The relationship between life goals and loneliness among university students: The mediation role of basic psychological needs satisfaction

Objective: The primary aim of the study was to investigate predictive powers of basic psychological needs satisfaction (autonomy, relatedness, and competency) and life goals (intrinsic/extrinsic) on loneliness (social and emotional). The second purpose of the current study was to test mediation role of basic psychological needs satisfaction on relationships between life goals and social and emotional loneliness. Methods: A total of 176 university students (128 female and 48 male) completed Personal Information Form, Social and Emotional Scale for Adults (SELSA-S), Life Goals Scale, and Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction Scale in General. In order to analysis the data, Pearson product-moment correlation analysis, basic and hierarchic multiple regression analyses and Sobel test was performed. Results: The results from hierarchic multiple regression analyses indicated that the predictive powers of life goals and needs satisfaction were significant on both social and emotional loneliness, however when controlled needs satisfaction, predictive power of intrinsic life goals was not significant on the social and emotional loneliness. The findings implied that the link between intrinsic life goals, and social and emotional loneliness was fully mediated by needs satisfaction. Besides, Sobel test results verified that needs satisfaction had significant mediation effect on the relationship. Discussion: Focusing on intrinsic life goals and basic psychological needs such as autonomy, competency, and relatedness in therapeutic/counseling sessions may help clients to cope with negative events like loneliness.