Garvin & Kosalina, The Relationship of Loneliness and Juvenile Delinquency Tendency

ISBN : 978-602-6697-16-5

The Relationship of Loneliness and Juvenile Delinquency Tendency

Garvin1 & Novi Kosalina

Psychology Study Program - Bunda Mulia University
Email: 1garvin.goei@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Developments that occur drastically in the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial aspects make
adolescents are vulnerable to feeling lonely. Previous research has shown that lonely adolescents will feel
worthless and therefore tend to behave aggressively. Researchers hypothesize that loneliness is associated
with delinquency tendency in adolescents. This study aims to determine the relationship between loneliness
and delinquency trends in adolescents, involving 160 adolescents who are in Jakarta as participants. Each
participant was asked to fill the UCLA Loneliness Scale that has been adapted into Bahasa and the
delinquency tendency scale. Spearman correlation test results showed the score of significance p = 0.474 >
0.05; Which means there is no significant relationship between loneliness and delinquency tendency in
adolescents. Researchers concluded that although loneliness occurs in adolescence and loneliness associated
with aggression, adolescents are still able to overcome the sense of loneliness by meeting his friends and
socialize, so the sense of loneliness is not related with delinquency.

Key Words : Loneliness, Juvenile Delinquency, Adolescence

Introduction
Adolescence is a period full with turmoil (Sarwono, 2013). Physical and psychological developments that
occur drastically also accompanied by drastic social environment changes, making adolescent is more
vulnerable than another developmental stages. One of the adolescent issues that need attention is juvenile
delinquency. At the end of 2012, Polda Metro Jaya (Metro Jaya Police) reported that juvenile delinquency
cases increase significantly, around 36.66 percent ("Polda Metro: Kenakalan remaja", 2012).

There are two main factors causing juvenile delinquency, these are (1) environmental factors, and (2) personal
factors (Graham as cited in Sarwono, 2013). Environmental factors such as socioeconomic circumstances, a
family that is not harmonious, or problems in parenting; Whereas personal factors are temperament, disability,
or inability to adapt to the environment.

One of the personal factors suspected contributes to juvenile delinquency is loneliness. Research conducted by
Carrizales (2007) found that adolescents who reported higher aggression also reported higher loneliness.
Aggressive individuals are also often rejected by their peers, leaving them vulnerable to loneliness.

However, it is not yet certain whether increase in loneliness will also be accompanied by an increase in
juvenile delinquency tendency, or vice versa; Thus making the researchers intend to examine the relationship
between loneliness with juvenile delinquency tendency.

Loneliness is a negative emotional response to the discrepancy between the expected and achieved quality of
social networking (Perlman and Peplau, as cited in Vanhalst, 2012). Adolescents experience the process of
self-discovery, which is often a difficult process for teenagers (Laursen and Hartl, 2013). This difficult
process can put teenagers into a conflict with other teenagers, which eventually make teenagers experience
physical isolation and loneliness (Laursen and Hartl, 2013). Roekel et al (2015) found that adolescents
experience a higher level of loneliness when they are alone; while teenagers also feel lonely when they are at
school and with classmates.

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 Garvin & Kosalina, The Relationship of Loneliness and Juvenile Delinquency Tendency
ISBN : 978-602-6697-16-5

Loneliness causes various behavioral and psychological problems in adolescents. Research conducted by
Acquah et al (2016) found that lonely teenagers report more experience as victims of bullying. King and
Merchant (as cited in Dewi and Hamidah, 2013) stated that loneliness is one of the risk factors of suicide in
adolescents.

Loneliness in adolescents can be caused by various things, but all of these are rooted from fast adolescents’
developmental process. In the adolescence, individu starts to experience social environmental changes, from
just around the family into peer groups. Pressure and rivalry with peer groups may cause feeling of isolation
on adolescents, that cause loneliness (Laursen & Pursell, 2009). In the other hand, adolescents’ need to be
autonomy is also taking role to the loneliness, because the autonomy has not been supported with enough
resources. Adolescents want to be independent and autonomy, but in the other hand adolescents also have
huge need of social relation; so that when adolescents withdraw themselves too quick from family and the
environment, they will experience loneliness (Laursen & Hartl, 2013).

The adolescences' vulnerability to emotional turmoil and loneliness make researchers conducted a research
about the relationship of loneliness with the tendency of juvenile delinquency, as reported in this paper.

Research Method
This research is a quantitative non-experimental correlational research. Participants of this study were 161
adolescents who were students from X School in East Jakarta, consists of 116 male and 45 female. All
participants are between 15 and 19 years old, with 16-year-olds adolescents having the highest frequency of
79 participants or 49.1 percent.

