When people experienced a general sense of loss of significance, they become more obsessed with their romantic partners and this obsessive passion is associated with a greater willingness to engage in extreme behaviors, according to new research published in Personal Relationships. The findings from this research may have practical implications for addressing violent and abusive behavior within romantic relationships.
The motivation behind this study was to understand why people engage in extreme behaviors within romantic relationships. The study draws attention to the prevalence of extreme behaviors, such as stalking and intrusive behaviors, in romantic relationships, particularly among young adults. The researchers highlight the contradiction between the perception of extreme behaviors as romantic in popular fiction, exemplified by the character Edward Cullen from the Twilight saga, and their recognition as morally and legally wrong in real-life situations.
“This topic is very relevant to me because I am astonished by the fact that people can damage the person that they are expected to love,” said study author Federico Contu, a PhD student at La Sapienza University and member of UniSR-Social.Lab.
“Moreover, extremism (and violence) within romantic couples is really spread among young people. Just think that more than 50% of young adults (aged 18–22) reported having been victims of stalking and intrusive behaviors. This is very stunning, isn’t it?”
The researchers proposed that the quest for significance, which refers to the universal human need to feel worthy, important, and that one matters to others in their social network, can explain extreme behavior in romantic relationships. According to the Significance Quest Theory (SQT), when the need for significance dominates all other needs, individuals may engage in extreme behaviors to satisfy that need, even at the expense of other needs.
Contu and his colleagues conducted a series of three studies to investigate the relationship between insignificance and extreme behaviors in romantic relationships.
In Study 1, researchers wanted to understand how people’s feelings of insignificance relate to their readiness to make sacrifices for their romantic partner. They recruited 222 Italian adults who were currently in relationships and had them complete an online questionnaire. The questionnaire assessed participants’ feelings of insignificance, their levels of obsessive and harmonious passion towards their partner, and their willingness to make sacrifices to maintain the relationship (e.g. “To maintain my relationship I am disposed to sacrifice the relationship with my
friends”).
In Study 2, the researchers aimed to replicate the findings of Study 1 but focused on a different extreme behavior called obsessive relational intrusion, which refers to behaviors like invading privacy or controlling one’s partner. The study enrolled 223 Italian adults who were in relationships and had them complete an online questionnaire.
The researchers found that participants who felt insignificant were more likely to report an obsessive passion for their partner but less likely to report harmonious passion. In other words, those who agreed with statements such as “I feel humiliated” and “I feel disrespected” were more likely to agree with statements such as “I have almost an obsessive feeling for my partner” but less likely to agree with statements such as “My relationship with my partner allows me to live a variety of experiences.”
Furthermore, only obsessive passion was associated with a greater readiness to self-sacrifice for the relationship. These findings suggest that when individuals feel a general loss of self-worth, dignity, and respect, they may redirect their efforts towards their romantic relationships as a means to regain a sense of significance.
Additionally, consistent with Study 1, Contu and his colleagues found that obsessive romantic passion was positively associated with engaging in obsessive relational intrusions. In contrast, harmonious romantic passion was not significantly related to obsessive relational intrusions. The indirect effect of significance loss on obsessive relational intrusion was significant only through obsessive romantic passion, not harmonious romantic passion.
These results further reinforce the previous findings and suggest that obsessive romantic passion, driven by a sense of significance loss, can lead individuals to engage in harmful behaviors towards their partners. Harmonious romantic passion, characterized by a more balanced and healthy connection, does not exhibit the same association with extreme behaviors.
“I think the most important thing that an average person can take away from this study is that individuals who are violent towards the proper romantic partners are individuals that first of all feel bad about themselves,” Contu told PsyPost.
But the researchers noted that their findings were correlational and unable to determine causality. To overcome this, they conducted a longitudinal study.
For the third study, the researchers enrolled 287 Italian adults who were in ongoing relationships. The participants completed two waves of measurements, with data collected on January 20 (first wave) and February 20 (second wave). The mean duration of participants’ relationships was 67.18 months for those who participated in the first wave. However, there was a high dropout rate, and only 202 participants remained for the second wave. The procedure and measurements used in Study 3 were consistent with Studies 1 and 2.
The researchers observed that significance loss at wave 1 had a positive and significant indirect effect on the willingness to self-sacrifice and obsessive relational intrusions at time 2, but only through obsessive (not harmonious) romantic passion. Importantly, these findings were obtained while controlling for self-esteem.
“I was surprised by the fact that both males and females were influenced by the same process that brings people to act extremely towards their romantic partners because they feel socially insignificant,” Contu told PsyPost. “I expected that males would be more prone to extremism towards the proper romantic partner than females.”
One limitation of the study was that loss of significance was assessed generally rather than in specific life domains. Future research should explore how loss of significance in different areas of life, such as work or relationships, affects obsessive passion and extreme behaviors in romantic relationships. It is possible that individuals may compensate for a loss of significance in one domain by becoming obsessively passionate about advancing in another domain.
It is also unclear whether acting extremely towards one’s partner actually helps to alleviate the perceived loss of significance. “Thanks to this research, we now know that people act extremely towards their romantic partner to regain social significance. The main point now is if acting extremely towards the proper romantic partner effectively enhances one sense of significance or it only provides the perception of being socially significant,” Contu said.
The study, “People act extremely toward their amorous partner when they feel insignificant“, was authored by Federico Contu, Molly Ellenberg, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Antonio Pierro.
