Elaine Hatfield's research while affiliated with University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and other places
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Publications (127)
This study examined college students' judgments of the physical attractiveness of an interaction partner after a getting‐acquainted interaction, including in comparison with other benchmarks (e.g., an experimenter rating, a self‐rating). With data combined from several past laboratory studies, we found that participants (particularly women who were...
Political identities tie us to families, friends, generations, and educational groups. In this chapter we will discuss the powerful emotions that arise when strongly held political identities come into conflict. In America, many recent Thanksgiving dinners dissolve into chaos when Trump supporters and Trump opponents insist on airing their views—of...
This chapter discusses how developing technology has enabled people to have increasingly realistic virtual sexual encounters and whether these technological advances are actually bringing us closer together or driving us further apart. One is left to wonder that if sexual alternatives such as sex robots and online sex become more and more accessibl...
In the 21st century we find that sexual motives—beyond procreation, power, love, and pleasure—have multiplied exponentially. Couples (and others) are having sex for revenge, for exercise, to decrease the chance of or to resolve fights, for practice, for stress reduction, for hurt and for hate, as a rite of passage, to get a job, for status, for tha...
Today, most people are fairly optimistic about the fate of love. They believe their current love affairs will last forever. Yet, the odds are against a youthful romance deepening into a long and satisfying marriage. This chapter discusses how long passionate love lasts and factors that can play a role in its stability. It reviews the suffering that...
The process and experience of finding a romantic and sexual mate has been an ongoing source of confusion and frustration for many. While some individuals find it difficult to find a mate who shares their same romantic and sexual preferences, others struggle to find a mate altogether. In fact, as sexual alternatives such as sex robots and online sex...
If we are to make informed guesses about the future of love and sex, we need to take an unblinkered look at where we were in the past and where we are today. Maybe then our crystal ball will be less opaque. This chapter starts with the way things are today. The chapter discusses the universality of passionate love and the impact of culture on passi...
Any time a new form of communication appears—from the penny dreadfuls to Morse code and the telegraph, skywriting, the wireless radio, TV, or iPads and computers—men and women find creative ways to use that technology to find love and sexual partners. This chapter discusses the evolution of modern-day matchmaking services. Topics addressed include...
This chapter discusses the history of passionate love in the West and how it is transforming global identities, not replacing them. The Internet offers new platforms where people can experience love and relationships within local contexts. While Western romantic love is often seen as the ideal and perhaps even as a symbol of modernity itself, billi...
Researchers have found that people in love enjoy many advantages: love is known to improve psychological, emotional, and physical health. When things go badly, however, lovers may suffer the pangs of rejection, jealousy, sadness, and anger. People can learn from both the joy of fulfilling relationships and the pain they suffer from the affairs that...
Marriage markets have existed since ancient times. Parents in traditional cultures routinely negotiate for the best deal possible. This fact is so taken for granted that when queried about “markets,” parents attempting to arrange such pairings have trouble even understanding the question. How could it be otherwise? In the West, for much of the past...
This chapter reviews current theorizing regarding the impact of cultural, social, and gender factors on young people’s attitudes toward casual sex, one-night stands, hookups, and the like. The chapter also looks at the impact of these variables on the frequency of young people’s sexual fantasies and their desire and willingness to engage in casual...
Yale historian Robin Winks once observed that writing history is “like nailing jelly to the wall.” But, he added, “someone must keep trying.” Trying to describe sweeping historical trends and then to predict future trends is even more difficult. This chapter considers futurists’ predictions as to the social, economic, and behavioral advances we mig...
What’s Next in Love and Sex is a comprehensive examination of contemporary academic findings relating to all matters of the mind, body, and heart in the modern world. Written by one of the pioneers of love and sex research, Dr. Hatfield, along with her colleagues Dr. Rapson and Dr. Purvis, this book relies on contemporary scientific findings to pro...
