Emotional experiences of ghosting

ABSTRACT

Although ghosting (i.e., unilaterally ending a relationship by ceasing communication) has only recently entered the lexicon, it is a regularly used form of relationship dissolution. However, little research has examined the emotional experiences of ghosting, particularly the experiences of those on both sides of the ghosting process. In a multi-method study, participants who had both ghosted and been ghosted in previous romantic relationships (N = 80) provided narratives of their experiences and completed questionnaires. The narrative responses were analyzed by coders and by using LIWC. Ghosters and ghostees used similar overall levels of positively and negatively valenced words to describe their experiences, but ghosters were more likely to express guilt and relief, whereas ghostees were more likely to express sadness and hurt feelings. Ghostees also experienced more of a threat to their fundamental needs – control, self-esteem, belongingness, meaningful existence – than ghosters.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghosting
• ostracism
• emotions
• hurt feelings
• LIWC

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the research assistants who assisted with the data coding.

Ethics committee

The Roanoke College Institutional Review Board approved the research reported in this manuscript (IRB #16122).

Declarations

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at osf.io/tscd8.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/tscd8.

Notes

1. A third LIWC hypothesis was preregistered but was inadvertently specified in the opposite direction. The hypothesis written in the preregistration stated “When reflecting on emotions during ghosting and emotions now, ghosters will report more negative emotions now than when they ghosted” when the authors meant to write, “ … ghosters will report more negative emotions when they ghosted than now.” Therefore, this hypothesis is being treated as an exploratory question.

2. Although the Bonferroni adjustment reduces the likelihood of a Type I error and is recommended for pairwise comparisons following the Cochran’s Q test (Stephen & Adruce, 2018), the likelihood of a Type II error is increased. Without the Bonferroni adjustment, three additional pairwise comparisons are significant: Ghosters’ accounts of how they felt were more likely to include happiness than ghostees’ accounts of how they felt (McNemar’s Χ2 = 2.41, p = .016, unadjusted); ghosters’ accounts of how they feel now were more likely to include relief than ghostees’ accounts of how they feel now (McNemar’s Χ2 = 2.10, p = .038, unadjusted); and ghostees’ accounts of how they feel now were more likely to include apathy than ghosters’ accounts of how they feel now (McNemar’s Χ2 = 1.99, p = .047, unadjusted).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Gili Freedman

Gili Freedman is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Her research focuses on the two-sided nature of social exclusion as well as gender biases and belonging in STEM contexts.

Darcey N. Powell

Darcey N. Powell is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Roanoke College. Her research interests focus on transitions in close relationships.

Benjamin Le

Benjamin Le is a Professor of Psychology at Haverford College. His research has focused on the maintenance, persistence, and termination of romantic relationships.

Kipling D. Williams

Kipling D. Williams is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. His research interests focus on the causes and consequences of ostracism.