Loneliness Feelings in a Sample of Saudi and Chinese Students in Bangor
Introduction
Whenever an individual is going through moments of loneliness feelings she succumbs to certain psychological difficulties. In particular, the lonely person may feel insufficiently accepted, not loved and may also feel that little attention is paid to himher. Besides, it jeopardizes the capability of the individual in nurturing social relationships and this may lead to a sense of social isolation. It is worthwhile to note that social relationships are fundamental to human life. In fact, man is typically regarded as a social animal which means that she will need the other to be. No doubt that this fact makes it imperative for the psychologists to regard the issue of human relationships with all its aspects as a very crucial study in Psychology. From a causal point of view, loneliness has been linked with a number of other serious individual and social problems like in the case of drugs abuse and alcoholism.
On the other hand, surveys have been conducted on oversea students since students in this context are more bound to succumb to loneliness. This is due to the fact that they end up living in alien countries with a totally different culture. Again, such students may experience loneliness feelings due to family and friends separation. In a bid to satiate their social needs, for example, social support and social recognition, the students will be pegged more on the social relationships. By and large, when one is accepted and positively reinforced, she will develop positive emotion which is characterized buy happiness, elation, commitment and calm. However, if the same person undergoes rejection or exclusion, she will develop profound negative feelings, for instance, anxiety, depression, grief, jealousy and loneliness.
This study will explore the extent to which international students feel loneliness. The differences between the overseas students in rating and degree of feeling loneliness will also be investigated. Moreover, the study will also explore the impact of loneliness on communication between students and whether these feelings do affect their academic performance. In general, the study seeks to establish loneliness feelings in a sample of Saudi and Chinese students in Bangor.
Literature Review
It is impressive to note that loneliness has been given maximum consideration by researchers, both psychologists and sociologists. There is no doubt that this issue is regarded as important due to its significant implications on the person and the society. In this regard, a greater part of this study focuses on international students who are more prone to loneliness feelings. This is due to the fact that such students find themselves in foreign countries composed of different cultural settings. Their separation from their families and close friends and relatives make them feel lonely as well. Notably, there have been different approaches to this subject. This is because some researchers have opted to focus their studies on the rates of loneliness among students whereas other researchers have focused on the causes of loneliness feelings. Moreover, researchers have demonstrated great interest in establishing the relationship between loneliness feelings and the academic performance. Overall, the researchers have tried to provide remedies to adverse impact of loneliness feelings.
In Australia, there is a heavy presence of international students. According to statistics, it hosts 9 international students across the board. It is reported that in 1994, Australia enrolled 228, 555 international students in its higher education institutions, three quarters of them onshore in the southern continent. The percentage level of international students constituted 24.2 of the entire enrolled students. This had an economic value as it provided Australia with 15 of university revenue (Department of Employment, Science and Training 2005 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2005). The international students should never be regarded as mere customers or tourists or members of a classroom they are human beings that need to be respected and cared for.
By virtue of crossing national borders in their quest for quality education, these students leave behind their loved ones and their families and social networks as well as citizenship rights in their mother country. According to Grinberg and Grinberg (1989), in migration one is no longer identified with the world one left behind, while on the other hand, one does not belong to the world one is destined to as yet. By and large, the new students find themselves in a relational deficit or social isolation, and this happens at a time when they need more love and encouragement. They find themselves in a completely foreign land with a foreign language, the study settings also change, finances, accommodation, and the everyday problems. In addition, they must settle for an unfamiliar set of institutional rules. In most cases they face issues of personal autonomy and the development of identity in the new setting (Baker Siryk 1986).
In most cases there emerge differences in the physical and cultural environment, with new social systems and norms (Erlenawati et al. 2007). It is important that the international students regard themselves as foreigners staying for a time. They should be in a position to coup with unpredictable encounters, idiosyncratic communications, and problems of racial discrimination, by themselves (Church 1982).
In order to provide a good and favorable atmosphere for the international students it would be recommendable for the universities abroad to develop orientation programs that will enable the students familiarize themselves with the various support services and activities as well as social and cultural activities found in the institution. This orientation programs create supportive mechanisms for international students as well as facilitating an optimal academic and social adjustment. In Australia, for example, universities develop orientation programs that prepare the international students as they also acquaint themselves with the overall environment (Erlenawati et al. 2007). It cannot be doubted that such assistance may relieve or lessen experiences of loneliness while on the other hand, without such support then feelings of loneliness will be reportedly high and outrageous.
According to findings conducted in Australia, a total of 130 students which is relatively equal to 65 agree that they experienced feelings of loneliness. More specifically, 67 were female students while 62 were male students (Erlenawati et al. 2007).