This chapter utilizes a scientific lens to discuss contemporary literature on non-monogamous relationships, from swingers, to polyamorous couples, to open marriages, and everything in between. It also addresses the degree to which such relationships are experienced as infidelity. Analyzing current demographic trends and psychological research, the...
Career development and work-family conflict are two areas of research with extreme theoretical and practical relevance, especially when focusing on job and non-job related life dimensions. With the intent to contribute to this debate, especially to career counseling practices with young adults, the present study investigated how the perception of i...
The first national study of body image was reported four decades ago in the article The Happy American Body (Berscheid et al., 1973). To provide a modern follow-up to this study, we used two Internet panel surveys of U.S. adults to examine feelings about appearance (Survey 1: Married N = 1095; Single N = 5481) and weight, appearance, body, and musc...
Career development and work-family conflict are two areas of research with extreme theoretical and practical relevance, especially when focusing on job and non-job related life dimensions. With the intent to contribute to this debate, especially to career counseling practices with young adults, the present study investigated how the perception of i...
Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - The New Psychology of Love - edited by Robert J. Sternberg
La teoría del apego busca entender cómo los lazos emocionales pueden afectar diferentes aspectos de la vida de las personas a través del continuo de la vida. Este estudio tiene como objetivo comprender cómo los patrones de estilos de apego ansiosos y evasivos explican las dimensiones de conflictos trabajo-familia: interferencia de trabajo con la fa...
Recently, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have begun to study the influence of attention, mimicry, and social context on emotional contagion. In this chapter, we will review the classic evidence documenting the role of these factors in sparking primitive emotional contagion, especially in occupational settings. Then we will discuss the...
People with psychopathic traits are sometimes adept at recognizing the emotions of others and using this knowledge in anti-social ways. However, data from incarcerated psychopaths suggest that they are incapable of true empathy. In this paper, we describe three studies that link psychopathic personality to emotional contagion and empathy, and we of...
Passionate love is a universal emotion. Researchers have found that people in love have many advantages: it is known to improve both psychological and physical health. When things go badly, however, lovers may suffer: the pangs of rejection, jealousy, sadness, and anger. People can learn both from the joy of fulfilling relationships and pain from t...
In this article, we will discuss what is known about a surprisingly popular phenomenon in the Middle East-the use of social media to communicate. We will begin with a discussion of what "social media" sites are (sites such as Facebook, Your Middle East, YouTube, Flickr, Muslima.com, chat rooms, and instant messaging) and point out how common they a...
The aim of this research are compare the predictive aspects of career variables, work and romantic attachment style in the construct work-family conflict among two samples: United States and Brazil.
This study extended prior research on attitudes about the importance of love as a basis for marriage. With data from a sample of 4,245 college students, obtained over a 16-year period, we found that both men and women, but women to a slightly greater degree than men, rated love as important for entering marriage. Over the 16-year period of the stud...
We examined (N = 281) the role of love styles and personality in people’s choice to engage in serious and/or various kinds of casual relationships (i.e., one-night stands, booty-calls, and friends with benefits) within the last year. Men were more eager than women were to engage in all types of casual relationships, however, love styles and persona...
Recently, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, using a variety of scientific techniques, have begun to study the influence of attention, facial mimicry, and social context on emotional contagion. In this paper we will review the classic evidence documenting the role of attention, facial mimicry, and feedback in sparking primitive emotional...
Leon Festinger was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 8 May 1919 to Russian-Jewish immigrants, Alex Festinger and Sara Solomon Festinger. Leon’s father, an embroidery manufacturer, had left Russia an atheist and a radical, and he remained faithful to these convictions throughout his life. In his youth, Leon attended Boys’ High School, in Brooklyn. A nu...
In 1972, the first major national study on body image was conducted under the auspices of Psychology Today. Body image was assessed with the Body Parts Satisfaction Scale, which examined the dissatisfaction people experienced with 24 aspects of their bodies. Despite the continued reliance on this scale and reference to the study, data on the factor...
