Ghosting — abruptly cutting off all communication with someone without offering any explanation — causes longer-lasting psychological distress than explicit rejection. This is the finding of a recent study conducted by Alessia Telari, Luca Pancani and Paolo Riva from the Department of Psychology at Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, published in Computers in Human Behavior (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2025.108756).
The study, titled “The Phantom Pain of Ghosting: Multi-day experiments comparing the reactions to ghosting and rejection”, is the first to observe in real time how people react to ghosting, moving beyond previous research based on memories or imagined scenarios.
Using an experimental design combined with daily questionnaires, the Milano-Bicocca psychology team examined how people’s psychological reactions evolve over time in response to ghosting compared with explicit rejection. The results challenge the common belief that “disappearing” is a softer way to end short or less significant relationships.
The aim of the study was not to explore romantic break-ups, but rather to investigate reactions to the sudden and permanent interruption of interpersonal communication — a digital form of social exclusion. The authors conceptualise ghosting as a form of ostracism — being ignored or excluded — which can occur in romantic, friendship or professional contexts.
Participants took part in short daily chat conversations with a partner (a collaborator in the study) and filled in daily questionnaires about their emotions and perceptions. Halfway through the experiment, some participants were suddenly ignored — simulating ghosting — while others received an explicit rejection or continued to chat as normal.
This unique approach made it possible to monitor the daily evolution of emotional distress, revealing that prolonged silence caused by ghosting has a more lasting impact than a direct rejection.
“Both ghosting and explicit rejection trigger negative responses and threaten fundamental psychological needs, but ghosting traps people in a state of uncertainty that prevents emotional closure,” explains Alessia Telari, researcher in the Department of Psychology at Milano-Bicocca.
The results show that the end of a relationship is painful regardless of how it happens. However, explicit rejection triggers an intense but relatively short-lived emotional response, followed by gradual recovery. Ghosting, on the other hand, leaves people in prolonged uncertainty and confusion, hindering emotional processing and maintaining negative feelings such as pain and social exclusion over time. Moreover, those who experience ghosting tend to perceive the other person as less moral compared with those who receive a direct rejection.
“Contrary to what many believe, our findings highlight that communication matters — even when ending what might seem like an unimportant relationship,” Telari concludes. “Understanding how we react to ghosting can help us cope better with digital break-ups and foster more mindful and empathetic interactions online.”