Through the eyes of love: Reality and illusion in intimate relationships.

This article reviews the research literature and theory concerned with accuracy of judgments in romantic relationships. We initially propose a model of cognition in (romantic) relationships that distinguishes between 2 forms of accuracy: mean-level bias and tracking accuracy. We then report the results of meta-analyses of research on heterosexual, romantic relationships, which used external benchmarks and reported levels of tracking accuracy (98 studies) and/or mean-level bias (48 studies). The results revealed robust overall effect sizes for both tracking accuracy (r = .47) and positive mean-level bias (r = .09). As expected, the effects were substantial and positive for tracking accuracy across 6 judgmental categories, whereas signed mean-level bias was negative for the interaction attributions (e.g., love, communication). The results showed, as expected, that these 2 forms of accuracy were independent—the 2 kinds of effect size derived from the same set of 38 studies were uncorrelated. As expected, gender, relationship length, and relationship evaluations moderated mean-level bias across studies but (unexpectedly) not for tracking accuracy. In the Discussion we evaluate the prior model in light of the findings, other research, moderating variables (such as self-esteem), the role of projection, the early stages of mate selection, metacognition, and the rationality and nature of motivated cognition. We conclude that our model, findings, and analyses help to resolve the apparent paradox that love is both riven with illusions and rooted in reality, and support both evolutionary and social psychological approaches to understanding cognition in romantic relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Romantic love and sexual desire in close relationships.

Drawing on recent claims in the study of relationships, attachment, and emotion, the authors hypothesized that romantic love serves a commitment-related function and sexual desire a reproduction-related function. Consistent with these claims, in Study 1, brief experiences of romantic love and sexual desire observed in a 3-min interaction between romantic partners were related to distinct feeling states, distinct nonverbal displays, and commitment- and reproductive-related relationship outcomes, respectively. In Study 2, the nonverbal display of romantic love was related to the release of oxytocin. Discussion focuses on the place of romantic love and sexual desire in the literature on emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: Parenting during adolescence, attachment styles, and romantic narratives in emerging adulthood.

In this longitudinal study, a quantitative and qualitative examination of the associations among parent–child relations, adult attachment styles, and relationship quality and theme in romantic narratives was conducted. Parenting and adult attachment style were assessed through questionnaires, whereas overall quality of romantic relationships (regard and importance), intimacy, and romantic story theme were examined with a life story approach (McAdams, 1993). At ages 17 and 26 years, 100 participants completed a series of questionnaires and also, at age 26, told a story about a “relationship-defining moment” with a romantic partner. Parent–child relations when participants were 17 years old were related predictably to all three attachment styles. About 70% of the sample told romantic stories with a “true love” type of theme. Associations between parent–child relations when the child was 17 and this type of theme in the story told when the participant was 26 were mediated by a more secure (and a less avoidant) attachment style when the participant was 26, as predicted. The implications of these findings for links between attachment models and the life story are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Partner preferences across the life span: Online dating by older adults.

Stereotypes of older adults as withdrawn or asexual fail to recognize that romantic relationships in later life are increasingly common. The authors analyzed 600 Internet personal ads from 4 age groups: 20–34, 40–54, 60–74, and 75+ years. Predictions from evolutionary theory held true in later life, when reproduction is no longer a concern. Across the life span, men sought physical attractiveness and offered status-related information more than women; women were more selective than men and sought status more than men. With age, men desired women increasingly younger than themselves, whereas women desired older men until ages 75 and over, when they sought men younger than themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does a long-term relationship kill romantic love?

This article examines the possibility that romantic love (with intensity, engagement, and sexual interest) can exist in long-term relationships. A review of taxonomies, theory, and research suggests that romantic love, without the obsession component typical of early stage romantic love, can and does exist in long-term marriages, and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high self-esteem. Supporting the separate roles of romantic love and obsession in long-term relationships, an analysis of a moderately large data set of community couples identified independent latent factors for romantic love and obsession and a subsample of individuals reporting very high levels of romantic love (but not obsession) even after controlling for social desirability. Finally, a meta-analysis of 25 relevant studies found that in long- and short-term relationships, romantic love (without obsession) was strongly associated with relationship satisfaction; but obsession was negatively correlated with it in long-term and positively in short-term relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.

