Just Broke Up? Time to Redefine Yourself!
Individuals rooted in love tend to begin viewing themselves as being linked to that of their partner, popularly referred to as the soulmate. They go from being two distinct identities to a single unit with many shared habits and values. People engaged in romantic relationships try and facilitate the other through creating flexibility in their attitudes about private and public matters. This arrangement allows for couples to change the core of who they are, to an extent. So, it is evident that the end of such relationships is always heartbreaking.
The self indeed suffers when it is made to separate from its other half, so the authors of this study set out to explore those effects. They hypothesized that undergoing the breakup of a romantic relationship negatively impacts an individual's self-concept. Including a reduction in self-concept clarity, changing self-concept and self-concept constriction, all of which were correlated to emotional distress.
Post-breakup, people seek to create a new balance within themselves concerning the kind of people they are, in the absence of a partner. This study focuses on self-concept clarity and emotional distress (not a lot of research has been conducted on this association).
The study recruited single participants as well as those who were in committed relationships. Furthermore, the research was divided into three studies with Study 1 examining self-concept change and self-concept clarity effects after a breakup. They subsequently observed (as predicted) that self-concept changed for participants along with a reduction in self-concept clarity, especially if the level of commitment was higher in a relationship. This implies that people needed to alter their attitudes, social circles, activities and goals while not being entirely confident about the kind of people they were (post-breakup). Moreover, Study 2 proved that people view themselves as having limited personality attributes after a breakup.
Overall, this research study depicts that romantic breakups are emotionally distressing due to a loss in self-concept clarity.
Source:
Slotter, E. B., Gardner, W. L., & Finkel, E. J. (2010). Who am I without you? The influence of romantic breakup on the self-concept. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(2), 147-160.
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