Abstract
People devote a substantial amount of time and energy toward the pursuit of their passions in life. But what happens when people learn new information arguing that they need to stop pursuing their passion altogether? Relying on the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand, 2015), we tested if evaluations of these types of passion-threatening messages depended on the extent to which a passion was harmonious, which entails a self-concordant relationship with an activity that is integrated with the rest of one's life, or obsessive, which emerges when an activity overwhelms the self and is pursued even at the expense of other life domains. We also tested if the relationship between passion dimensions and message evaluation was affected by one's sense of control over activity engagement. We recruited passionate runners (n = 349) to complete an experimental study in which they reported levels of harmonious and obsessive passion for running, were randomly assigned to either read or not read a message emphasizing that people do not have control over the passions they pursue, and then read and evaluated several novel arguments for why they should stop running. We found that harmonious passion, but not obsessive passion, predicted more negative evaluations of the arguments, and that this effect was significantly attenuated in the no activity-control condition. Although previous research has linked obsessive passion with defensive behaviour, these results identify a context in which harmonious passion predicts defensive responses, and highlight the role of activity choice in explaining this relationship.Acknowledgments: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada