Two Sides of the same Coin: Do the Dual ‘Types’ of Passion Describe Distinct Subgroups of Individuals?

Abstract

The fact that harmonious and obsessive passion are called ‘types of passion’ (Vallerand, 2012; Vallerand et al., 2003) suggests that they describe subgroups of individuals. This study takes a person-oriented approach to examine groups of individuals with distinct profiles of harmonious passion (HP) and obsessive passion (OP). The aim of the study was to investigate whether HP and OP describe types in the sense of distinct groups of individuals with different passion profiles (intra-individual constellations), or if HP and OP are instead two constructs with distinct outcomes but possible alignment within individuals. Toward this aim, we analyzed four different samples (N total = 1149) of German and Brazilian adolescents and young adults. Using HP and OP as classification indicators, we compared three different classification procedures in terms of the resulting groups. We found that the previously applied classification based on z-scores of HP and OP was misleading, because it classified individuals as ‘obsessive’ who had reported higher HP than OP when responding to the original response scale. Alternative classification based on raw scores and cluster analyses revealed that most individuals experienced either co-occurring high HP and OP, or co-occurring low HP and OP, whereas the assumed mainly obsessive group was not found in any of our four samples. The general degree of passion rather than the distinction between harmonious and obsessive individuals accounted for inter-individual differences in passion, and related constructs such as dispositional approach motivation, and affect. The findings were replicated in all four samples. This person-oriented approach gives novel and unique insights about inter-individual differences and intra-individual variation that can be easily overlooked or misunderstood in merely variable-oriented approaches, which prevail in prior research. Implications for the research on passion and pitfalls of z-scores in profile analyses are discussed.