Table 1. Participant Description by Gender

Frequency Percent
Male 116 72
Female 45 28
Total 161 100

Table 2. Participant Description by Age

Frequency Percent
15 years old 19 11.8
16 years old 79 49.1
17 years old 51 31.7
18 years old 11 6.8
19 years old 1 0.6
Total 161 100

The sampling method used was incidental sampling, ie the researcher took the data from the prospective
participants whom researchers encountered while visiting the X School. Participants were asked to fill UCLA
version 3 questionnaire (Russell, 1996) which has been translated and adapted into Indonesian and the scale of
juvenile delinquency tendency, constructed based on the types of juvenile delinquency by Jensen (in Sarwono,
2013).

The UCLA Loneliness Scale version 3 questionnaire was published by Russell in 1996. The scale consists of
20 items, designed to measure loneliness or social isolation. Participants are asked to read the question and
choose one of four answer options: never, rarely, sometimes, always. The advantage of this scale is that it
does not contain the word "loneliness" in its items. The researcher then translated and adapted this scale into
Bahasa Indonesia, and the adaptation process resulted Cronbach's Alpha score of 0.747; which indicates that
this scale is reliable to measure loneliness. Example of an item is, "Seberapa sering kamu merasa sendirian?"
(“How often do you feel alone?”).

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The scale of juvenile delinquency, as its name shows, is measuring the tendency of adolescence being
delinquency. The scale consists of 22 items, derived from 4 dimensions of delinquency: (1) physical
delinquency tendency, (2) material delinquency tendency, (3) social delinquency tendency, and (4) status
offending delinquency tendency. Example of an item from physical delinquency tendency is, “Untuk membela
diri saya memukul orang lain” (“I hit other people to defend myself”), an example from material delinquency
tendency is, “Saya akan mengambil barang dengan paksa bila saya menginginkannya” (“I will take things by
force if I am wanting it”), an example item from social delinquency tendency is, “Saya lebih percaya diri
dengan merokok” (“I feel more confident by smoking”), and example item from status offending delinquency
tendency is, "Saya tidak mau terikat dengan orang tua karenanya lebih baik saya melarikan diri dari rumah"
("I do not want to be tied to my parents so I'd better run away from home"). Participants fill the questionnaire
by reading the statement in each items, then answering one of the four answer choices: never, rarely,
sometimes, and always. The pilot study showed Cronbach’s Alpha score of 0.842; which indicates the the
scale is reliable.

Results and Discussion

Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, it is known that the data distribution is not normal, so the data analysis used
is non-parametric. Spearman correlation test shows p value = 0.474 > 0.05; which means there is no
significant relationship between loneliness with the tendency of juvenile delinquency.

Table 3. The results of Spearman correlation test

Delinquency
Tendency
Correlation coefficient 0.057
Loneliness Significance 0.474
N 161

In addition, researchers are also examining additional data analysis by correlating loneliness with the types of
juvenile delinquency. As result, all of the four components show p score above 0.05 (p > 0.05), which means
that none of the delinquency types is significantly correlated with loneliness.

Table 4. Analysis of additional data

Status
Physical Material Social
Offending
Delinquency Delinquency Delinquency
Delinquency
Tendency Tendency Tendency
Tendency
Correlation
0.019 0.112 -0.079 0.137
coefficient
Loneliness Significance
0.809 0.158 0.319 0.083
N 161 161 161 161

Alboukordi et al. (2012) suggests that family structure and friendship with delinquent peers also had a
significant role in juvenile delinquency. In addition, studies conducted by Nisya and Sofiah (2012) found that
neither religiosity nor emotional intelligence were associated with adolescent delinquency. This means that
the tendency of juvenile delinquency is not influenced by the internal factors of adolescents, but external
factors such as family and friendship. Sarwono (2013) states that to prevent adolescents from deviant
behavior, it needs a stable environment, especially from the family environment. Thus, regardless of the
adolescence experience of loneliness or not, the parents and environmental factors of friendship are
contributing to the juvenile delinquency tendency.

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 Garvin & Kosalina, The Relationship of Loneliness and Juvenile Delinquency Tendency
ISBN : 978-602-6697-16-5

Roekel et al. (2015) found that adolescence get the relief effect of their loneliness when they meet up with
their friends. This means that even though adolescents are lonely, thety are still able to cope with meeting
their friends so that loneliness does not cause delinquency. Aggression caused by loneliness does not arise in
delinquent behavior because adolescents tend to overcome their loneliness by meeting friends.

Conclusion
From the results, researcher conclude that there is no significant relationship between loneliness and juvenile
delinquency tendency. This confirms the conclusion that family and parenting factors play a major role in
juvenile delinquency tendency. Sarwono (2013) mentions that the most important prevention against juvenile
delinquency tendency is to keep the family together and harmonious as well as possible. On the other hand,
since adolescence can overcome their loneliness by meeting friends, it is recommended that parents give the
adolescence the freedom to socialize, with appropriate supervision and control.

This research has some limitations. One of them is the sample size. In subsequent studies, the number of
sample size can be increased, as well as balance ratio between male and female participants.

Researchers suggest that some variables may also be included in subsequent research, such as social skills,
frequency in socializing, and social intelligence.

References
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ISBN : 978-602-6697-16-5

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