Sexual self-disclosure is one of the most intimate forms of self-disclosure. Yet, there is surprisingly little research on this topic compared to the voluminous research that exists on self-disclosure (in general). This is particularly surprising since sexual self-disclosure has been found to be correlated with sexual and marital satisfaction (Byer...
Among the most cited series of experiments in social and evolutionary psychology are those conducted by Clark and Hatfield (1989, 2003). In these studies, college students served as confederates in a simple field experiment. They approached fellow college students of another gender and asked one of three questions: (a) “Would you go out with me ton...
The proposition that similarity breeds attraction has received longstanding theoretical and
empirical support. Still, the processes that guide this effect remain relatively unexamined. In this
study, with a large sample of college students, we tested four variables proposed in prior
literature to theoretically account for the similarity-liking l...
One of the most enduring stereotypes of gay and lesbian individuals is that they are cross sex-typed, meaning that each group possesses gender characteristics that we typically assign to the other gender: Gay men are typically perceived to be more feminine than straight men and lesbian women, and lesbian women are typically seen as more masculine t...
Equity theory posits that in relationships, two concerns stand out: firstly, how rewarding are people's social, family, and work relationships? Secondly, how fair, just, and equitable are those relationships? According to Equity theory people perceive a relationship to be fair and equitable when the rewards they reap are commensurate with their con...
Artists, creative writers, and musicians have long been interested in the complex motives that spark passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual behavior. Recently, scholars from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate two questions: “Why do men and women choose to engage in sexual liaisons?” “Why do they avoid such encounters?” Theories...
Finally, Elaine Hatfield and Richard Rapson provide an overview of the contents of this volume wrapped into a lively account of some of the historical and theoretical ‘forerunners’ to resource theorizing. The “story” they are telling reminds us that justice theories and SRT are two developments in different directions, with a common origin in socia...
Theorists have pointed out that in America the bisexual community tends to be more or less invisible (Firestein, B.A. (1996). Bisexuality as a paradigm shift: Transforming our disciplines. In B.A. Firestein (Ed.), Bisexuality: The psychology and politics of an invisible minority (pp. 263--291). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). They offer many reasons why...
Throughout history, Americans have been bitterly divided as to whether passionate love and sexual desire are positive experiences (that give meaning to life), whether they constitute a political, social, and spiritual danger, or whether sex in itself is not inherently bad, but certain sexual behaviors are wrong or dangerous. As previously noted by...
The concept of passionate love has a long history, yet it was not until the 1940s that social scientists created tools designed to measure this emotion. Over the next 60 years, numerous scales of romantic and passionate love were created and tested. Currently, however, there exists no single compendium of existing scales. This paper attempts to fil...
Recently, social scientists have begun to investigate the myriad of reasons why young men and women engage in sexual activities. As yet, however, they have not begun to investigate the impact of culture on people's sexual motivations. In this paper, we will address three questions: Does culture have an impact on sexual motives? Does gender have an...
In 1960, feminist groups and scholars published critiques of common “male-centric” views of sexuality. They analyzed pornography, traditions as to who initiates sexual encounters, the (non)existence of foreplay, and common (male dominant) sexual positions. Some even said such activities should be abolished (see 0070, 0095 and 0205). Today, the appr...
Although philosophers, psychologists, artists, and poets have been interested in the nature and origin of passionate love throughout the ages, only in the 1960s have social psychologists begun to systematically investigate its complexity (Berscheid & Hatfield 1969, Hatfield & Rapson 1993, Hatfield & Rapson 2009). And in the last decade did social n...
Recently, scholars have become interested in learning more about the antecedents and consequences of casual sex. This article reviews current social psychological theorizing as to cultural, social, and gender differences in young people's attitudes toward casual sex and in their willingness to engage in such encounters. It is intended as a comprehe...
