🗣Do you know what you want in a relationship? 📌Check out this article by Kredl, Kubin, and Lydon (2025), which found that relationship clarity — the extent to which someone knows what they want in a relationship —

📌Check out this article by Mendez (2025), which challenges "spinster" stereotypes and highlights how single Filipino women aged 41–58 find fulfillment, agency, meaning, and belonging beyond marriage and traditional expectations. 📚Read the article here: doi.org/10.1111/pere...

📌Check out this brief report by Smith (2025), which explores the etymology of heirlooms and investigates the consequences of the term's isolation. It calls for more inclusive heirlooms and underscores the relationship between the interpersonal transmission of possessions

👻 Why is ghosting hurtful? 📌Check out this article by Szczesniak, Pierce, and Spielmann (2025), which examined emotional and behavioral responses to ghosting versus explicit rejection in an immersive dating scenario. Both ghosted and explicitly rejected individuals reported high negative emotion —

📌Check out this article by de Bel, Potarca, and van Duijn (2025), which maps bilateral family ties across three generations, including children, mothers, fathers, and both maternal and paternal grandparents, in divorced and non-divorced families.

We are excited to announce publication of a PR special issue entitled "Complex and Diverse Singlehood Experiences," edited by Katarzyna Adamczyk and Yuthika Girme. The issue contains a dozen articles (plus an introduction by the guest editors), many of which are...

📌Check out this article by Murphy et al. (2025), which validated a partner version of the Psychological Distance Scaling Task to assess partner-schema structures, defined as the degree of connectedness in beliefs about romantic partners. Both self- and partner-versions of this

📌Check out this article by Crowley et al. (2025), which explored how people with opioid use disorder (OUD) and criminal justice involvement make sense of friendship. Their findings highlight the complex, often fraught nature of these bonds on the margins

📌 Check out this article by Tian (2025), which examined the predictors and outcomes of support seeking following spousal death. Bereaved individuals were less likely to seek support when perceived risks were higher and communication efficacy was lower —

Check out this systematic review by Mauroy et al. (2025), which explored whether empathic accuracy (EA) changes across childhood and adolescence. Their findings suggest that age is not clearly associated with changes in EA.

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Check out this article from Brown et al. (2024). Two experiments tasked straight men to read about a girlfriend cheating on them with a man or woman described as masculine or feminine. Participants were most upset when learning about infidelity with a man but...

Check out this article by Robbins, Spahr, and Karan (2024) that revealed that people in same-sex couples hone their social networks to close, supportive members with whom they have one-on-one, satisfying interactions. #IARR #personalrelationships #Academicsky

College students’ descriptions of romantic-relationship progression were analyzed in two studies a decade apart. Four consistent stages emerged: flirtationship, relationship potential, in-a-relationship, and commitment or bust.

Congratulations to Dr. David Kenny on having one of the top 10 most cited Personal Relationship articles in the past decade. The article Reflections on the actor—partner interdependence model reviews the history of the development of the APIM, focusing on the original...

Check out this article by Brock and Yoshimura (2024) from our March issue. How are stories about a sibling’s death connected to well-being? “Finding a silver lining” with positivity is uncommon; instead, siblings often make sense of the loss through emphasis on facts.

Congrats to Willis Klein, Sherry Li, & Suzanne Wood for their article “A qualitative analysis of gaslighting in romantic relationships” being one of PR’s 12 most-cited articles during 2024 (of those published from 2022-2024).

This study by Yu found that wives tend to be their husband’s substantial source of perceived psychological well-being than the reverse; however, the benefit of psychological well-being appears to be less for husbands of stay-at-home wives compared with husbands of employed wives.

Congrats to Brian Ogolsky and Laura Stafford for their article “A systematic review of relationship maintenance: Reflecting back and looking to the future” being one of PR’s 12 most-cited articles during 2024 (of those published from 2022-2024).

Congrats to Menelaos Apostolou and his large team of co-authors for their article “Strategies for becoming a more desirable mate: Evidence from 14 countries” being one of PR’s 12 most-cited articles during 2024 (of those published from 2022-2024).

Congratulations to Drs. Mie Kito, Masaki Yuki, and Robert Thomson on having one of the top 10 most cited Personal Relationship articles in the past decade. The article Relational mobility and close relationships: A socioecological approach to explain cross-cultural...

Check it out! Lu Ran Zhang and Wei-Wen Chen performed a Latent profile study of Chinese daters: those who stay loyal and use "voice" in conflicts feel the most partner responsiveness and happiest.

New article alert! We have one of the publications from March 2025. This study emphasizes the importance of the subjective orgasm experience in same-sex relationships, showing that the way an orgasm is perceived...

Congratulations to Dr. Chris Segrin on being one of Personal Relationships Top 10 reviewers in 2024. Dr. Segrin is a Regents Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. He is a behavioral scientist whose specialty is interpersonal relationships...

Check it out! Sharing secrets is a key aspect of friendship. This study found that sharing and being told personal secrets is consistently linked with close friendship and social connection value, whereas...

Stay connected with the latest in relationship science! Follow Personal Relationships for research highlights, calls for papers, and insights from leading scholars worldwide. Share with your colleagues and students so we can continue growing our community of researchers.

Congrats to Drs. Mitch Brown, Madeline Brown & Bridget O'Neil for their article “Contextual desirability of strong men employing affiliative and aggressive humor” being one of PR’s 12 most-cited articles during 2024 (of those published from 2022-2024). It tested whether…

Join us in congratulating Dr. Bill Chopik on being one of Personal Relationships Top 10 reviewers in 2024. Dr. Bill Chopik is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University. He studies how close relationships – and the people in them –

Moving on up! Personal Relationships Impact Factor Shows Dramatic Rise in Just-Released 2024 Statistics.

Join us in congratulating Dr. Randi Garcia on having her article be one of the Top 10 most cited articles in Personal Relationships over the last decade! Dr. Garcia is an Associate Professor of Psychology and of Statistical & Data Sciences at Smith College.