Introduction
The loneliness test is important for social workers to know if individuals who belong in a certain group are more likely to be lonely. The test asks five questions about the individual, then twenty hypothetical statement regarding feelings. The individual writes a number (from 1 to 4) next to the corresponding statement, depending on their feelings. 1 for feeling totally unconnected and 4 for relating to the statement. The twenty questions are scored from twenty to eighty. Loneliness is very subjective, it has been described in theology, literature and in philosophy (Wittenberg & Reis, 1986). However, since feelings are dynamic, there is no real way to measure them. The loneliness test is an attempt to categorize levels of loneliness. This is something that can prove useful to social workers who would like to observe a certain population.
Methods
The loneliness test has a number of variables. The data found for the tests will be seen in a descriptive manner where information is used as multivariate. The P-Value is 0.005, where the hypothesis is that most women are more prone loneliness as compared to men. The null hypothesis is the opposite. The information gathered from the test will be distributed per variable. Each of the five individual questions will be scrutinized to see the patterns in loneliness for group results. For example, all females against all males will be tested, and the scores above the Mean value will be considered more prone to loneliness. The group with the higher results are assumed to be the more lonely category.
The summary used for the tests are seen as quantitative where the summaries are looked into. Though most statement surveys are qualitative, these tests will be seen and quantitative. Descriptive statistics is often used for surveys and simple tabulation of populations and economics.
The frequency of the scores above the Mean will be studied for each variable. There will be a total of five variables where the total score for each individual will be studied. The individual with the lowest and the highest score for the loneliness test will undergo further study, looking in to each of the categories they might fall under.
Results
The total sample size population is sixteen people. The total population is unknown. Most of the sample size is female, falling under the second annual household income category, meaning that their annual household income falls between the ranges of $31,000-60,999.
No.
Age
Gender
Annual household income (category)
Ethnicity
Civil Status
Score
African American
There were some people who did not answer the question for annual household income, they would have to fall under an unknown category. Since there are five categories under the individual questions, the variables will be studied. However, there is no even division between any of the variables, making it slightly more difficult to calculate.
Type
Mean ()
Std. Dev (σ)
Std. Error Mean
Loneliness Test
Variance SD
Population SD
Variance Pop SD
Sum of Squares
Loneliness Test
The results show a mean of 52.25, meaning that all scores that fall below the mean can be considered least likely to be lonely, and the scores that fall above the mean are those who are more likely to be lonely. There are four individuals who scored an equal 52. The highest score is 64 and the lowest score is 44. The highest score belongs to an individual who is female who is between the ages of 18-29, having an annual household income between $0-29,000, of Latino descent and is single. The individual with the lowest score is female, between the ages 18-29, having an annual household income between the ranges $30,000-60,999, of Latino descent and is single.
Gender
Score Below
Mean ()
Score Above
Mean ()
Most of the people who answered the test were female, most of the females scored below the mean. Half of the males scored above the mean, half scored below. Most of the individuals who took the test scored below the mean. However, the ones who scored above the mean had significantly higher scores.
Annual Household income category
Score Below
Mean ()
Score Above
Mean ()
Most people who answered the test fell in the second category for annual household income of $30,000-60,999. In this category, only two people scored above the mean and six people scored below it. Other than this, there were no other remarkable scores. All categories scored evenly when it comes to this variable.
Ethnicity
Score Below
Mean ()
Score Above
Mean ()
In the ethnicity category, the majority of people who answered were of Latino descent, three of which were Caucasian, two of Asian descent and one was African American. Out of all the ethnicities, the three who were Caucasian scored higher in the loneliness test. Asians scored remarkably lower. The individual who scored the highest in the test was Latino, however the majority of Latinos scored below the mean score.
Civil Status
Score Below
Mean ()
Score Above
Mean ()
Most of the individuals who took the loneliness test were married. Out of the nine who were married only four scored above the mean. None of the scores were very remarkable. The single individuals who answered the test had more of a range in terms of the score. Both the lowest scorer and the highest scorer were single. The individuals who fell under the “other” category all scored below the mean.
Discussions and Conclusions
The loneliness test would have been more effective if the population was divided evenly. Most of the individuals were females of Latino descent. This made it difficult to score because both the lowest and highest scorers were of the same age range, the same income range, the same civil status and the same ethnicity. The hypothesis was proved wrong since most of the respondents fell under the same category. The loneliness test is still, however, an effective test to conduct on sample populations. If this test was conducted again, it would be better if all the individuals were spread out evenly throughout the categories. This would give a better idea of what the scores mean and which groups are more susceptible to loneliness, thus further studies can be conducted.
References
Wittenberg, M. T. and Reis, H. T. (1986). Loneliness, social skills, and social perception.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12(1), 121-130.
