Not Just Incels: Romantic Rejection Increases Women’s and Men’s Extremism

Romantic rejection has been identified as a driver of extremism. However, current scholarly discourse has limited extremist reactions to romantic rejection to a subset of men described as patriarchal, entitled, and aggrieved—specifically, “incels.” Yet, since social rejection increases extremism among individuals in general, it seems unlikely that romantic rejection only affects a fringe male population. Especially considering the near universal importance of romantic relationships. We therefore hypothesized that romantic rejection would increase extremist agreement among individuals in a general student sample. Every three months from April to December 2023, men and women, both single and coupled (N = 639), reported how much they had sought partners, how much they had been accepted and rejected, and their extremist agreement. Results showed that rejection increased men’s Extremism, Social Dominance, and decreased their Sexism against other men. Rejection increased women’s Radicalism, Left-Wing Authoritarianism, and their Sexism against other women. These findings suggests that romantic rejection not only affects incels, but increases the extremist tendencies of men and women in general. We discuss how romantic rejection may steer individuals toward extremist ideologies that historically align with their sex’s interests—such as women becoming more Left-Wing Authoritarian and men more Socially Dominant.