Killing What Kind of Pain? Loneliness as a Form of Emotional Strain
Open Access
Author:
Carrier, Josie
Graduate Program:
Sociology (MA)
Degree:
Master of Arts
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
August 18, 2022
Committee Members:
Ashton Michael Verdery, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor Derek Allen Kreager, Committee Member David Baker, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies Sarah Brothers, Committee Member
Keywords:
Loneliness social isolation adolescence substance use
Abstract:
Both social marginalization and substance use have clear public health harms, but the relationships between them remains unclear. Criminological theories rely on mutually exclusive assumptions about the nature of substance use initiation with regard to social marginalization that have not been explored previously. In this paper, I use logistic regression to examine the influence of social isolation and loneliness on pain killer initiation among the Add Health cohort. Loneliness is positively and significantly correlated with pain killer initiation, and adolescents who report only loneliness or are experiencing social isolation are at higher risk of pain killer initiation than adolescents who report neither or both. These findings support strain theory’s self-medication hypothesis and imply that prevention programs should consider the influence of social perceptive factors.
