Feelings of loneliness and trust in themselves and others among young students

Introduction. The problems of trust and loneliness are among the central and most "painful" in modern society. However, the question remains open as to how closely trust or distrust in other people and in oneself and loneliness of personality, including its individual types, are related to each other and in what way. The article analyzes the features of the experience of loneliness by students in youth and reveals the specifics of its relationship with the level of trust in others and themselves.

Materials and methods. The study involved 203 students from different universities in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod aged 18 to 22 years (M=19.3; SD=1.18), studying in the specialties of the socionomic profile, 80 % of them were women. To determine the types and severity of loneliness experiences, the questionnaire of E.A. Manakova and the technique of E.E. Rogova were used. The study also used the method of "Faith in people" by M. Rosenberg and a reflective questionnaire by T.P. Skripkina to collect data.

Results. It was found that most students do not feel like lonely people, because loneliness experiences are situational in nature, and loneliness is perceived by them, rather, as a forced short-term condition. Correlation analysis showed the presence of an inverse (negative) relationship between trust in others and in themselves and individual experiences and types of loneliness in youth. At the same time, a fairly large number of significant correlations with self-confidence, especially in areas related to relationships with peers (friends and classmates) were found.

Discussion and conclusions. Based on the results of an empirical study, we can talk about a pronounced relationship between the experience of loneliness by students with their level of trust in themselves and other people, which is reflected primarily in cases of temporary isolation and most often at the cognitive level.

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