An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves emotional or physical closeness between people and may include sexual intimacy and feelings of romance or love. Intimate relationships are interdependent, and the members of the relationship mutually influence each other. The quality and nature of the relationship depends on the interactions between individuals, and is derived from the unique context and history that builds between people over time. Social and legal institutions such as marriage acknowledge and uphold intimate relationships between people. However, intimate relationships are not necessarily monogamous or sexual, and there is wide social and cultural variability in the norms and practices of intimacy between people.
The Big Five personality traits, sometimes known as "the five-factor model of personality" or "OCEAN model", are a grouping of five unique characteristics used to study personality.
William Roger Revelle is a psychology professor at Northwestern University working in personality psychology. Revelle studies the biological basis of personality and motivation, psychometric theory, the structure of daily mood, and models of attention and memory.
Susan Tufts Fiske is an American psychologist who serves as the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University. She is a social psychologist known for her work on social cognition, stereotypes, and prejudice. Fiske leads the Intergroup Relations, Social Cognition, and Social Neuroscience Lab at Princeton University. Her theoretical contributions include the development of the stereotype content model, ambivalent sexism theory, power as control theory, and the continuum model of impression formation.
The dark triad is a psychological theory of personality, first published by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes three notably offensive, but non-pathological personality types: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, and sub-clinical psychopathy. Each of these personality types is called dark because each is considered to contain malevolent qualities.
The self-expansion model proposes that individuals seek to expand their sense of self by acquiring resources, broadening their perspectives, and increase competency to ultimately optimize their ability to thrive in their environment. It was developed in 1986 by Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron to provide a framework for the underlying experience and behavior in close relationships. The model has two distinct but related core principles: the motivational principle and the inclusion-of-other-in-self principle. The motivational principle refers to an individual's inherent desire to improve their self-efficacy and adapt, survive, and reproduce in their environment. The inclusion-of-other-in-self principle posits that close relationships serve as the primary way to expand our sense of self as we incorporate the identities, perspectives, resources, and experiences of others as our own through these relationships.
The New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) is a longitudinal study conducted in New Zealand. The NZAVS was started in 2009 by Chris Sibley, a professor in psychology at the University of Auckland. The NZAVS was inspired by major social surveys conducted internationally, such as the National Election Studies, the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey, and aims to provide a similar resource for New Zealand. As of January 29, 2024, the NZAVS research team had published over 250 peer reviewed publications using data from the study.
Nilanjana Dasgupta is a social psychologist whose work focuses on the effects of social contexts on implicit stereotypes - particularly on factors that insulate women in STEM fields from harmful stereotypes which suggest that females perform poorly in such areas. Dasgupta is a professor of Psychology and is the Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Diane M. Mackie is a social psychologist known for her research in the fields of intergroup relations and social influence. She is Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Suzanne C. Segerstrom is a professor of Psychology and biostatistician at the University of Kentucky. She is known for her clinical research on optimism and pessimism in relation to health, stress, and general well-being.
Batja Mesquita is a Dutch social psychologist, a cultural psychologist and an affective scientist. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven.
A functional account of emotions posits that emotions facilitate adaptive responses to environmental challenges. In other words, emotions are systems that respond to environmental input, such as a social or physical challenge, and produce adaptive output, such as a particular behavior. Under such accounts, emotions can manifest in maladaptive feelings and behaviors, but they are largely beneficial insofar as they inform and prepare individuals to respond to environmental challenges, and play a crucial role in structuring social interactions and relationships.
John Frederick Kihlstrom is an American cognitive social psychologist. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he originally began teaching in 1997. In 2013, he was named the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science. He is known for his research on the unconscious mind. He was formerly the editor-in-chief of Psychological Science.
Margaret (“Peggy”) Sydnor Clark is an American psychologist.
Omri Gillath is an Israeli-American social psychologist. As a professor of social psychology at the University of Kansas, Gillath has spent over 20 years doing research, teaching psychology, and mentoring students. He works in the field of close relationships.
Keith Maddox is a professor in the department of psychology at Tufts University. Maddox's research focuses on social cognition, and he is the director of the Tufts University Social Cognition Lab.
Laura Kray is an American psychologist, professor and the Ned and Carol Spieker Chair in Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the Faculty Director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership. Her research looks to debunk myths surrounding the gender paygap.
David Lewis Hamilton is an American social psychologist and researcher currently working at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Eileen Frances Britt is a New Zealand academic psychologist, and is a full professor at the University of Canterbury, specialising in motivational interviewing.
Annette Margaret Elizabeth Henderson is a New Zealand developmental psychologist, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in the development of cooperation in children. She was awarded a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and has been a principal investigator on two Marsden grants.
