Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) across 37 Languages.

Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg's 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review reveals that most studies (64%) use a broad variety of shortened versions of the TLS-45. Here, aiming to achieve scientific consensus and improve the reliability, comparability, and generalizability of results across studies, we developed a short version of the scale-the TLS-15-comprised of 15 items with 5-point, rather than 9-point, response scales. In Study 1 (N = 7,332), we re-analyzed secondary data from a large-scale multinational study that validated the original TLS-45 to establish whether the scale could be truncated. In Study 2 (N = 307), we provided evidence for the three-factor structure of the TLS-15 and its reliability. Study 3 (N = 413) confirmed convergent validity and test-retest stability of the TLS-15. Study 4 (N = 60,311) presented a large-scale validation across 37 linguistic versions of the TLS-15 on a cross-cultural sample spanning every continent of the globe. The overall results provide support for the reliability, validity, and cross-cultural invariance of the TLS-15, which can be used as a measure of love components-either separately or jointly as a three-factor measure.

Practice-induced SNARC: evidence from a null-SNARC sample.

The mental representation of numbers inherently involves a spatial organization, often positioning smaller numbers to the left and larger numbers to the right. The SNARC effect, characterized by faster responses to small numbers using the left hand and vice versa for large numbers, is typically attributed to this left-to-right oriented mental number line (MNL). However, the direction of the SNARC effect seems to rely on reading direction, with most research exploring these mechanisms conducted within left-to-right reading cultures where the SNARC effect is prevalent. This study takes advantage of a sample from a left-to-right reading culture that does not exhibit the SNARC effect, allowing us to isolate and elucidate the stand-alone effects of recent experiences on SNARC. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate how MNL-compatible and MNL-incompatible practices induce an effect within a sample lacking the SNARC effect. To accomplish this, we reinvited the individuals from the sample which had previously shown no SNARC, and retested those who agreed to take part in the current study after an MNL-compatible or MNL-incompatible practice manipulation. The findings revealed an absence of the SNARC effect with MNL-compatible practices. Conversely, MNL-incompatible practices yielded a reverse SNARC effect. These results prompt a discussion on SNARC mechanisms within the framework of practice effects.

Testing the memory reconsolidation hypothesis in a fear extinction paradigm: The effects of ecological and arbitrary stimuli.

Various studies demonstrated that extinction training taking place shortly after the activation of the acquired fear could weaken the conditioned fear. The procedure is called post-retrieval extinction (PRE). However, from the time it emerged, it has suffered from inconsistencies in the ability of researchers to replicate the seemingly established effects. Extant literature implies that conditioned fear might be differentially sensitive to the nature of conditioned stimuli (CS) used. The aim of the present study, therefore, is threefold. First, we aimed to replicate Schiller et al. (Nature, 463, 49-53. 2010) procedure in which the PRE had produced positive results with arbitrary CSs only. Also, we examined the PRE as a function of CS type (ecological-fear-relevant (images of spider and snake) vs. arbitrary (images of yellow and blue circles)). Finally, we aimed to investigate the long-term effects of the PRE (i.e., 24 h, 15 d, and 3 mo). The study consisted of acquisition, re-activation and extinction, and re-extinction phases. Dependent measure was the recovery of fear responses as indexed by the skin conductance responses (SCRs) and arousal ratings of the participants at the last trial of the extinction and the first trial of the re-extinction. All groups showed significant acquisition and extinction patterns, compared to the other two groups (i.e., 6 h after the activating CS and without an activating stimulus) only the group that undertook extinction trials 10 min after the activating CS showed a sustained extinction. Thus, our findings provided further evidence for the robustness of the PRE paradigm in preventing the recovery of extinguished fears behaviorally, both with ecological and arbitrary stimuli.

Sex differences in human mate preferences vary across sex ratios.

A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio's relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences.

Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication.

Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives-an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective-offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.

Global Study of Social Odor Awareness.

Olfaction plays an important role in human social communication, including multiple domains in which people often rely on their sense of smell in the social context. The importance of the sense of smell and its role can however vary inter-individually and culturally. Despite the growing body of literature on differences in olfactory performance or hedonic preferences across the globe, the aspects of a given culture as well as culturally universal individual differences affecting odor awareness in human social life remain unknown. Here, we conducted a large-scale analysis of data collected from 10 794 participants from 52 study sites from 44 countries all over the world. The aim of our research was to explore the potential individual and country-level correlates of odor awareness in the social context. The results show that the individual characteristics were more strongly related than country-level factors to self-reported odor awareness in different social contexts. A model including individual-level predictors (gender, age, material situation, education, and preferred social distance) provided a relatively good fit to the data, but adding country-level predictors (Human Development Index, population density, and average temperature) did not improve model parameters. Although there were some cross-cultural differences in social odor awareness, the main differentiating role was played by the individual differences. This suggests that people living in different cultures and different climate conditions may still share some similar patterns of odor awareness if they share other individual-level characteristics.

Imagine a mouse and an elephant: Hemispheric asymmetries of imagination.

The present study aimed to explore the existence of an asymmetrical bias in the imagination of pairs of objects of unequal size. We assumed that such pairs are conceptualized with the smaller object being placed on the left, creating an ascending size order from left to right. Such a bias could derive from a cognitive strategy known from the mental number line. Sixty-four participants were instructed to imagine stimulus-pairs that were staggered from those showing very prominent intra-pair size differences (e.g., elephant vs. mouse) to very low size differences (e.g., orange vs. apple). The results showed that the tendency to imagine the bigger object on the right side increases with the size difference of the two stimuli. Such a visual field bias was also present in stimulus-pairs including numbers so that the participants imagined smaller and larger numbers on the left and the right side of the visual fields, respectively. Taken together, our findings could imply that the left-to-right orientation observed in our object imagining task may share the same cognitive mechanism as the mental number line.

