The rise of social networking sites and dating apps has significantly changed the way people date and develop relationships. Online dating has changed the dynamics of dating, leading to typical behaviours including ghosting, orbiting, and breadcrumbing. Breadcrumbing has gained popularity in popular culture and media due to its applicability to modern dating trends. This topic has been widely discussed in publications, blogs, and TV shows, highlighting a common experience in modern partnerships.
Breadcrumbing has been defined as “the act of sending out flirtatious, but non-committal text messages in order to lure a sexual/romantic partner without expending much effort and “ sporadically sending someone flirtatious yet non-committal text messages or random social media “likes” to keep the person’s dating expectations of a possible relationship going, although the sender has no actual intentions of dating.
Read More: Ghosting vs. Orbiting: The Digital Breakup Dilemma
The breadcrumber may show indicators of interest, such as text messages, flirtation, or invites, but lacks genuine commitment and emotional investment. Breadcrumbing is a subtle manipulation tactic in dating relationships where the perpetrator initially shows love, affection, and sexual interest to their partner, but later exhibits incongruent behaviour such as avoidance of interactions and lack of commitment.
Research has revealed that poor parent-child interactions in childhood, such as overprotection, psychological abuse, and neglect, as well as authoritarian and rejecting parenting, are associated with adult attachment insecurity. Attachment insecurity is defined as people’s maladaptive behaviours relating to love relationships. Attachment insecurity has two dimensions: anxiety and avoidance.
Anxiety is the degree to which a person is concerned that others will not support them when they are in need and frantically seeks love and support. Avoidance is the degree to which an individual fears others’ intentions and defends their social and emotional autonomy. Different consequences have been observed in relational and mating contexts based on these two aspects. Previous study indicates that those who are apprehensive, but not avoidant, are more likely to engage in online dating and begin friendships, and romantic, and sexual connections with other users.
Read More: Psychology behind BreadCrumbing
Previous research has indicated that persons with secure attachment are more likely to have more fulfilling romantic relationships and relational outcomes than those with insecure attachment. In this context, Khattar et al. highlighted that persons with secure attachments engage in more intimate relationships than people with avoidant attachments. Following this assumption, they hypothesized that, in the setting of breadcrumbing behaviours, individuals who engage in them will likely have an avoidant attachment orientation in order to satisfy their demand for attention while remaining emotionally detached.
Individuals with an anxious attachment style, on the other hand, are more likely to experience breadcrumbs because they have a stronger need for emotional connection and may be drawn to the superficial interaction of breadcrumbs to meet this need. As a result, persons with an anxious attachment style will be less prone to engage in breadcrumb behaviours than those with an avoidant attachment type.
The current study aimed to investigate the link between insecure attachment and breadcrumbing participation. Researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from two groups of young adults in India and Spain. After accounting for attachment insecurity, the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and breadcrumbing involvement varies throughout nations, with moderate to low correlations.
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In India, young adults in non-committal relationships were shown to be more prone to engage in breadcrumbs. In Spain, there was an association between gender, educational level, and bread-crumbing activity. Men with a university education were more likely to participate. The lack of correlations in the two national samples, as well as the low correlations reported in each, make it difficult to conclude age and gender disparities. In India, the relationship is stronger with anxious attachment, while in Spain it is greater with avoidant attachment.
The findings support the concept of a positive correlation between avoidance attachment and breadcrumbing behaviour. The study suggests that avoidant attachment may increase the probability of breadcrumbing behaviour. Avoidant attachment styles are characterized by discomfort with interpersonal connection, suppression of feelings in social interactions, and self-reliance. Breadcrumbing can be used as a coping method to maintain social and emotional autonomy while avoiding tight relationships.
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