Predictors of Social Estrangements

Human connection plays a significant role in an individual's life. Belonging is one of the key components of living a successful life. With that being said, humans are programmed to prevent being exploited by others. This study examines what characteristics an individual may have that lead to having a high number of social estrangements. The hypothesis of this study was that if impulsivity, borderline tendencies, risk-taking, and fast life history strategy were all present in an individual's personality, then this would lead to a higher number of estrangements in that individual’s life. Using a sample of 413 participants, it was found that the hypothesis was partially supported. The more borderline tendencies someone had, the more estrangements he or she had in life.

Age Breakdown Table 2 Gender Breakdown  Number of participants, means, and standard deviations for Impulsivity, Borderline Tendencies, Risk Taking, Life History Strategy, and Estrangements.

Zero-Order Correlations between Number of Estrangements and Variables
To examine if borderline tendencies, risk taking, impulsivity and fast life history strategy  Table 5 Zero-Order Correlations among Borderline Tendencies, Risk Taking, Impulsivity and Life History Strategy * p < .05

Multiple Regression between Variables
A multiple regression was conducted to explore the variance in estrangements due to borderline tendencies, risk taking, impulsivity and fast life history strategy. As seen on  in predicting the number of estrangements. We may be seeing these results due to the fact that borderline tendencies include black-and-white thinking and idealization and devaluation which may account for the number of estrangements associated with borderline tendencies. Although risk taking and impulsivity are also associated with borderline tendencies, they alone may not cause cut offs or estrangements.
This study supports research that has been previously done stating that adverse psychological and social factors are connected with a high number of estrangements (Geher et al., 2019). Estrangements may come about due to underlying psychological adversity, such as previous trauma, which is common in Borderline Personality Disorders or the needs of that individual not being met. It can be seen as a harmful coping mechanism for those who have trouble with interpersonal relationships and regulating their emotions. On the flip side, being estranged from many people and feeling like you don't belong can heighten maladaptive behaviors. In certain cases, estrangements can lead to severe mental health consequences.

Therapeutic Implications
Estrangements could be implemented in two ways: Being estranged from other people or being the one to initiate the estrangements. Both are damaging to a person's well-being. Due to the possible severe consequences associated with social estrangements, identifying motivators of estrangements and triggers can be useful in therapy. Targeting these characteristics can help professionals better understand the underlying causes of estrangements and can help break down the reasonings for such decisions. From there, the client and therapist can explore ways to help cope with the issues at hand. Doing so allows professionals to be proactive with their clients and hopefully work through problematic behaviors to decrease the likelihood of a mental health diagnosis. Some characteristics that were investigated in this study are strongly tied to past trauma history. This brings up the chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. Do mental health issues cause more estrangements or do estrangements lead to mental health issues? Regardless of which comes first, the outcome, to put it simply, is bad. Once estrangements hit a certain severity, intervention is likely to be needed in order to create meaningful relationships and the skills needed to thrive in life.

Limitations
There are limitations to consider when analyzing this study. First, the sample was not amply diverse. Most participants were college students from a small college campus. This problem could have influenced the results due to the age range that was gathered in the sample.
When recruiting participants for this study, it was stated that "The goal of this study is to see if certain characteristics can predict the number of estrangements an individual has." Although results were anonymous, speaking about one's own estrangement history may have deterred individuals from participating in this study. It is possible that people who may have decided not to participate could have influenced the results.

Future Research
While there are studies on estrangements, more could be understood about what leads to a higher number of estrangements, especially given the many adverse consequences that are known to be associated with estrangements (Geher et al., 2019