This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process—a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the develoment of affectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy—secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent—and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that (a) relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, (b) the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and (c) attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prejudice at the nexus of race and gender: An outgroup male target hypothesis.

Adopting an evolutionary approach to the psychology of race bias, we posit that intergroup conflict perpetrated by male aggressors throughout human evolutionary history has shaped the psychology of modern forms of intergroup bias and that this psychology reflects the unique adaptive problems that differ between men and women in coping with male aggressors from groups other than one's own. Here we report results across 4 studies consistent with this perspective, showing that race bias is moderated by gender differences in traits relevant to threat responses that differ in their adaptive utility between the sexes—namely, aggression and dominance motives for men and fear of sexual coercion for women. These results are consistent with the notion that the psychology of intergroup bias is generated by different psychological systems for men and women, and the results underscore the importance of considering the gender of the outgroup target as well as the gender of the agent in psychological studies on prejudice and discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ovulation as a male mating prime: Subtle signs of women's fertility influence men's mating cognition and behavior.

Women's reproductive fertility peaks for a few days in the middle of their cycle around ovulation. Because conception is most likely to occur inside this brief fertile window, evolutionary theories suggest that men possess adaptations designed to maximize their reproductive success by mating with women during their peak period of fertility. In this article, we provide evidence from 3 studies that subtle cues of fertility prime mating motivation in men, thus facilitating psychological and behavioral processes associated with the pursuit of a sexual partner. In Study 1, men exposed to the scent of a woman near peak levels of fertility displayed increased accessibility to sexual concepts. Study 2 demonstrated that, among men who reported being sensitive to odors, scent cues of fertility triggered heightened perceptions of women's sexual arousal. Study 3 revealed that, in a face-to-face interaction, high levels of female fertility were associated with a greater tendency for men to make risky decisions and to behaviorally mimic a female partner. Hence, subtle cues of fertility led to a cascade of mating-related processes—from lower order cognition to overt behavior—that reflected heightened mating motivation. Implications for theories of goal pursuit, romantic attraction, and evolutionary psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using the “Mr. Big” technique to elicit confessions: Successful innovation or dangerous development in the Canadian legal system?

Canada’s legal system recognizes that police interrogation procedures may contribute to false confessions, and has provided safeguards designed to protect the rights of the accused and reduce the likelihood of these errors. Police in Canada are using a complex noncustodial interrogation procedure called the “Mr. Big” technique, to elicit confessions for recalcitrant suspects. Remarkably, this undercover (in that suspects do not know they are speaking to law enforcement officers) interrogation technique boasts a 75% confession rate and a 95% conviction rate when used (Gardner, 2004). However, it is possible that suspects in these situations may experience undue pressure to confess falsely. The purpose of this paper is fourfold: (1) to explore the nature of the Mr. Big technique; (2) summarize some recent Canadian legal cases relevant to confession evidence (e.g., R. v. Oickle, 2000; R. v. Mentuck, 2000; (3) examine Canadian law and police practices in the context of different jurisdictions around the world; and, (4) discuss the scientific evidence relevant to the Mr. Big procedure. We conclude the paper by discussing recommendations for current and future police practice, directions for future research, and the ways in which psychological research could inform legal policy and procedures in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misunderstanding the affective consequences of everyday social interactions: The hidden benefits of putting one's best face forward.

