Rejection Sensitivity as a Predictor of Perceived Loneliness: A Gender based Study

Description

Page: 1819-1828

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17829375

Gurleen Kaur Bajwa, Asha Chawla Thakral, and Deepika Vig (Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab)

The present research aimed to study rejection sensitivity as a predictor of perceived loneliness among 460 adolescents, 230 of whom were girls and 230 were boys. Sample was randomly selected from Government Senior Secondary Schools of three districts namely Ludhiana, Patiala and Sangrur in the Malwa region of Punjab. Data were gathered using a self-structured socio-personal information sheet, Fear of Rejection Scale (Nafees & Jahan, 2018) and Loneliness Scale (Hamid & Parvez, 2020). The results revealed that girls demonstrated higher levels of fear of rejection, exhibiting higher sensitivity towards rejection and people-pleasing, whereas boys had more social isolation and a sense of emptiness, which highlighted greater feelings of loneliness. Overall loneliness and fear of rejection showed significant gender differences, with boys reporting higher feelings of loneliness than girls. Rejection sensitivity and loneliness were found to be significantly positively correlated, which suggested that a greater fear of rejection was linked to more social isolation, emptiness, distressed reaction and overall loneliness among both genders, although the effect was more noticeable in some areas for boys.