Throughout history, people have been concerned with social justice. In the 11 th century, St. Anselm of Canterbury (1998) argued that the will possesses two competing inclinations: an affection for a person"s own advantage and an affection for justice. The first inclination is stronger, but the second matters, too. Equity theory, too, posits that i...
For more than 4000. years, poets and storytellers have sung of the delights and sufferings of love. Anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists argue that passionate love is a cultural universal. Cultural researchers and historians, on the other hand, emphasize the stunning diversity in the way passionate love and sexual desire have been viewed...
Recently, scholars from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual behavior. Specifically, they have begun to investigate questions profound questions as: “Why do men and women engage in sexual liaisons?” “Why do they avoid such liaisons?” In this paper, we will review what theorists have learned a...
In recent years, according to U. S. Census reports, the number of people who classify themselves as “mixed race” is rapidly increasing. As a consequence, scholars have become increasingly interested in the nature of racial identity. Currently, scholars and laypersons tend to view the concept of race from a biological perspective, from a social-cons...
In the eleventh century, St. Anselm of Canterbury argued that the will possesses two competing affinities: an affection for what is to a person’s own selfish advantage and an affection for justice. The first inclination may be stronger, but the second also matters. Equity theory, too, posits that in personal, social, and societal relationships, two...
Recently, scholars from a variety of disciplines have begun to investigate passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual behavior.
Specifically, they have started to ask such questions as: “Why do young men and women engage in sexual liaisons?” “Why do
they avoid such encounters?” Unfortunately, in attempting to answer such questions, scholars have ge...
Physical attractiveness has been defined as “that which represents one's conception of the ideal in appearance; that which gives the greatest degree of pleasure to the senses” (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986, p. 4).
Most clinical and counseling psychologists have identified three distinct skills required in true empathy: the ability to share the other person’s feelings, the cognitive ability to intuit what another person is feeling, and a “socially beneficial” intention to respond compassionately to that person’s distress. Scholars from various disciplines, in...
In all societies, people are concerned with justice. “What’s fair is fair!” “She deserves better.” “It’s just not right.”
“He can’t get away with that!” “It’s illegal.” “It’s unethical!” “It’s immoral” are fairly common laments. In the 11th century, St. Anselm of Canterbury
(Anselem of Canterbury: The major works, 1998) argued that the will possess...
Are there gender differences in the ability to love? Social psychological data suggest that men and women are more similar than the stereotypes say they are. Yet, there are some differences in men's and women's ability and motivation to love. Both seem equally susceptible to falling passionately in love. However, traditional women seem to be slight...
Darwin argued that emotional experience should be affected, in part, by feedback from the skeletal musculature. Since Darwin's time, researchers have documented that emotional experience is shaped by both facial and postural feedback. Two experiments were conducted to determine whether emotional experience and facial expression are influenced by vo...
In all societies, people are concerned with social justice. It's just not right is a fairly common lament. In these two studies, we interviewed 240 older women, who ranged in age from 50 to 82. We found that most older women (85%) considered their marriages to be fair and equitable. Older women were less concerned about existing inequities than the...
Theorists have proposed that men and women and those in various occupational groups should differ in their susceptibility to primitive emotional contagion. Study 1 was designed to explore the extent to which gender and occupation affected respondents' self-reports of emotional contagion, as measured by the Emotional Contagion (EC) scale. As predict...
Recently, scholars from a variety of academic disciplines—cross cultural studies, history, psychology, sociology, neurophysiology, and endrocrinology— have begun to explore the importance of love in sexual desire, sexual behavior, and sexual health. In this chapter, we will set the stage by reviewing the historical and cultural forces that have sha...
This cross-cultural research explored the relationship between Hatfield & Rapson's (1993) love types and subjective well-being. College students from an individualistic culture (USA) and a collectivist culture (Korea) completed the Passionate Love Scale (PLS; Hatfield & Rapson), the Companionate Love Scale (CLS; Sternberg, 1986), the Satisfaction W...