Positive self-presentation may have beneficial consequences for mood that are typically overlooked. Across a series of studies, participants underestimated how good they would feel in situations that required them to put their best face forward. In Studies 1 and 2A, participants underestimated the emotional benefits of interacting with an opposite sex stranger versus the benefits of interacting with a romantic partner. In Study 2B, participants who were instructed to engage in self-presentation felt happier after interacting with their romantic partner than participants who were not given this instruction, although other participants serving as forecasters did not anticipate such benefits. Increasing the generalizability of this self-presentation effect across contexts, the authors demonstrated that participants also underestimated how good they would feel before and after being evaluated by another person (Studies 3 and 4). This failure to recognize the affective benefits of putting one's best face forward may underlie forecasting errors regarding the emotional consequences of the most common forms of social interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A qualitative investigation of white students’ perceptions of diversity.

Diversity is used in countless vision statements of institutions of higher learning. Yet, it is critical to examine how students understand the concept and conceptualize their personal involvement. Given that the current population of college students is predominantly White, it is important to examine this population. The current sample consisted of 151 self-identified White college students (61 men and 90 women) from a predominantly White, residential, liberal arts college. Responses to 2 open-ended questions—“In your own words, express how you would define the term diversity?” and “How do Whites fit into your definition of diversity?”—were analyzed in Atlas.ti 5.0 using an open coding method. Race was the most common definition of diversity (61%). A smaller number of students conceptualized diversity as involving interaction across differences (41.7%). The majority of the respondents (80%) felt Whites have a role in diversity, but the nature of that role varied. Findings suggest that it is helpful to have clear institutional definitions of diversity to provide multiple entry points and increase the likelihood that White students will engage in campus diversity initiatives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Love and the commitment problem in romantic relations and friendship.

On the basis of the proposition that love promotes commitment, the authors predicted that love would motivate approach, have a distinct signal, and correlate with commitment-enhancing processes when relationships are threatened. The authors studied romantic partners and adolescent opposite-sex friends during interactions that elicited love and threatened the bond. As expected, the experience of love correlated with approach-related states (desire, sympathy). Providing evidence for a nonverbal display of love, four affiliation cues (head nods, Duchenne smiles, gesticulation, forward leans) correlated with self-reports and partner estimates of love. Finally, the experience and display of love correlated with commitment-enhancing processes (e.g., constructive conflict resolution, perceived trust) when the relationship was threatened. Discussion focused on love, positive emotion, and relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Equity and premarital sex.

Investigated whether formal equity theory can provide insight into dating couples' intimate romantic and sexual relationships. It was hypothesized that if people feel they are getting less from a relationship than they deserve, they feel entitled to "call the shots" sexually. In light of the double standard, underbenefited males were expected to demand that their partners go fairly far sexually. In contrast, underbenefited females were expected to insist that their partners wait until they were ready for sex. Interview and questionnaire data were obtained from 227 men and 310 women who were casual or steady daters. Data were analyzed as to (a) relationship equity/inequity, (b) contentment/distress, (c) the existence of a double standard, (d) the degree of sexuality in the relationship, and (e) the stability of the relationship. Results do not confirm the hypotheses: Couples were most intimate in the equitable relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

She’s emotional. He’s having a bad day: Attributional explanations for emotion stereotypes.

People believe that women are the more emotional sex. This belief stems less from what men and women actually do than from the explanations given for their behaviors. In 2 studies, participants who were given situational information about the causes of emotional expression in target faces nonetheless more frequently judged feminine targets depicting emotions as “emotional” (i.e., a dispositional attribution for the emotional behavior), whereas they more frequently judged masculine targets as “having a bad day” (i.e., a situational attribution for the emotional behavior). These findings help explain the pervasive belief that women are more emotional when compared with men, even when the scientific veracity of this belief is questionable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's emerging ability to make false statements.

This study examined the origins of children's ability to make consciously false statements, a necessary component of lying. Children 2 to 5 years of age were rewarded for claiming that they saw a picture of a bird when viewing pictures of fish. They were asked outcome questions (“Do you win/lose?”), recognition questions (“Do you have a bird/fish?”), and recall questions (“What do you have?”), which were hypothesized to vary in difficulty depending on the need for consciousness of falsity (less for outcome questions) and self-generation of an appropriate response (more for recall questions). The youngest children (2? to 3? years old) were above chance on outcome questions, but it was not until age 3? that children performed above chance on recognition questions or were capable of maintaining false claims across question types. Findings have implications for understanding the emergence of deception in young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exotic becomes erotic: A developmental theory of sexual orientation.

