tell Remus?
- 5 Lonely preadolescents' disclosure to familiar peers and related social perceptions
- 6 Children's disclosure of vicariously induced emotions
- 7 Moral development and children' differential disclosure to adults versus peers
- 8 Parential influences on children's willingness to disclose
- 9 Disclosure processes: issues for child sexual abuse victims
- 10 Self-disclosure in adolescents: a family systems perspective
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
Loneliness is a common and often debilitating problem for individuals in contemporary society (see Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Research has documented the negative psychosocial correlates of loneliness; it has been linked to depression, alcoholism, obesity, and suicide in adults (Peplau & Perlman, 1982; Schumaker, Krejci, Small, & Sargent, 1985; Sadava & Thompson, 1987; Anderson & Harvey, 1988), and to rejection by peers, aggression, shyness, and disruptive behavior in children and adolescents (Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984; Asher & Wheeler, 1985; Cassidy & Asher, 1992).
Loneliness has been conceptualized in the literature as a state of self-perceived dissatisfaction with social relationships that is accompanied by negative affect (see Solano, Batten, & Parish, 1982). This conceptualization has guided the current measures of loneliness in children, adolescents, and adults (Russell, 1982; Asher et al., 1984) and serves as the basis for discussing loneliness in this chapter.
The focus of this chapter is on loneliness during preadolescence and the potential problems that lonely preadolescents may demonstrate in their disclosure to peers and in related social perceptions. (It should be noted that the term preadolescence refers in this chapter to the 10- through 13- year age span, the period of the transition to adolescence.) There are various reasons why this issue should be addressed.
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- Information
- Disclosure Processes in Children and Adolescents , pp. 100 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995