Swiping, scrolling and messaging have all but replaced courtship in today’s dating scene. While these tools certainly make it easier than ever for us to connect with potential partners, they’ve also made it just as easy for us to disappear.
“Ghosting” — abruptly cutting off all communication with a potential partner without any explanation — has become unfortunately commonplace in modern dating. So has “breadcrumbing,” the act of sending lukewarm, inconsistent signals of romantic interest just to keep someone emotionally led on, but with no real intention of pursuing a relationship.
Both of these behaviors have the exact same result: they leave those on the receiving end hurt, confused and emotionally destabilized. Yet, somehow, despite how painful it is to experience these behaviors, many people still admit to doing them anyway.
A February 2025 study published in Deviant Behavior offers us newfound insight into why this might be the case. Researchers Alexandra Cobzeanu and Cornelia Măirean sought to pinpoint the psychological and experiential factors that make people more likely to ghost or breadcrumb others. The results are as revealing as they are upsetting.
Here are three of the study’s major findings.
1. Experiencing Ghosting Or Breadcrumbing
Cobzeanu and Măirean’s study involved 578 participants from Romania, all between the ages of 18 and 27. By means of a web-based survey, they found that people who had previously experienced ghosting or breadcrumbing were significantly more likely to engage in those same behaviors themselves.
This means, statistically speaking, that if you’ve been ghosted or breadcrumbed before, you’re much more likely to do it to someone else.
This might seem incredibly counterintuitive. If we know how painful it feels to be treated in these ways, why would we be more likely to inflict that same hurt on someone else? Shouldn’t firsthand experience lead to more empathy, not less?
But as Cobzeanu and Măirean explained in an interview with PsyPost, “These findings echo the Cycle of Violence theory, suggesting a potential cycle of negative online behaviors where victims may become perpetrators.”
As research from the Journal of Human Rights explains, the Cycle of Violence theory is typically applicable in contexts of domestic abuse, gang violence or bullying. In the simplest of terms, it suggests that people who experience harm may unconsciously repeat similar patterns.
This pattern of repetition doesn’t necessarily mean that victims become perpetrators purely out of cruelty. Rather, it’s likely because they internalize their experience of harm as something that’s normal in order to make sense of it.
In the context of digital dating, this means that ghosting and breadcrumbing may start to feel like the best way to cope with the experience of those very same behaviors.
If someone has been repeatedly ghosted by others, they may stop seeing it as cruel altogether. Instead, they start viewing it as an accepted (or perhaps even efficient) way to end things.
Similarly, a person who’s been breadcrumbed might opt for similar tactics to preserve the sense of power they may have lost when on the receiving end. Or, it may simply serve as an effective way to avoid emotional vulnerability, since they may well still be raw from their own experience of breadcrumbing.
This doesn’t make the behavior normal or acceptable in any way. However, it does mean that these behaviors likely aren’t isolated acts of inconsideration. In reality, the research suggests that they’re symptoms of the larger emotional economy we’re living in — in which empathy becomes more and more rare with enough exposure to emotional detachment.
2. Moral Disengagement
The second major predicting factor identified in the study was moral disengagement. Simply put, it refers to the mental gymnastics people perform to justify behavior that they know, on some level, is morally wrong.
Cobzeanu and Măirean found that moral disengagement was a strong predictor of breadcrumbing and, albeit to a lesser extent, ghosting.
This finding echoes much of what we already know about dark personalities in the context of modern dating.
In 2022, I interviewed Miguel Clemente, who studied exactly that. He explained to me that the theory of moral disengagement “seeks to answer the question of how it is possible that, in some specific moments in their lives, amiable, well-socialized and respectful people are capable of committing inhumane, truly cruel acts.”
As Clemente suggests, moral disengagement doesn’t always lead to cruelty in the traditional sense of the word. But, it does create space for behaviors that place self-interest above the well-being of others.
Breadcrumbing, objectively, is a form of emotional manipulation. In this sense, moral disengagement shields your self-concept from the guilt that usually arises when knowingly manipulating someone else.
Breadcrumbers probably try to convince themselves that they’re “just being friendly,” or “keeping things casual” — despite the fact that they can clearly tell how seriously emotionally invested the other person is.
In the case of ghosting, moral disengagement aids and abets the formation of rationalizations. Ghosters will tell themselves, “We only went on a few dates,” and that, “It’s not that deep.” These self-affirmations only serve as blinders that shield their eyes from the reality of their choices, even when they’re fully aware of just how cruel their silence is.
The real danger of moral disengagement in these contexts is that it severs us from the human impact of our choices. In turn, we begin treating emotional interactions as logistical inconveniences — something we can manage, minimize or ignore — rather than genuine relationships that carry weight and consequence.
3. Toxic Online Disinhibition
The final psychological factor Cobzeanu and Măirean identified was toxic disinhibition: the tendency for people to behave in more impulsive, aggressive or emotionally detached ways in digital spaces than they would in person. The study found that, once again, this trait strongly predicted breadcrumbing, and was also associated with ghosting behaviors.
Toxic disinhibition thrives in environments where facial expressions, vocal tone and immediate feedback aren’t required (which is to say, essentially all of modern online dating). When communicating through screens and keyboards, you likely aren’t regulating your empathy and self-restraint in the same ways you normally would in person.
In other words, without the presence of another living, feeling human being in front of us, it’s much easier to dehumanize — or, at least, detach from — the emotional consequences of our actions.
In breadcrumbing, toxic disinhibition makes it easier to use people as a source of ego boosts or entertainment, rather than as a real person with real needs and feelings. Sending a flirty message here and there, just enough to keep them on the hook, may just feel “playful” or “harmless.” From their side of the screen, it’s much easier to push aside the thought of the emotional toll taking place on the other.
Ghosting, too, can be seen as much less problematic in online environments than it would in real life. Through apps and texts, disappearing without a trace feels more like closing a browser tab than ending a relationship. But, in the back of their mind, ghosters are acutely aware of the emotional reality of what they’re doing.
As such, toxic online disinhibition dulls the natural and necessary discomfort we’d feel if we had to walk away from someone face-to-face. It’s replaced instead with numbness, indifference or, in some cases, nothing.
Worst of all, online dating is largely fast-paced and low-stakes by design. People can fall into these patterns without much reflection at all. It might not always be malicious, but it’s definitely not benign either.
Repeated toxic online dating behaviors are often linked to machiavellianism. Take this science-backed test to find out if you show any of the associated traits: Machiavellianism Scale
