Risk factors for the development of loneliness: A latent profile analysis of motivations for social withdrawal, experiences of solitude, and individual dispositions in late childhood and early adolescence.

The present study aims to identify distinct groups of children and early adolescents characterized by their experiences of solitude (e.g., loneliness) and motivations for social withdrawal. Participants were 561 (307 girls) children and early adolescents, aged 8–14 years (M=11.32, SD=1.63), attending schools in Italy. Children and early adolescents completed a self-report questionnaire including measures on social and asocial dissatisfaction (i.e., loneliness, aloneliness), motivations for social withdrawal (i.e., shyness, unsociability), time spent alone, affect during solitary activity, personality traits (i.e., Big Five), and indices of internalizing difficulties (i.e., social anxiety, depression). Results from a Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) provided evidence of three distinct groups: (1) the shy group, characterized by higher levels of loneliness, social anxiety, depression, and emotional instability; (2) the unsociable group, who reported higher levels of aloneliness and average scores of extraversion and internalizing difficulties; and (3) the sociable group, characterized by lower levels of both loneliness and aloneliness, and higher levels of extraversion. Overall, findings confirmed the different ways in which children and early adolescents experience solitude, their motivations to spend time alone, and individual dispositions. Specifically, findings showed that the shy group is the group at greatest risk for loneliness, internalizing difficulties, and emotional instability. These results confirmed findings from other studies conducted in different countries with samples of children and adolescents (e.g., Canada, China; Coplan et al., 2021; Ding et al., 2023). We will discuss our results with a focus on cross-cultural similarities and future research for targeting intervention programs.