Relationship between interpersonal competences and loneliness among Chinese college students: a two-year follow-up study

The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal links between interpersonal competences and loneliness in Chinese college students. Participants were N = 623 undergraduate students (M_age = 20.34 years, SD_age = 1.28 years; 42.5% males) from Shanghai, P.R. China, which were followed over two years, with half a year apart. The Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire (ICQ) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale were used to measure interpersonal competences and loneliness at each time point. Results indicated that as compared with the unidirectional model, the bidirectional model represented the best fit for the data. Within this model, after controlling for the stability of the variables, interpersonal competences directly contributed to later decreases in loneliness and loneliness directly led to decreases in interpersonal competences from Time 1 to Time 3, but not from Time 3 to Time 4. There is a bidirectional relationship between college students’ interpersonal competences and loneliness. Higher interpersonal competences can mitigate later loneliness, and higher loneliness can also weaken later interpersonal competences.