The Notion of Loneliness
There is no human being in this world who can claim that she never experienced some sort of loneliness at some point in time. As noted earlier, it occurs mainly when one is away from home or whenever one loses a very close person. It is important to note that loneliness falls under emotions such that it takes place in the affective area of the person. Feelings of joy, sorrow or hunger are not different from the feelings of loneliness indeed, they can be dealt with although not absolutely prevented (Rokach Brock 1998). The good news is that loneliness is open to observation, analysis, and evaluation strategies not withstanding the fact that most human experiences are never fully known to social sciences. Normally, the modalities reflected in loneliness are mostly a study of psychology and sociology. In this regard, psychologists will regard personality as a predisposing factor. A sociologist will look at loneliness from the point of view of deficits in social networks.
Intentional Dynamicism
There a philosophical grounding on why human beings will need to belong. Depth psychology looks at the human person as virtually enclosed to himselfherself. This kind of an attitude is characterized by egoism, self-centeredness, pessimisms and so and so forth. On the contrary, the height psychology regards the person as loving, caring, and more importantly a self-transcendent being. Now, in the former case, the individual is guided by the culture of detachment while in the latter case, the individual is characterized by the culture of care. Whenever an individual is undergoing the culture of detachment, she normally goes through deep feelings of solitude, egoism, and loneliness. In fact at this level, the person can be said to have an imbalanced personality. However, while at the culture of care, the individual goes through a happy life characterized by self-esteem, concern for others, self-transcendence and the degree of loneliness is minimal at this point.
Therefore, every person has within his being a sense of intentional dynamism. Consider the following case Some students are working in a cyber each is very calm busy concentrating on what she is doing. If one goes there, she will conclude that there are no people in that cyber. However, the lights go off and suddenly a loud explosion goes up in the neighborhood. In this event, they begin to ask one another about what the problem could be. They all rush to check it out and even begin to talk to one another now. See the point Before, they have not been talking, but after the explosion, they begin talking like they know one another. Now, this is because their silence before was conscious and their sudden talking to each other is unconscious why It is because of the intentional dynamism.
Remember that to some extent, the things one does unconsciously are those that are inherent and part of us. They are pushed by a force within their inner being and this is what is referred to as intentional dynamism. Even in associationism studied in Psychology, the intentional dynamism better explains why a persons mental activity is always attached to the external objects. The mental content is geared towards something else and only God is exempt from this fact by virtue of noeos noesis. That only God can be the object of his knowledge, so to speak. So, it can be seen that the tendency or the movement towards the other is not a choice but it is something that individuals desire by virtue of their being.
Sense of Belonging
One of the simplest and most interesting theories in psychology is that one coined by John Harries. They literally look at the individual person as a four partitioned window. The partitions connote the following free area, area only known to the person, area only known to others and the dark area. Now, the philosophy behind the area known to others and not to the person is a valid explanation why man needs to belong. Indeed, there are some elements of the person that need another person to be known. In other words, an individual will need the opinion of others to be complete and to develop sufficient self-knowledge. These are some phrases people utter everyday without really noticing their magnitude. So, according to Jo-Harries window one of the parts of the human person is that which must need others to be.
In psychology, the need to belong implies the desire to uphold a minimum quantity and quality of interpersonal relationships. In the converse, loneliness is the absence of necessary relationships (Weiss 1973). In addition, a lonely person succumbs to unpleasant or inadmissible lack of desired social relationships (De Jong-Gierveld 1987). Again, if there is dissatisfaction in the belongingness needs, negative feelings will emerge in the person, including loneliness (Baumeister Leary 1995).
One will concur with Weiss (1973) in that personal loneliness and social loneliness are distinguishable entities. As mentioned earlier, loneliness derives from the absence of either close relationships or bonding or less intimate social relationships and social integration. A person will undergo emotional (personal) loneliness in those moments when she loses a loved one like in the case of a spouse, parent, brother or sister just to mention a few. This can however, be restored through satisfactory personal relationships.
Social loneliness occurs when there is a lack of social network engagement especially with peers who believe or share the same view of the world. Normally, a person undergoing loneliness experiences a lot of boredom and a feeling of exclusion (Weiss 1973). On the other hand, a sense of belonging leads to positive affectivity, happiness, elation, commitment and calm (Osterman 2001). Furthermore, rejection, exclusion and been ignored translates to profound negative feelings such as depression, grief, jealousy, anxiety, and above all loneliness.
Origin of Loneliness
It is believed that several scholastic attempts have been made in a bid to understand the causes of loneliness (Lunt, 1991). Somewhat, external circumstance is one of the explanations, in the breaking of social networks and personal relationships. Loss of loved ones may be through death, marriage break ups and divorce (Rokach 1988) and are potential causes of loneliness. Again, movement form one place to the next increases the chances of separation from well-established relationships and worse of all it fractures a persons social networks and support systems, hence resulting to what were mentioned earlier as relational deficits (Rokach 1989).
