Self-Concealment as a Mediator in the Relationship Between Inferiority Feelings and Loneliness

The present study examined self-concealment as a possible mediator in the relationship between inferiority feelings and loneliness. One hundred and forty-seven undergraduate students from Anadolu University Education Faculty were administered the Inferiority Feelings Scale, the Self-Concealment Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale. The mediation analysis was performed using the SPSS PROCESS Macro (Model 4) that was developed by Hayes (2013). The results indicated that self-concealment mediated partially the relationship between inferiority feelings and loneliness (c’=0.03; p .001), meaning that as inferiority feelings increase so does one’s tendency to self-concealment, which results in an increased likelihood of loneliness. Based on the results, it is possible to suggest that people with inferiority feelings may be unintentionally keeping information about themselves from others due to perceiving them as threats (Adler, 1985), and thus, feel more lonely. The positive correlation between inferiority feelings and self-concealment (r=.22, p .05), is thought to be particularly important as it suggests that, aside from situation-specific factors such as the type of situation, social context and the content of information, a more complex psychological factor, inferiority feelings, might be at work when it comes to self-concealment.