Arie W. Kruglanski

Drawing on significance quest theory, we hypothesized that when people in romantic relationships experience a general feeling of significance loss, they should develop an obsessive passion toward their partner, which in turn should enhance their willingness to act in an extreme manner to maintain their relationship (i.e., their remaining source of significance). To test this hypothesis, we ran two cross‐sectional studies and a longitudinal one. The first operationalized extreme behaviors through self‐sacrifice. The second considered obsessive relational intrusion (ORI) to be an example of extreme behavior. The third study tested whether the consequentiality among variables we considered was that hypothesized and ensured that the hypothesized model remained consistent also while considering the possible overlap between significance loss (i.e., quest for significance) and low self‐esteem. Results confirmed our hypothesis, suggesting that love, amorous relationships, and romantic partners are perceived as fruitful in maintaining or restoring one's personal sense of significance. Notably, this research represents one of the first applications of both the significance quest theory and, secondarily, the theory of motivational imbalance, to the context of romantic relationships.

This research investigated the motivational underpinnings of attitudes towards weapon ownership. We propose that people who have a strong need for closure (NFC) would be more likely to approve of weapon ownership, but that this relationship would be serially mediated by the endorsement of binding moral foundations and fear of immigrants. Specifically, heightened NFC would promote moral concerns for the safety of one's group (i.e., the binding foundations), which, in turn, would trigger fear of immigrants, or the belief that immigrants threaten one's society. In turn, fear of immigrants would generate the approval of defensive means (i.e., weapons). We tested this serial mediation model in three studies with Italian and US samples, where NFC was both measured (Studies 1 and 3; N = 286 and N = 278) and experimentally induced (Study 2; N = 290). The results supported the proposed model. These findings suggest that a high NFC might explain individuals’ approval of weapon ownership through their moral priorities, which heighten their prejudice towards immigrants.