It had been indicated earlier that an individual can be so much absorbed in the culture of detachment. In most cases, it is normally a voluntary tendency where someone just feels that she does not want to associate with others. Well, this may also be a trait in the person. There are some people who find it difficult to interact with others simply because they lack adequate interpersonal skills or communications capacity, low self-esteem and fear of been rejected. Such people are in most cases shy, introverted, melancholic, extremely anxious, depressed, and neurotic (Hojat 1982). A person may feel that hisher language skills are incompetent. Whenever a person is an introvert with low self-esteem, she closes the chances of networking and reaching out towards the other people around.
Indeed, high-esteemed people are always surrounded by numerous networks to which they feel part of (Stokes 1985). However and in a paradoxical way, persons who exhibit signs of self-sufficiency, authenticity and independence are more likely to attract others and to foster successful relationships with them. Once again, personal characteristics can trigger chances of loneliness. In this regard, one can end up being lonely either voluntarily or involuntarily. Once the experience of loneliness occurs in the person it leads himher to withdraw from social relations in order to contain the agony, reinforcing social relation.
Individuality in Loneliness
It can be argued that individuals will experience loneliness in different ways. In this regard, different persons will have different experiences of loneliness. Consider the following X is very outgoing and cheerful while Y is very melancholic and introverted. In the case where X is lonely, she is likely to be more outgoing such that his loneliness is easily released on the other hand, when Y is lonely she is going to be more absorbed to himself and it will be difficult for him to deal with hisher loneliness adequately. By the way, it can turn out that X may not feel lonely while Y will feel lonely. These variations also occur in international students by virtue of whom or what their personality is like. Remember that, such students come from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and religion just to mention a few. Notably, elderly people may experience much degree of loneliness compared to young people (Green et al. 2001). On the other hand, increasing the magnitude of the college students networks may help in addressing their loneliness (Stokes 1985). It is also noted that youths from other cultures may have lower inclinations to close personal relationships while those from other cultures may have greater inclinations to close personal relationships.
From a gender point of view, it is believed that males do experience low levels of loneliness compared to females. According to Hojat (1982) women have low self-esteem hence are more prone to feelings of loneliness. However, there are others who believe that gender has no impact on the way people experience loneliness. There is no connection between gender and loneliness (Russell et al.1980). In the common parlance it is believed that women are more emotional than men. There is no common ground for this fact as some are of the opinion that men are more apt to loneliness while on the contrary, women are believed to be more inclined to feelings of loneliness. Deniz (2005) asserts that the degree of loneliness is higher in males compared to female students. He argues further that female students have excellent attachment skills that enable them to build close social ties.
Dealing with Loneliness
The lonely person can develop certain coping strategies by himself that can be useful in coping with feelings of loneliness. This is somewhat a personalized strategy. On the other hand, there are other strategies that are intended to shape and build social relationships. Furthermore, the lonely students can seek help from a third party through guidance and counseling.
It is important for lonely students to learn how to deal with their situations. Emotional maturity is marked by how much an individual is able to control hisher emotions. As mentioned earlier, whenever students find themselves in an international institution with completely different settings, they should be able to adapt themselves to the circumstances. They should make it their initiative in dealing with feelings of loneliness rather than suppressing them. They can even use their religion in destroying the feelings of loneliness. No doubt that religion connects the individual with some sort of a supreme force that the believer can draw comfort and consolation. In other words, prayer and commitment to ones religious faith is a way that can help the lonely person. Overall, the lonely students who are normally energetic and enthusiastic can engage in sporting activities or similar club activities that will automatically and easily create interaction with other peers.
Methodology
The aim of this research is to find out the extent to which Saudi and Chinese students feel loneliness in Bangor. This project will use a questionnaire as a valuable and convenient method to collect the data in a short time and with reliable results. The approach in this research shall involve going to any Saudi and Chinese student, male or female at ELCOS in Bangor. In this regard, the questionnaire will be distributed to a sampled number of those students during their break time. More specifically, it will select a number of 30 students from English Language Centre for Overseas Student both male and females who are studying in the period of 12 April to 4 June 2010. Furthermore, the arithmetic mean will be extracted from the degrees of the samples on the loneliness scale.
Consequently, the data will be subjected to SPSS program in order to find out if there is a correlation between these two variables, loneliness and academic achievement. Moreover, the results will be interpreted to yield to the final results of this research. In the long run, these final findings will be useful in the discussion of this topic by analyzing it and comparing it with the results of previous studies.
