the effect of self esteem, humorous styles and shyness on the feeling of loneliness in students

the aim of this study was investigating the role of self-esteem, humorous styles and shyness in prediction of loneliness in students. the research method was descriptive-correlational and the population was all high school students in the city of damghan. the sample included 250 students (125 boys, and 125 girls) selected through cluster random sampling. to collect the data, four instruments were administered to the sample including rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses), humor styles questionnaire (hsq) by martin, cheek and briggs shyness scale, and loneliness scale by dehshiri et al. the results of the study indicated significant negative correlation between shyness and self-esteem. there was significant negative correlation between affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles, and feeling of loneliness. also, a significant positive correlation was found between self-esteem and loneliness and its components. the results of stepwise regression analysis showed that self-esteem, self-enhancing humor style, and shyness were the most significant predictors of loneliness, respectively. altogether, these variables explained 34% of variance in loneliness. the results showed the precious role of self-esteem and the use of adaptive humorous styles for decreasing students’ shyness and loneliness.