Reassurance Seeking

Reassurance seeking is the act of going to others to request assurance that one is lovable, worthy, or in other ways adequate. Unlike support seeking, which is a normative and often formative component of interpersonal relationships, reassurance seeking is generally construed as maladaptive, especially when exercised in excess.

The majority of research on reassuring seeking has focused on the related construct of excessive reassurance seeking or the tendency to repeatedly seek reassurance from others despite their previous attempts to provide it. This construct is best known in the context of James Coyne's Interactional Theory of Depression. According to this model, mildly depressed individuals request reassurance from others that they are worthy and lovable. Others initially provide reassurance, but the depressed person, noting the discrepancy between the reassurance and his or her own negative self-concept, feels it is not genuine or is motivated by pity and again seeks reassurance. Eventually, the other person grows tired of repeatedly providing reassurance and begins to act rejecting. The reassurance seeker notices the rejection and becomes more depressed, and the cycle continues.

Thomas Joiner and colleagues expanded on Coyne's model, identifying excessive reassurance seeking as the active agent in this process. They proposed that people with a tendency to excessively engage in reassurance seeking set in motion a process leaving them at risk for both depression and interpersonal rejection. Research has supported these ideas. A recent meta-analysis of 38 studies found that excessive reassurance seeking was positively related, concurrently, to both depressive symptoms and interpersonal rejection. Studies also show that people who engage in excessive reassurance seeking tend to experience increases in rejection and depression over subsequent weeks and months, providing evidence that excessive reassurance seeking is not only concurrently associated with depression and rejection, but also might lead to the development of symptoms in the future.

Since Joiner and colleagues' initial work, numerous studies have examined different aspects of excessive reassurance seeking, including its association with related interpersonal constructs, clinical implications, and neurological underpinnings. Although most research has examined excessive reassurance seeking in college-age community samples, emerging research has replicated findings in children, adolescents, and adults, as well as in clinically depressed samples. In addition, the link among excessive reassurance seeking, depression, and rejection has been tracked across different relationship types (including romantic relationships, friendships, classmates, and college roommates).

The association between excessive reassurance seeking and psychopathology is relatively specific to depression; unique associations to other symptoms (e.g., anxiety, eating disorders) have generally not been found. Excessive reassurance seeking also is implicated in depression contagion or the tendency of people who spend a lot of time with a depressed person to become depressed. For example, one study showed that associations between depression scores of participants and their romantic partners were most strong among participants who were high on excessive reassurance seeking. Overall, research on the role of excessive reassurance seeking in depression has demonstrated the importance of interpersonal relationships in the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of depressive disorders. Further research is needed, however, to verify the more specific tenets of Coyne's model. In addition, given its role in maintaining and worsening depression, reducing excessive reassurance seeking may be an important goal of psychotherapy; as such, interventions designed to do so should be developed.

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