Result Findings
Initially, the analyses aimed at the application of simple statistical analyses by use of mean to obtain the arithmetic mean of the total scores on a scale of loneliness. In the first instance, the scale was applied on 30 samples where 15 were Saudi and 15 were Chinese students, 16 males and 14 females. The loneliness scale mean 25, 6 in the context of Saudi students whereas the males mean score 25,28 and the females mean score 25, 87. The age mean among Saudi student 24, 2, the males age mean 24, 14 and the females age mean 24, 25.
The loneliness scale mean in Chinese sample 29, the male mean score 30, 22 and the females mean scores 27, 16.The age mean in the context of the Chinese students 25, 46, and the males age mean 25,33 and the females age mean 25,66. (See more in appendix below)
Student (Gender) Age Loneliness
Saudi (Males)
24.14 25.28 Saudi (Females)
24.25 25.87
Student (Gender) Age Loneliness Chinese (Males) 25.33 30.22 Chinese (Females) 25.66 27.16
Further analyses evaluated on connection between loneliness feelings and academic performance. The SPSS program was used in this matter. Through the use of correlation equation (Kendalls Tau Test),it was found that the scale degree of loneliness and grades for the total sample of Chinese and Saudi Students was 493 which implies p,05. The score of loneliness as measured by the scale of loneliness and grades for the total sample of Saudi and Chinese students 119 which implies p0. (See appendix C).
Discussions
According to the study, result findings indicated that there are significant differences between Saudi and Chinese students in the rate in which they experience loneliness. This was established in the rate of loneliness mean on scale score. The Chinese students rate higher with four percent hence the impression that they succumb more to feelings of loneliness in comparison to Saudi students.
Furthermore, it is established that the male Chinese students are more apt to feelings of loneliness. In particular, the comparison between these two samples establishes that there is a significant increase of the loneliness mean on scale score among males Chinese students which is approximated at 30,22, at the rate of about five percent. On the other hand, the Chinese females samples comes on the second rank approximated at 27,16. Evidently, the results for the loneliness scale score further establish that among Chinese students in ELCOSE, males are more prone to feelings of loneliness as compared to females. In the case of Saudi students, the results are relatively equal with no big margins between them. In particular, their mean of loneliness score approximates as follows the males mean scores 25,28 and the females mean scores 25,87.
Previously, it was mentioned that individuality determines the way in which people respond to feelings of loneliness in their lives. It was also stated that different people will experience loneliness in different ways. It was even illustrated that females are more apt to feel lonely as compared to males. However, this is not absolutely agreed upon as some purport that it is males who are more apt to feel lonely. Indeed, this remains an open discussion where either standpoint can be regarded as true and possible.
From the findings of this research, it has been established that male Chinese students are more reportedly said to undergo feelings of loneliness as compared to the female Chinese students. The gap is very big as well. It therefore cannot be regarded as the case to infer that males are less exposed to loneliness. It can be argued and justifiably so that it depends with the situation and circumstances for this matter. Earlier long, the study illustrated some of the causes of loneliness in that it can be orchestrated by personal traits, culture, circumstances and individuality just to mention a few.
Looking at the settings of the methodology adopted in this investigation, it can be noted that the students both from the Chinese and the Saudi are a community hence share the same circumstances. Again, considering the results on the side of the Saudi, there is a slight difference in the ratings between males and females with respect to loneliness. Therefore, the settings cannot be said to be anti-male. If it were so, all the findings would indicate that males both in Saudi and Chinese resort more to loneliness and with big margins against the females. Therefore, the possible explanations to the reason as to why male Chinese experience feelings of loneliness revolve around culture, personal traits and not the circumstances.
Age is also one of the many factors that attract loneliness. Earlier in this study it was indicated that elderly people are more prone to loneliness as compared to young people. Notably, the findings indicate variations in the ratings on different ages. Like in the case of Saudi students, the findings place a female of 24 years at a scale degree of 34 which is similar to that of a male of 30 years who is also placed at a scale degree of 34.
Conclusion
It can be seen that loneliness is a serious reality which affects international students in the contemporary world. The findings of this research provide us with adequate and concrete information to this fact. In this regard, loneliness somewhat is an inevitable issue which students must learn to cope with. Loneliness is not exempted from other emotions and due to this it can be controlled. We have learnt that whenever one is undergoing a kind of loneliness, which is the time when she should grow more in self-knowledge and self-esteem. No doubt those most international students are very young and energetic so they should engage themselves in various activities that will cheer them up and somehow interact with other peers as well. Yes, our backgrounds, culture, personal traits and circumstances may catalyze the rate of loneliness. Once again, the person should always strive to grow out of such setbacks and where necessary seek external intervention. She can consult a counselor or friend or even say a small prayer.
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