THE EXPERIENCE OF LONELINESS IN THE ADOLESCENCE LIFE: GENDER AND AGE PECULIARITIES

The paper covers the study of the problem of loneliness in the adolescence life. Loneliness is one of the most significant states experienced by a person and manifested in different ways throughout life. The adolescence is the age when the state of loneliness is appreciated for the first time most acutely because of the widening and updating of social needs: the establishment of the significant interpersonal relations, the accumulation of own social experience, the expansion of friendly contacts, the striving to be known and engaged. The sense of loneliness in the adolescence is a complex social and psychological phenomenon involving various experience types. Negative feelings experienced by teenagers may influence significantly the course of socialization and the formation of a person determining causally social maladaptation. In this connection, the early detection, diagnostics and comparative analysis of the causes of loneliness are very important. The author organized and carried out the empirical study of special aspects of loneliness experience in the adolescence age. As the diagnostic tools, D. Russel’s and M. Ferguson’s technique for diagnostics of the loneliness subjective perception level and J. Young’s “Loneliness Questionnaire” were used. The students of 9th and 11th grades participated in the study. Comparing with the pre-adult age, the author identified and statistically proved the higher level of the subjective experience of the loneliness of the adolescents, determined the degree of intensity of experience of the transient, situational and chronic loneliness. The analysis of gender differences in the subjective experience of the sense of loneliness of boys and girls in the group of adolescents showed the credibility of differences. Thus, the results of the study demonstrated the peculiarity of experiencing loneliness by the adolescents and proved the existence of age and gender differences.