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The 'rebound' relationship is not a new phenomenon: the term was coined almost two hundred years ago, and quickly percolated into popular culture.

Although there's something counterintuitive about grieving significant relationships by throwing ourselves into new ones, it's a very common behaviour – particularly amongst young people. The demise of a major attachment usually evokes uncomfortable emotions of grief and loss, and some of us are unable to bear these feelings in their entirety. Instead, we displace them, using a new person as a distraction or vehicle to contain the emotions we can't face head-on.

Younger adults are particularly prone to this, perhaps because they're more likely to be overwhelmed by strong emotions, having had less time to learn how to handle them, and fewer experiences of romantic loss. But there's also a gender difference: men are more likely to rebound than women. There are a few reasons for this.

One is that men commonly have weaker social support networks than women. This has two relevant consequences: firstly, men are less likely to ask for or receive the intimate emotional support during breakups that might help them bear their own feelings. Secondly, men tend to rely heavily on their female partners for emotional support. When they lose a partner, they lose a person that helps them cope, so may immediately begin the search for a replacement. This may also help explain why men remarry after bereavement and divorce at higher rates than women.

Another factor that contributes to likelihood of rebounding is what's known as attachment anxiety. In psychology, attachment theory is the idea that the way we relate and form attachments to others is determined very early in life through the way that our parents respond to our needs. If they're present and attentive, we develop an attachment style that's generally secure and confident: we're able to accept the love of others and return it without undue difficulty.

If our parents (or other caregivers) are inconsistent with us, however, only attending to us occasionally or neglecting our demands for attention, our attachment style is anxious: we become fearful of abandonment, and go out of our way to elicit reassurance and consolation from others – which often poses problems in adult relationships. Equally, if our parents are altogether unresponsive, and avoid meeting many of our needs, our own attachment style becomes avoidant: as our parents tried to escape our demands for attention, we try to escape emotional demands from others.

Those with secure attachment styles are generally able to grieve the demise of romantic relationships in a constructive way: they accept the loss, allowing themselves to feel its pain in full, and eventually begin to move forwards. Someone with a more anxious attachment style, however, loses part of themselves in a break-up: because they place so much of their self-esteem and identity inside the character of their partner, the loss of a partner is a loss of self. Extreme emotional pain, obsessive behaviour, and preoccupation with the former partner are all common. So, too, is an immediate rebound – which may itself be a very intense, emotionally involved affair, whether or not the other person is a good fit in the usual respects.

Romantic breakups are often a catalyst for psychological growth (particularly in women): they teach us to be more resilient, to extract meaning even from adverse events, and to reorganise our characters in a way that lets us live well independently. Rebounds can interact with this process both positively and negatively, and whether they benefit or cost us in the long run tends to be determined by pre-existing personality factors – as well as the traits of the person we pair off with.

On the positive side, rebound relationships can provide a welcome distraction from excessive rumination on the break-up, and a reminder that we're valued by others and have something to offer the world. They might also provide a return to routine and normality. On the negative side, rebounds can be a great way to distract ourselves from feelings we don't want to face and instead choose to bury. They might provide more turbulence than stability, especially because we're likely to prioritise someone's availability and willingness to enter a new relationship over their suitability for long-term partnership. If we don't take time to grieve the break-up, we may also end up projecting our feelings about it – or our ex-partner – onto the new person, instead of giving them a chance to impress their own character upon us.

As we've seen, there's a host of factors to consider when evaluating a prospective rebound relationship. Unfortunately, the wake of a difficult breakup is usually not a good time for deliberative objectivity about one's own psychological state, and humans are very good at concealing feelings from ourselves when they conflict with other (perhaps stronger) motivations – such as avoiding psychological pain in the short term. But, of course, that shouldn't stop us trying.