The Distinct Roles of Rejection Sensitivity and Disconnection/Rejection Schema in Fear of Intimacy: A Longitudinal Study of Young Adults

Young adulthood is a critical period for the development of intimate relationships, yet fear of intimacy may interfere with the formation and maintenance of close romantic bonds. Previous studies have linked early interpersonal experiences to fear of intimacy, but many have relied on retrospective measures or cross-sectional designs, limiting conclusions about temporal associations. To address these limitations, the present study examined whether rejection sensitivity was involved in the prospective association between disconnection/rejection schema and fear of intimacy, and whether perceived social support moderated this pathway. Data were collected from 236 young adults (82.6% women; age range = 17–32 years, M age = 21.41) across a four-month interval. After controlling for baseline levels of rejection sensitivity and fear of intimacy, the overall longitudinal moderated mediation model for total fear of intimacy was not supported. Exploratory dimension-specific analyses suggested a more differentiated pattern: rejection sensitivity was associated with fear of losing the other, whereas disconnection/rejection schema was directly associated with fear of losing the self. The conditional indirect effect through rejection sensitivity emerged only at high levels of perceived social support; however, because the interaction effect was not statistically significant, this finding should be interpreted cautiously. These results suggest that different dimensions of fear of intimacy may be associated with distinct psychological processes. The findings also underscore the importance of using autoregressive controls and more rigorous longitudinal designs when examining mechanisms underlying fear of intimacy.