Have you ever met someone new—a potential romantic partner, a new boss, a neighbor—and felt an instant, inexplicable wave of familiarity?
Maybe you felt immediately safe and understood. Or perhaps you felt a sudden spike of anxiety, a feeling that you needed to impress them or defend yourself.
You didn’t have concrete information to base these feelings on yet. So, where did they come from?
They came from your past.
According to a new synthesis of psychological research by myself and colleagues, in the absence of new information, similarities to past partners trigger existing mental blueprints. We unwittingly recreate familiar interpersonal patterns.
This is called transference. And it’s just one part of a complex system that dictates who you are.
Today, we’re breaking down the fascinating intersection of attachment theory and what psychologists call the “relational self” to understand the invisible strings pulling your behavior.
The Myth of the Singular “You”
We like to think we have a solid, unchanging “real me.”
But psychologist Susan Andersen’s research suggests the self is inherently relational—it is dynamically constructed and reconstructed in the context of your relationships. Her social-cognitive model of the relational self posits that we form distinct…
