In these types of stories, rejection uncovered a hidden flaw, one that led people to question or change their own views of themselves—and, often, they portrayed their personalities as toxic, with negative qualities likely to contaminate other relationships. One study participant wrote: “I learned that I have a part of my personality that sabotages my happiness.” Another confessed: “I just feel hurt and rejected. I try to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault and that it was that person’s loss but I can’t help but feel inadequate.” [...]
But the loss of a partner can make it easy to fall into the self-deprecation trap. Research by the psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues shows that when people are in close relationships, their self becomes intertwined with their partner’s self. In other words, we begin to think of a romantic partner as a part of ourselves—confusing our traits with their traits, our memories with their memories, and our identity with their identity. In a measure designed to capture the closeness of a relationship, Aron’s team ask people to consider themselves as one circle, their partner as another, and indicate the extent to which the two overlap. [...]
So separating rejection from the self tends to make breakups easier, and linking the two tends to make them more difficult. But what makes people more likely to do one or the other? Past research by Dweck and others shows that people tend to hold one of two views about their own personal qualities: that they are fixed over the lifespan, or that they are malleable and can be developed at any point. These beliefs impact how people respond to setbacks. For example, when people consider intelligence to be something fixed, they’re less likely to persist in the face of failure than people who believe that intelligence can be developed.
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