In recent years, ghosting has become a pervasive aspect of social interactions. Ghosting, defined as ending a relationship by ignoring another person’s attempts to connect, is a form of social rejection without explanation or feedback. However, a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General reveals that ghosting is not necessarily devoid of care. The researchers found that ghosters often have prosocial motives and that understanding these motives can mitigate the negative effects of ghosting.
The study was driven by the widespread occurrence of ghosting in various types of relationships, from romantic connections to professional collaborations. Despite its prevalence, the psychological dynamics behind ghosting have been largely unexplored. The researchers aimed to understand why people ghost and how the experience affects both the ghosters and the ghostees. They hypothesized that ghosters might care more about the well-being of those they ghost than is typically assumed.
“As someone who has – and has been – ghosted frequently in my personal and professional relationships, this phenomena was something that had interested me for a while,” said study author YeJin Park, a PhD student at the New York University Stern School of Business. “Ghosting was only further exacerbated due to COVID-19 pandemic, where most communications moved online, making ghosting even easier. When my co-author Nadav Klein asked if I was interested in studying ghosting with him, I was excited to explore a personal phenomena using a psychological vantage.”
The researchers first conducted a series of three pilot studies aimed at understanding and characterizing ghosting as a distinct form of social rejection. The findings confirmed the identify unique characteristics of ghosting, such as its abrupt and unexplained nature, and that people could distinguish ghosting from other rejection behaviors. The researchers also found that ghosting is prevalent across various types of relationships, including familial, friendly, professional, and romantic ties.
Next, the researchers conducted a series of eight experiments to systematically investigate the psychological dynamics of ghosting.
In Experiment 1, the researchers tested whether ghostees underestimate ghosters’ care by having participants recall instances of ghosting. They recruited 201 working adults in Singapore who described either ghosting someone or being ghosted. Ghosters rated their care for the ghostee, while ghostees rated how much they believed the ghoster cared about them. Additional measures included the emotional impact of ghosting and the ease of recalling the incident. The findings revealed that ghosters cared more about ghostees’ well-being than ghostees realized, indicating a significant underestimation of care by ghostees.
Experiment 2 aimed to create a real-time ghosting scenario using an online chat interface. The study involved 118 participants from the United Kingdom who were paired for two conversations. After the first conversation, those assigned to the ghoster condition could either ghost their partner or wait a long time due to a fabricated “technical difficulty.” Ghostees were left waiting without explanation. The study measured the discrepancy between ghosters’ actual care and ghostees’ perceptions. The results showed that ghosters cared more about ghostees than ghostees expected, and ghosting was perceived as a socially undesirable behavior despite ghosters’ underlying care.
In Experiment 3, researchers tested ghosters’ willingness to incur a cost to avoid ghosting. Using a similar chat interface, 118 participants from the United Kingdom were assigned to the ghoster or ghostee condition. Ghosters could choose to leave without explanation, leave but send an explanatory message for a small fee, or wait a long time. Many ghosters chose to pay to send an explanation, indicating genuine concern for the ghostees’ feelings. However, ghostees significantly underestimated ghosters’ willingness to pay and the associated care, highlighting the disconnect between ghosters’ intentions and ghostees’ perceptions.
“We were really surprised by our study 3,” Park said. “To see that in an online platform, people were willing to give up their financial bonuses in order to refrain from ghosting, which highlights just how ghosters are not malevolent – they are like most humans who harbor both other and self-oriented motives for engaging in behaviors.”
Experiment 4 replicated the recall methodology of Experiment 1 but included a manipulation of relationship type (personal vs. professional). The researchers involved 289 participants in Singapore who recalled instances of ghosting or being ghosted in either personal or professional contexts. Participants rated the extent of other-oriented and self-oriented motives behind ghosting. The findings confirmed that ghostees underestimated ghosters’ care and identified that this underestimation was partly due to not recognizing the other-oriented motives involved in ghosting.
Experiment 5 used a hypothetical scenario to manipulate the reason for ghosting (positive vs. negative) and tested its impact on perceptions of care. The researchers recruited 272 participants from the United States who imagined either ghosting or being ghosted with a specified positive or negative reason. The study found that ghostees underestimated ghosters’ care regardless of the reason, and other-oriented motives were significant predictors of ghosting, especially when the reason was negative. This suggested that ghosters often ghost to avoid causing pain through explicit rejection.
In Experiment 6, the researchers tested whether informing ghostees that ghosters knew about their pain from rejection would affect perceptions of care. Participants engaged in a chat task similar to Experiment 2 but received feedback about their own and their partner’s sensitivity to rejection pain. The study involved 204 participants from the United Kingdom. Despite ghosters being aware of ghostees’ pain, ghostees still underestimated ghosters’ care. This indicated that ghostees’ underestimation of care persists even when ghosters have knowledge of the potential emotional impact.
Experiment 7 examined when other-oriented motives would lead to ghosting by manipulating the reason for rejection to be either inherently related to the ghostee (negative) or unrelated (positive). The study recruited 271 participants from the United States who imagined scenarios of ghosting or being ghosted with these specified reasons. The study found that other-oriented motives led to ghosting more when the reason was negative, suggesting that ghosters sometimes ghost to avoid causing direct emotional pain. This highlights the complexity of ghosting decisions, where concern for the ghostee’s feelings can drive the behavior.
Experiment 8 investigated the downstream consequences of ghosting on future help exchange. The study involved 303 participants from Western Europe who imagined scenarios involving ghosting or rejection with feedback (positive or negative) and then assessed the likelihood of seeking or offering help six months later. The study revealed that ghostees underestimated ghosters’ willingness to help, partly due to underestimating ghosters’ care. It also showed that ghosting led to particularly pessimistic predictions about future interactions compared to rejections with feedback, underscoring the long-term relational impacts of ghosting.
Park told PsyPost that the findings can be “summarized using the words of Adam Grant, when he covered our paper on X: ‘Ghosting isn’t always due to a lack of care. It’s often a misguided effort to avoid hurting someone. Many people stop replying to shield others from pain. They don’t realize being ignored is usually worse than being rejected. Candor stings briefly. Silence leaves an open wound.'”
The researchers suggest future studies should explore ways to mitigate the negative effects of ghosting without direct feedback from ghosters. Possible directions include prompting ghostees to adopt ghosters’ perspectives or reflecting on their own ghosting behavior. Future research should also test these findings across a broader range of cultures and methods to ensure generalizability and robustness.
“We are now investigating a follow up project on accidental ghosting – i.e., when one ghosts unintentionally,” Park explained. “We realized that most of the instances I’ve ghosted people are accidental, usually because I received many texts and forgot to respond to one, or when someone emailed me with a request that requires thoughtfulness. We are interested in seeing if ghosters underestimate the likelihood of accidental ghosting from occurring, and potentially identifying interventions to mitigate this mispredictions.”
The study, “Ghosting: Social Rejection Without Explanation, but Not Without Care,” was authored by YeJin Park and Nadav Klein.
