Objective: The mediating role of loneliness in the correlation between self-perception and aggression was examined among university students.
Methods: The study group comprised a total of 424 students, 215 female and 209 male, attending different schoold at a state university in Northern Turkey. The data collection tools included the Social Comparison Scale, Aggression Questionnaire, UCLA Loneliness Scale, and Demographic Information Form. SPSS 23.0 for Windows was used for all statistical analyses.
Results: A negative significant correlation between self-perception and aggression, a negative significant correlation between self-perception and loneliness, and a positive significant correlation between aggression and loneliness were found. Hierarchical regression analysis results indicated that self-perception accounted for 1.2% of aggression, while in the second stage self-perception and loneliness accounted for 8.3% of aggression. In the second stage with the full removal of the predictive effect of self-perception on aggression, loneliness was revealed to be a full mediator of this correlation.
Conclusions: Sobel test results indicated that the mediating role of loneliness was at significant levels in mediating this correlation.
Key words: aggression, self-perception, loneliness
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