The roles of gender and the sexual motives of Love, Pleasure, Conformity, Recognition, Dominance, and Submission in numerous usual and unusual sexual behaviors were investigated. In a survey of 191 college undergraduates it was found that Love, Pleasure, Conformity, and Recognition motives, often in interaction with gender, were all important predi...
Relationships among power, gender, and sexual behavior were investigated through a questionnaire completed by 191 college undergraduates. Results indicated that the relationship between power and sexual behavior depended on the type of sexual behavior and how power was measured. Power measured by dominance as a sexual motive was associated with sex...
The study of the sexual permissiveness of young adults has been popular topic in sociology and social psychology, especially since the empirical and theoretical work of Reiss. We extended previous research on premarital sexual standards by examining the degree of sexual permissiveness and the endorsement of the traditional double standard in a larg...
This volume [focuses] on the passionate beginnings of relationships,: how people meet, mate, fall in love, make love, and fall out of love, usually only to risk it all over again. We plan to compare the way cultures try to set rules for these incendiary matters. We ask: What seems to be biological and universal? What seems to be socially constructe...
A survey was conducted to determine whether men and women and those who possessed different love schemas, differed in their emotional reactions to romantic break-ups or in the strategies they employed to cope with them. Seventy-seven men and 173 women from the University of Hawaii who had been passionately in love, dated, and then broken up were in...
Passionate love is a turbulent emotion, with close links to joy, sadness, fear, anger, and jealousy. Of course, people differ markedly in how pleasurable or stressful their passionate experiences prove to be. Social psychologists have found that secure persons have the most positive experiences in love. For the clingy, skittish, and fickle, passion...
In this investigation, data on young, single adults' preferences in marital partners were gathered from three very diverse cultures: the United States, Russia, and Japan. Based on evolutionary, social learning, historical, and cross-cultural perspectives, the authors hypothesized that in all three cultures they would find certain traditional gender...
The major purpose of this investigation was to examine the relative importance of three domains of expressive interaction-companionship, sexual expression, and supportive communication-in predicting relationship satisfaction and commitment. This issue was examined with data collected from both partners of 94 married or committed (engaged or cohabit...
Surveyed 117 male and 118 female university students from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups to explore if men and women possess similar love schemas and if these schemas are related to the tendency to fall passionately and "companionately" in love. Ss completed the self-report, 6-item Love Schema Scale (appended), developed in part from...
This study was undertaken to examine young women's and men's orientations toward love in three very different cultures: Japan (N = 223), Russia (N = 401), and the United States (N = 1,043). The love variables examined were: frequency of lore experiences, attachment types, love styles, love as a basis for marriage, romantic attitudes, and predictors...
Recently, theorists have begun to speculate about the nature of passionate and companionate love. Evolutionary psychologists have tended to emphasize the pan-cultural nature of passionate love. Historians have stressed the fact that, in different historical eras, people's attitudes toward love, sex, and intimacy have varied widely. Cross-cultural r...
Social psychologists have devoted considerable theoretical and empirical attention to studying gender differences in traits desired in a mate. Most of the studies on mate preferences, however, have been conducted with small, nonrepresentative samples. In this study, we analyzed data collected from single adults in a national probability sample, the...
The purposes of this study were to extend the research conducted by Muehlenhard and her colleagues (e.g., Muehlen‐hard & Hollabaugh, 1988) on token resistance to sex and to consider a second form of sexual miscommunication, consent to unwanted sex. We examined the incidence of these forms of sexual miscommunication among both women and men and in t...
Reviews what social psychologists, evolutionary theorists, anthropologists, historians, and cross-cultural researchers have discovered about the nature of passionate love, in general, and sexual desire, in particular. Evidence is presented that argues that (1) the major cultural groups are more similar in their views of love, sex, and intimacy than...
