"Why do people want romantic relationships, if they do at all? The world today operates with a strong bias towards people being in, not out, of relationships (think "table for two?"). As a component of this bias is a presumption that if you're not in a relationship, you want to be. How do we understand this assumption? To what degree is it accurate? What does "wanting" a relationship mean?"
"What's critical is this: Our own reasons for wanting (or not wanting!) a relationship may not apply to other people. This suggests there is a definable scope of reasons for why people pursue relationships. Recently, scholars (MacDonald et al., 2025) proposed and tested the idea that relationship motivations range from autonomous (i.e., coming from the self) to external (i.e., coming from outside the self), and this full range of reasons can be captured in one model."
Motivations for pursuing romantic relationships range from autonomous (intrinsic) to external (pressures or validation from others). Six distinct motivations capture this spectrum and reveal substantial individual variation. Large-sample self-report data documented differences along each motivational dimension. Different motives associate differently with emotional and commitment-related outcomes: some motives align with elevated relationship anxiety, some with greater readiness to commit, and some with pronounced fear of being single. The multidimensional structure clarifies that 'wanting' a relationship is not uniform, and motive profiles help explain why people vary in seeking, maintaining, or avoiding romantic partnerships.
Read at Psychology Today
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