Distraction, reappraisal, or negative thinking — which works best?
The best way to get over a breakup is to think about your ex negatively.
For example, consider their negative qualities or the irritating parts of the relationship.
Compared with other strategies, reappraising the relationships in negative terms helps to reduce the love felt towards an ex.
The downside of this strategy is that it puts people in a bad mood initially.
After all, it is painful to think negatively about someone that you were or are still in love with.
How to feel better
In contrast, distract yourself improves mood, for example with socialising, work, movies, TV or other activities.
However, this does not address the core issue and will not make much difference in the long-term to romantic feelings.
Indeed, distraction is really a form of avoidance.
Avoidance is often considered psychologically bad because it is running away from the problem.
The study was based on 24 people who were coming out of relationships that had lasted 2-3 years.
They were split into three groups to test different strategies for coping, with a fourth providing a control.
Along with thinking negatively about their partner and distraction, the researchers also tested trying to accept the emotions related to the breakup.
Acceptance, though, did not provide any benefit that this study could measure.
Think negative
The study’s authors write that people are likely to use thinking negatively about their ex when heartbroken:
“[people] reported [using] this strategy when they were heartbroken, albeit more to decrease love feelings than to feel better…
Even though negative reappraisal may result in negative affect at this moment, it might decrease how upset someone is about the break-up.
It has been shown that thinking negative thoughts about the relationship indeed has adaptive features when recovering from a romantic break-up.
So, negative reappraisal has an unfavorable short-term effect on affect, but may have favorable long-term effects when used after a break-up.”
The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Langeslag & Sanchez, 2018).
