There was interest in the discussion of why men break contact following sex, so I wanted to share a study on general ghosting motivations.

You won't be able to draw too much of a comparison between this study and the experiences of men in the previous thread. These are motivations for ghosting after any period of dating contact, even online without having met. (50% of the sample had not met in person.) They are also motivations given by men and women. The previous thread had descriptions of motivations to ghost following a sexual encounter. Only 46 of the 328 participants in this sample had any form of sexual contact.

The main research question was: What motivations drive mobile daters to ghost?

The researchers used thematic analysis to group responses of men and women who have both ghosted (ghoster) and been ghosted (ghostee). (n = 328.)

Being ghosted:

59% of people who have been ghosted blamed the other person for ghosting them. Most of this group (n = 60) believed the other person was seeing someone else. The second largest proportion described the person who ghosted them as having “issues” or being unable to commit (n = 43). The third largest described ghosters in angry phrasing, as rude, lazy, cowardly etc. (n = 29). The remaining group simply believed the person was no longer interested or busy (n = 27).

37% of people who were ghosted blamed themselves. (n = 80) The top reason was they believed they were not good enough for the person who ghosted them (n = 72).

Ghosting others:

67% of people who ghosted said it was because of the other person. Bad personality was the top reason (n = 59) followed by bad behavior (n = 42).

44% of ghosters blamed themselves for ghosting. (n = 62) However, half of these respondents indicated they ghosted others to protect themselves from conflict (n = 36) and said they feared abusive behavior, unwanted contact, stalking, etc. Being unwilling or unready to date was the second grouping (n = 26).

Additional groupings:

29% of people said the dating app made it easier to ghost. 22% said that ghosting is a part of the mobile dating experience and they did not owe the other person anything. 16% excused ghosting by saying they did not want to hurt the other person.

Linear regression:

Contrary to the belief that mobile dating made it easier to ghost, the researchers found that mobile dating users were less likely to ghost. For every step increase in dating app use, there was a 1.30 decrease in the odds to ghost. Gender did not predict ghosting; men and women were equally likely to ghost in this regression. There was no association between being ghosted and the likelihood of ghosting others. Participants' perceptions of ghosting (from the content analysis above) did not predict the likelihood to ghost.

Age had a small relationship with ghosting, with younger persons being more likely to ghost. For every year decrease in age, odds to ghost increased by 1.08.

Painfulness of ghosting experience:

The researchers looked at what categories of ghosting experience were rated as most painful.

Being ghosted more frequently strongly predicted a positive perception of painfulness (b = .62). Ghosting others frequently was associated with a lower perception of ghosting painfulness (-.29).

Ghosting after face-to-face contact was strongly associated with the perception of painfulness (.89) and the duration of contact moderately (.38).

Not expecting to be ghosted was strongly associated with the painfulness of being ghosted (.62).

Variables where no association was found: gender, age, sexual orientation, sexual contact, and intensity of contact.

My final observation of this data:

There was a big disconnect between why people thought they were being ghosted and why they were being ghosted. The biggest belief by people who were ghosted was that the other person was seeing someone else. Yet that reason did not emerge in the reported reasons for why people ghosted others. The big reason people reported ghosting others was simply a dislike of them: personality or behavior. Not wanting conflict was also a large motivation.

This is fairly consistent with what I described in the previous thread. It is also inconsistent with the belief that men (or women) are regularly leaving you for someone else. That’s the most common fear, but it wasn’t reported by ghosters frequently enough to show up in the data.

This is a case where the simplest explanation is probably the right one. You did something (or the person thought you did something) or had some trait the other person did not like and they bounced.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520970287