Why do People Form Intimate Relationships? An Exploratory Investigation in a Greek-Speaking Sample

Abstract One human universal is people forming lasting intimate relationships, which raises the question of what drives them to do so—a question that the present research aims to answer. More specifically, using qualitative research methods on a sample of 209 Greek-speaking participants, Study 1 identified 104 possible reasons that drive people to form intimate relationships. Using quantitative research methods on a sample of 621 Greek-speaking participants, these reasons were classified into 13 broad categories and two broader main categories. The highest-rated main category was “Emotional fulfillment,” which included reasons such as having someone to provide emotional support, satisfy the need for companionship, and experience positive emotions, followed by “Instrumental reasons,” which included reasons such as relieving social pressure to be partnered and having someone to provide financial support. Our results indicated that men and women closely overlapped in their motivating reasons for forming lasting intimate relationships, but significant main effects of age were found for several of the identified reasons.