We have long known the extent to which our physical and psychological well-being can be eroded by loneliness, and that the expression of affection is the primary way to create connections that bind us to others beyond formal relationships.

However, many people have problems expressing affection , and adopt a distant attitude automatically and involuntarily despite a part of themselves asking the contrary.

Why does this happen? Like practically all psychological phenomena, there is no single explanation, as there are several paths that lead to the same result, depending on the path each person has taken throughout his life. However, there are very common causes of this phenomenon that have such an impact on relationships , and we will now look at one of them.

Problems expressing affection

The human mind is an accumulation of contradictions, and that is why we are able to prefer one option to another in a theoretical way while in practice we do the opposite. This happens, for example, by postponing visits to the dentist or skipping the gym sessions we are paying for, and it also happens in the emotional side of our lives.

We know that connecting affectively with someone is something pleasant , and in spite of this there are many people who in their day-to-day life prefer to avoid it, rejecting invitations to go out, running away from intense hugs, giving up meeting people who show interest, or even showing a distant attitude towards family that cannot be explained by important conflicts.

This curious phenomenon has been addressed by a team of American researchers led by Anna Luerssen. They started from an initial hypothesis: that, when managing couple relationships, each individual is moved by one of two priority objectives that are mutually exclusive.

These objectives are, on the one hand, to develop a satisfactory relationship and, on the other hand, to minimize the risk of feeling rejected . In general, expressing affection generates well-being, but if this affection is interpreted as unrequited, a feeling of vulnerability and of having little value may appear, which damages self-esteem.

Luerssen and his people understood that someone with low self-esteem will tend to be more defensive in their love relationships, and that therefore, anticipating the high risk of rejection, it will be easier for them to give up the idea of having a very intimate and satisfying relationship.

The experiment

For this research, Luerssen’s team included 60 couples who were cared for in a psychology laboratory. There, the members of each couple were separated and each was offered a role: one person would be “the speaker” and the other, “the listener”.

The participants who were to speak were asked to choose three compliments to say to their partners. In addition to asking them to listen without offering any answers, the people receiving them were told that their partner had chosen to talk about “things I really like about my partner” from a list of possible topics. In this way, they would believe that compliments were spontaneous.

After this phase, both members of the couple filled out questionnaires about how the activity had made them feel, they underwent a test to collect data about their hormone levels at that time, and the “speakers” filled out a questionnaire designed to measure their self-esteem.

The harmful power of vulnerability in couples

According to the results obtained, people with lower self-esteem tended to offer less affectionate compliments and to express greater discomfort produced by the experiment.

The levels of progesterone , a hormone secreted in greater quantities in affective and attachment-related behaviours, did not increase significantly in these people either, as is usually the case with most people. In fact, both “listeners” of low self-esteem couples and those linked to couples with good self-esteem did experience such a sudden rise in progesterone levels. On the other hand, “talkers” with lower self-esteem tended to believe to a lesser degree that their partner benefited from their compliments

How do you interpret this? Everything seems to indicate that people with lower self-esteem are much more oriented towards the goal of avoiding the feeling of rejection , and that the actions that expose them to this type of danger cause an unease that is not compensated for by the good that is believed to be done; hence the biased idea that the other person benefits little from the compliments despite the fact that hormonal tests indicate otherwise.

A good part of the solution to this type of affective and relational problems, then, goes through working on self-esteem and building a realistic and uncomplicated idea of oneself (a self-concept). In this way, everyone will come out winning.

Bibliographic references:

  • Luerssen, A., Jhita, G. J., & Ayduk, O. (2017). Putting yourself on the line: Self-esteem and expressing affection in romantic relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(7), 940-956.