Loneliness as a Predictor of Psychological Well-being: A Review

Pages: 561-565
Smarika Dalal and Sandeep Singh (Department of Applied Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, Haryana)

The present study aims to review the literature exploring the relationship between loneliness and psychological well-being. Loneliness has long been associated with reduced psychological well-being, across all strata of the population. Loneliness is quite common in general population and is not limited just to the older population. The effect of loneliness can be seen in various aspects of the life of people. Physical and psychological health is affected due to loneliness. Various studies have been conducted for discovering the link between the two variables but certain sections of the society have been less explored than the rest. The paper covers a significant number of studies conducted in this field. The aim of the paper is to bring together as many studies as possible and discuss the findings. The results of all the studies are coherent and point towards the necessity of designing interventions that help people to overcome social, emotional, and relational loneliness to improve their psychological well-being.