I’ve featured many articles on ghosting over the course of writing this blog, including this post on the 4 reasons why people ghost.
I’m sure just about everyone has heard of it by now, but just in case you haven’t, ghosting is the act of breaking off a relationship by spontaneously ceasing all contact and communication without warning someone or explaining it to them first.
Whether you like it or not, ghosting isn’t going away. It’s become a staple of modern life. If you haven’t done it yourself, odds are good someone else has done it to you.
And a recent study covers one potential factor that can make a person more likely to ghost others.
Believing in “Destiny” Can Lead You to Be More Likely to Ghost Romantic Partners #
This study looked at people through the lens of two different theories surrounding compatibility. The first was called destiny beliefs. People who believed in “destiny” were not only more likely to think that compatibility was obvious, they also believed that relationships with a rough beginning are guaranteed to fail.
Conversely, the second set of beliefs was known as “growth beliefs.” Like the name implies, folks who had growth beliefs surrounding romantic relationships believed that a relationship that didn’t seem ideal at first could potentially grow as they got to know one another better.
The study found the following:
- People who endorsed destiny beliefs were more likely to ghost on romantic partners.
- Those believing in destiny were also more likely to say that ghosting on a romantic partner was a socially acceptable thing to do.
- People who had strong growth beliefs had more negative attitudes towards ghosting behavior.
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Looking at the findings, it all makes a lot of sense. I’ll be the first to admit that I never would have thought about what role our beliefs about romantic compatibility could play in our attitudes towards ghosting. But cool study. Very interesting.
I’ll be chewing on the results of this one for a while.
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This post is part of an ongoing Poly Land feature called Psyched for the Weekend, in which I geek out with brief takes about some of my favorite psychological studies and concepts. For the entire series, please see this link.