Predictors of Social Estrangements

Abstract

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.

To Ghost or To Be Ghosted: An Examination of the Social and Psychological Correlates Associated with Ghosting

“…This point partly lies in the fact that under ancestral conditions, humans lived in small, tightknit groups in which people were dependent on the support of others for survival and, ultimately, for successful reproduction (Geher & Wedberg, 2020). For these reasons, being estranged from others seems to have ubiquitous adverse outcomes related to our emotional and social well-being (Geher et al, 2019;Sung et al, 2021).…”

“…The scale is scored on a Likert scale of 1-5, where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Importantly, as was the case in the study by Sung et al (2021), this measure was not meant as a clinical marker of BPD but, rather, as a research-based index of traits that have been shown to be predictive of borderline tendencies. We predicted high scores on this measure to correspond to relatively high scores on both kinds of ghosting experiences.…”