A developmental theory of erotic/romantic attraction is presented that provides the same basic account for opposite-sex and same-sex desire in both men and women. It proposes that biological variables, such as genes, prenatal hormones, and brain neuroanatomy, do not code for sexual orientation per se but for childhood temperaments that influence a child's preferences for sex-typical or sex-atypical activities and peers. These preferences lead children to feel different from opposite or same-sex peers—to perceive them as dissimilar, unfamiliar, and exotic. This, in turn, produces heightened nonspecific autonomic arousal that subsequently gets eroticized to that same class of dissimilar peers: Exotic becomes erotic. Specific mechanisms for effecting this transformation are proposed. The theory claims to accommodate both the empirical evidence of the biological essentialists and the cultural relativism of the social constructionists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Going along versus going alone: When fundamental motives facilitate strategic (non)conformity.

Three experiments examined how 2 fundamental social motives--self-protection and mate attraction--influenced conformity. A self-protective goal increased conformity for both men and women. In contrast, the effects of a romantic goal depended on sex, causing women to conform more to others' preferences while engendering nonconformity in men. Men motivated to attract a mate were particularly likely to nonconform when (a) nonconformity made them unique (but not merely a member of a small minority) and when (b) the topic was subjective versus objective, meaning that nonconformists could not be revealed to be incorrect. These findings fit with a functional evolutionary model of motivation and behavior, and they indicate that fundamental motives such as self-protection and mate attraction can stimulate specific forms of conformity or nonconformity for strategic self-presentation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Where do you think you are? Effects of conceptual current position on spatial memory performance.

Testing spatial memory within the same environment used for learning produces interference between one's immediate representation of current position and the to-be-retrieved position. In a series of 3 experiments, we show that “current position” and its influence on memory performance can be driven by conceptual factors in an ambiguous testing situation. First, we demonstrate that simple instructions about the testing conditions—“you are in the space” versus “imagine the space”—determined whether a participant showed interference from current position, reflecting the effect of one's conceived position in space on long-term memory retrieval. In addition, we show that when instructions motivate this use of current position under ambiguous conditions, the position assumed is defined by the last known position rather than the learning position. We account for these results by suggesting that current models of spatial memory need to incorporate both the perceptual and conceptual testing environment, malleable versus stable features, and the interaction of current position with long-term memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Romantic involvement often reduces men's testosterone levels--but not always: The moderating role of extrapair sexual interest.

Testosterone (T) appears to facilitate what biologists refer to as mating effort--the investment of time and energy into same-sex competition and mate-seeking behavior. Multiple studies show that men who are romantically involved (i.e., are paired) have lower T than single men, which may be due to a facultative adjustment by men of T levels in response to lower demands for mating effort. The authors proceeded on the basis of the idea that men who retain interests in sexual opportunities with women other than a primary partner continue to dedicate more time and energy to mating effort when romantically paired, and so they predicted that the association between relationship status and T depends on men's extrapair sexual interests. Study 1 used the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory to measure extrapair sexual interests, whereas Study 2 used a broader measure to examine this interaction. Both studies found support for it. These results have implications for an understanding of the biosocial regulation of men's behavior in romantic relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peacocks, Picasso, and parental investment: The effects of romantic motives on creativity.

Four experiments explored the effects of mating motivation on creativity. Even without other incentives to be creative, romantic motives enhanced creativity on subjective and objective measures. For men, any cue designed to activate a short-term or a long-term mating goal increased creative displays; however, women displayed more creativity only when primed to attract a high-quality long-term mate. These creative boosts were unrelated to increased effort on creative tasks or to changes in mood or arousal. Furthermore, results were unaffected by the application of monetary incentives for creativity. These findings align with the view that creative displays in both sexes may be linked to sexual selection, qualified by unique exigencies of human parental investment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)