ABSTRACT
EXPERIENCING LONELINESS (i.e., the negative emotional response to a discrepancy between the desired quality and the achieved quality of one’s social network; Peplau & Perlman, 1982) is strongly associated with depressive symptoms (i.e., cognitive, somatic, and psychological markers of depression; Radloff, 1977) in adolescence (for a review, see Mahon, Yarcheski, Yarcheski, Cannella, & Hanks, 2006). However, only few studies have focused on explaining this relationship. An exception is the study by Vanhalst, Luyckx, and Goossens (2009),
which demonstrated that loneliness predicted depressive symptoms over time and that this relationship was mediated by maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Emerging adults experiencing loneliness seemed to rely on maladaptive ways to cope with these feelings (e.g., by blaming themselves), which, in turn, made them more vulnerable to depressive symptoms.
