Fear of losing someone can hurt the relationship

Do you know when you're so afraid of something happening that you just inadvertently contribute to it? For a recent study concluded that this may be true when it comes to romantic relationships: fear of the end may just cause ... the end.

The conclusion came from the study of Simona Sciara and Giuseppe Pantaleo, researchers at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Italy and was published in the journal Motivation and Emotion , network Springer .

To reach this conclusion, the authors recruited 104 committed volunteers and collected basic information about them and the state and dynamics of their love relationships.

So the tests began. Part of these volunteers was led to think about the possibility of their relationship ending. Manipulation techniques involved presenting data about the failure of romantic relationships in general or providing false statistics about the chances of their own relationship ending.

After all this sadism, the volunteers had to respond to how committed they were to their relationship and how they felt about their partner.

You may already be able to imagine the result. Those who heard about the risks of a relationship ending (both their own and relationships in general) had romantic feelings and much lower levels of commitment . Those who did not hear any of these data were more passionate and committed to making the relationship last.

"This shows that, faced with a 'very high' risk of ending the relationship, participants clearly reduced the intensity of their positive feelings toward the romantic partner," explains Sciara.

A reduced commitment to the relationship leads the person to consider the ending - which can actually lead to a break. "The end of a relationship, in turn, can trigger depression, distress and less satisfaction with life,"