March 2020 Edition

A note from The Love Consortium

Hello everyone. We hope you all are staying healthy during these trying times. You’re receiving this email because you previously subscribed for updates from The Love Consortium. Below is our first Quarterly Newsletter. In it, you’ll find a number of exciting updates, a deep dive into an interesting research topic, and an interview with a spotlight researcher. 

But before we get to the previously planned newsletter, we wanted to take a minute to recognize the unprecedented moment we are in. As we all continue to navigate the uncertainty brought about by the novel coronavirus and distance ourselves from one another physically, the importance of interpersonal connection becomes even greater. Fortunately, as you know, research shows that it does not take extensive time or effort to create meaningful moments of connection. 

As you plan out your days and weeks going forward, we encourage you, as always, to create space for connection. Whether in the checkout line at the grocery store or over a videochat with friends, here are just a few key types of moments to build into your day, backed by science:

• Being responsive

• Sharing laughter

• Making eye contact 

• Being compassionate

• Practicing kindness and generosity

• Having a brief chat with a stranger

• Expressing gratitude

Be well.

Quarterly updates

We’ve made some exciting progress this past quarter: 

• 66 datasets have been uploaded to The Love Consortium Dataverse.

• Representatives from The Love Consortium shared new findings and hosted two mentoring tables at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA (February 27 - 29, 2020).

• We hired a Program Manager, Dr. Laura Kurtz, to support the day-to-day operations and strategic direction of The Love Consortium. We are thrilled to welcome Laura on board!

• Graduate students from multiple disciplines submitted proposals for TLC Graduate Student Research Grants. Combined, the applications involved 60 researchers from 31 different universities and 6 countries. The proposed research covered a wide range of topics and methods—showcasing the many definitions and applications of love. Thank you to all who applied!
  
  After two rounds of scientific review by the Advisory Board, we are pleased to announce The Love Consortium’s 2020 Graduate Student Research Grant Awardees: 
   

  • Alexander Baxter | University of California, Davis | Love Across Species: Initial Attraction and Relationship Trajectories

  • Mallory Feldman | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Unpacking the Role of Synchrony in Relationships

  • Nicole Froidevaux | University of California, Irvine | Examining the Role of Partner Cultural Match on Romantic Relationship Quality

  • Stéphanie Gauvin | Queen’s University | Love Through Tinted Glasses: Attachment Avoidance, Empathic Accuracy, and Relational Well-Being

  • Bradley Hughes | University of Oregon | Dancing with Myself: The Influence of Similarity Between Personality, Social Class, and Political Attitudes on Initial Partner Preference

  • Lisa Lin | University of Rochester | Using Motion Energy Analysis to Quantify Nonverbal Synchrony in Stranger Dyads During a Social Coordination Task

  • Yoobin Park | University of Toronto | Does Grateful Love Take Two? New insights into Partner Match on Gratitude Using Six Longitudinal Datasets

  • Corey Petit | University of Virginia | Emotional Diversity and Love Relationships: Links with Attachment Orientation and Romantic Relationship Satisfaction

  • Eri Sasaki | University of Auckland | Do Feelings of Love Need to be Mutual? The Protective Effects of One Partner’s Felt Love during Relationship Interactions

  • Stylianos Syropoulos | University of Massachusetts Amherst | Safe and in Love: The Association Between Personal Safety and Romantic Love
     

Congratulations to our grantees! We look forward to seeing how these projects unfold in the coming year!

Deep dive

Each newsletter, we plan to explore a particular topic related to love in greater detail. This quarter’s topic is perceived responsiveness. 

Perceived responsiveness refers to the degree to which a person feels another is responsive to his or her needs. Put another way, someone who perceives responsiveness from another person feels understood, validated, and cared for. The responsive other can be a romantic partner, friend, colleague, whomever.(1)

Importantly, perceived responsiveness has been shown to have profound benefits for relationships of all types and under a variety of circumstances. Greater perceived responsiveness has been linked to increased trust and intimacy as well as greater overall relationship quality.(2,3) It is important in bad times (e.g., when one person is expressing a concern to another) as well as in good times (e.g., when one person is sharing good news with another).(4) It even has positive implications for individual health and wellbeing.(5)
 

So the next time your friend, partner, or family member comes to you for support, consider how you’re responding. Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I seeking to truly understand their needs? Try asking them clarifying questions like, “What do you mean by that?” and “how did that make you feel?”

