Western Love Lab
1151 Richmond Street N6G 2V4 London, ON, Canada

Check out recent research from Love Lab alum, Rhonda Nicole Balzarini, and current lab members Taylor Kohut and Lorne Campbell: "Across the board, we found that, compared to monogamists, polyamorists were more likely to select the other option whenever it was provided. This suggests that polyamorists tend to be more non-conformist in general; however, we can’t say whether that’s because some level of non-conformity predisposes people to polyamory, or whether being polyamoro...us predisposes people to be less conformist in other ways. While our results do not come from representative samples, they suggest that the stereotype of polyamorists as young, White, wealthy liberals doesn’t necessarily match up with reality. Indeed, compared to monogamists, polyamorists were not any younger, Whiter, wealthier, or more likely to identify with the Democratic party." https://www.lehmiller.com/blog/2019/7//whos-into-polyamory

Goldstein recruited 22 long-term heterosexual couples, age 23 to 32, and put them through a series of tests aimed at mimicking that delivery-room scenario. Men were assigned the role of observer; women the pain target. As instruments measured their heart and breathing rates, they: sat together, not touching; sat together holding hands; or sat in separate rooms. Then they repeated all three scenarios as the woman was subjected to a mild heat pain on her forearm for 2 minutes. ...As in previous trials, the study showed couples synced physiologically to some degree just sitting together. But when she was subjected to pain and he couldn’t touch her, that synchronization was severed. When he was allowed to hold her hand, their rates fell into sync again and her pain decreased. https://neurosciencenews.com/empathy-neurobiology-lovers-/

Check out recent research exploring nurturance and eroticism among polyamorous and monogamous couples authored by Love Lab alum Rhonda Nicole Balzarini, current lab member Taylor Kohut, and others: "As the researchers had predicted, the polyamorists enjoyed more nurturance from their primary than from their secondary, partners, on average, and gave higher eroticism ratings to their secondary relationships. Overall, their eroticism ratings were higher than for the monogamists.... More surprisingly, their nurturance ratings for their primary relationship were higher than those reported by the monogamists. These differences held even when the researchers controlled for the differences in relationship length between the two groups. There were also some differences in sexual satisfaction and closeness. Among the monogamous participants, eroticism and nurturance were both positively associated with sexual satisfaction and closeness. For the polyamorists, nurturance was similarly linked to feelings of closeness in both their relationships, but eroticism was only associated with sexual satisfaction and closeness in their secondary relationships," https://digest.bps.org.uk//polyamory-offers-a-unique-opp/

Current members and alumni of the Love Lab were well represented at the recent Tech & Relationships Conference in Annecy: Dr. Rhonda Balzarini presented on how to keep the spark alive in long-term relationships. Hint: one way is to use sexual tech, like shared partner vibrators Dr. Tara Marshall showed that people often use social media to follow their ex’s and social media exposure to an ex-partner causes poorer breakup adjustment... Dr. Asuman Buyukcan-Tetik shared work highlighting the mediating role of trust between self-control and intrusive behaviors Nazanin Kafaeefp presented research examining online sexual experiences and relationship functioning in LDRs Christian Hahn presented work on online and offline infidelity, suggesting that more time online is associated with higher likelihood of infidelity

Click below for an article covering a recent preprint authored by Love Lab's Kiersten Dobson Jenney Zhu Rhonda Nicole Balzarini and Lorne Campbell: "Perhaps unsurprisingly, the researchers found that accepting a sexual advance, or having an advance accepted by the partner, resulted in an increase in both sexual and relationship satisfaction that day compared to other days. On the other hand, being rejected decreased sexual satisfaction. But intriguingly, if the participant t...hemselves was the rejecter that is, if they shunned an advance from their partner their sexual satisfaction still increased. (Neither being rejected nor being the rejecter had any effect on general relationship satisfaction.) Changes in sexual satisfaction could still be detected days after advances were made. The team found that the boost in satisfaction from having an advance accepted persisted for 24 hours, with the slump of being rejected lasting twice as long. And the gratification that came from being either an acceptor or a rejecter lasted a remarkable 72 hours. It might seem especially surprising that rejecting a partner’s advances gives a boost in sexual satisfaction, particularly one that appears to last for three days. But rather than reflecting some pleasure derived from rejecting someone, the researchers suggest that being approached for sex leaves a person feeling desired, so enhances sexual satisfaction even when no actual sex ends up happening" https://digest.bps.org.uk//the-dissatisfaction-of-being-/