• Am I validating their needs? Try responding with, “I can see why you would feel that way” or “I would have a similar response.”

• Am I showing them that I care? Offer your support and reassurance (e.g., “How can I help?” and “I really care about you”) and, where appropriate, show affection through nonverbal behaviors (e.g., hugs, hand holding).

1 Reis, H. T., & Gable, S. L. (2015). Responsiveness. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 67-71.
2 Shelton, J. N., Trail, T. E., West, T. V., & Bergsieker, H. B. (2010). From strangers to friends: The interpersonal process model of intimacy in developing interracial friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(1), 71-90.
3 Canevello, A., & Crocker, J. (2010). Creating good relationships: responsiveness, relationship quality, and interpersonal goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 99(1), 78.
4 Gable, S. L., Gosnell, C. L., Maisel, N. C., & Strachman, A. (2012). Safely testing the alarm: Close others' responses to personal positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(6), 963.
5 Otto, A. K., Laurenceau, J. P., Siegel, S. D., & Belcher, A. J. (2015). Capitalizing on everyday positive events uniquely predicts daily intimacy and well-being in couples coping with breast cancer. Journal of Family Psychology, 29(1), 69.

Sherman: In our research, we think of expressions of affection as intended to convey responsiveness when they are partner-centered. That is, these expressions of affection usually have an underlying tone of satisfying a partner’s needs or addressing a partner’s interests, rather than one’s own needs or interests. For example, one item of expression of affection that falls under this partner-centered category is “taking care of my partner when they are sick.” One item that does not fall into this category is “kissing my partner.” Kissing makes both partners happy, so we do not consider it to be “partner-centered.” We think that it is not so much about the overt behavior that makes an expression of affection responsive, but rather the underlying tone of the expression of affection being focused on the partner’s needs and well-being. So long as the behavior is something that the partner likes or needs, rather than what oneself likes or needs, we think that the expression of affection will convey responsiveness.

TLC:  What broader impact, if any, might those responsive expressions of affection have on your participants’ relationships?

Sherman: We think that responsive expressions of affection may be more effective in fostering trust, intimacy, and overall relationship satisfaction compared to other expressions of affection. In one study, we found that participants believed that a recipient would feel higher levels of satisfaction as well as trust in their partner when the recipient received responsive expressions of affection versus other kinds of affection. Likewise, mediational analyses from another study show that one way in which agreeable people attain high relationship satisfaction is that they express affection in ways that are responsive—a finding that does not hold for other expressions of affection that are not partner-centered. We take these results as a sign that perhaps responsive expressions of affection may be especially effective in promoting relationship quality.

TLC: What would you say to someone who perhaps scores lower on agreeableness? What can they learn from your findings?

Sherman: We think that if people who score lower on agreeableness want to promote intimacy in their relationships, our results suggest that they can try understanding what their partner’s needs and interests are, and express affection in ways that address those needs and interests. If expressing affection in responsive ways is part of the reason why agreeable people are satisfied in their relationships, then perhaps following their footsteps and expressing affection in responsive ways could also promote intimacy for people lower in agreeableness.

TLC: What’s next for this line of research? Are there any open questions you’re particularly excited to tackle?

Sherman: We are excited to investigate the recipient’s side of the story next. We want to see how different types of expressions of affection affect the recipient’s thoughts and feelings. We also want to see if there are any individual differences in people’s preferences for what types of affection they like to receive. For example, are responsive expressions of affection better received than other affectionate acts? Does everyone like responsive expressions of affection? These are questions that we are really excited to investigate.

For more about Sherman’s work, visit https://osf.io/k2tzu/