Hemispheric specialization in the assessment of female physical attractiveness.

Female physical attractiveness has been widely related to waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and body weight (BW). The present study was conducted to examine the role of hemispheric specialization in the perception of physical attractiveness. Drawings of female figures that differed in BW (underweight, normal and overweight) and WHR (0.7 and 1.0) were presented to both male and female subjects using the visual half-field technique. The stimuli were presented for an unusually short duration (180 msec). Under these conditions, male but not female subjects rated the various female figures as differing in attractiveness. Thus, male judgements of female attractiveness depended on weight and WHR. Reaction time and accuracy scores obtained from male subjects suggested that the left hemisphere (LH) was slower but more accurate than the right hemisphere in detecting differences in the attractiveness of the figures. Additionally, the most attractive figure was detected significantly more accurately than the least attractive figure when the figures were presented to the LH. The findings were discussed in terms of evolutionary views of sex differences in mate selection.

Modernization, collectivism, and gender equality predict love experiences in 45 countries.

Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries' modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences.

Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world.

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.

Factors Associated With Highest Symptoms of Anxiety During COVID-19: Cross-Cultural Study of 23 Countries.

The COVID-19 restrictions have impacted people's lifestyles in all spheres (social, psychological, political, economic, and others). This study explored which factors affected the level of anxiety during the time of the first wave of COVID-19 and subsequent quarantine in a substantial proportion of 23 countries, included in this study. The data was collected from May to August 2020 (5 June 2020). The sample included 15,375 participants from 23 countries: (seven from Europe: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia; 11 from West, South and Southeast Asia: Armenia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey; two African: Nigeria and Tanzania; and three from North, South, and Central America: Brazil, Canada, United States). Level of anxiety was measured by means of the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and the 20-item first part of The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)-State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). Respondents were also asked about their personal experiences with COVID-19, attitudes toward measures introduced by governments, changes in attitudes toward migrants during a pandemic, family income, isolation conditions, etc. The factor analysis revealed that four factors explained 45.08% of variance in increase of anxiety, and these components were interpreted as follows: (1) personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, (2) personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, (3) personal trust in official sources, (4) personal experience with COVID-19. Three out of four factors demonstrated strong associations with both scales of anxiety: high level of anxiety was significantly correlated with high level of personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, low level of personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, and high level of presence of personal experience with COVID-19. Our study revealed significant main effects of sex, country, and all four factors on the level of anxiety. It was demonstrated that countries with higher levels of anxiety assessed the real danger of a pandemic as higher, and had more personal experience with COVID-19. Respondents who trusted the government demonstrated lower levels of anxiety. Finally, foreigners were perceived as the cause of epidemic spread.

The distance effect on discrimination ability and response bias during magnitude comparison in a go/no-go task.

The distance effect is the change in the performance during numerical magnitude comparison, depending on the numerical distance between the compared numbers (Moyer & Landauer, Nature, 215[5109], 1519-1520, 1967). This effect is generally accepted as evidence for the mental number line (MNL) hypothesis, which proposes that the mental representation of the numbers align in an increasing linear (or monotone) order. The majority of studies investigating the distance effect are focused on the reaction time (RT) findings, which show slower responses for closer numbers. In the present study, we examined the distance effect by applying signal detection theory (SDT) to a magnitude comparison task. We aimed to reveal whether discrimination ability and the response bias measures were affected by the location of numbers on the MNL. To accomplish this, we developed a magnitude comparison task using a go/no-go procedure in which participants performed a magnitude comparison based on a reference number (i.e., 5). Results revealed a substantial distance effect in both sensitivity and response bias measures-a better discrimination performance for far numbers, and a larger response bias for close numbers. In addition, an RT distribution analysis revealed that the distance effect seems to originate mainly from slower responses. Based on the current data, we suggest that sensitivity and response bias measures could offer comprehensive information in the understanding of number-based decisions.

Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Triangular Love Scale in 25 Countries.

The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were based on a sample of 7332 participants from 25 countries (from all inhabited continents). We tested configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, all of which confirmed the cultural universality of the theoretical construct of love analyzed in our study. We also observed that levels of love components differ depending on relationship duration, following the dynamics suggested in the Triangular Theory of Love. Supplementary files with all our data, including results on love intensity across different countries along with STLS versions adapted in a few dozen languages, will further enable more extensive research on the Triangular Theory of Love.

Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.

Contrasting Computational Models of Mate Preference Integration Across 45 Countries.

Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across these many preference dimensions into summaries of the overall mate value of their potential mates. Here we explore the computational design of this mate preference integration process using a large sample of n = 14,487 people from 45 countries around the world. We combine this large cross-cultural sample with agent-based models to compare eight hypothesized models of human mating markets. Across cultures, people higher in mate value appear to experience greater power of choice on the mating market in that they set higher ideal standards, better fulfill their preferences in choice, and pair with higher mate value partners. Furthermore, we find that this cross-culturally universal pattern of mate choice is most consistent with a Euclidean model of mate preference integration.

Compatibility Between Physical Stimulus Size - Spatial Position and False Recognitions.

Magnitude processing is of great interest to researchers because it requires integration of quantity related information in memory regardless of whether the focus is numerical or non-numerical magnitudes. The previous work has suggested an interplay between pre-existing semantic information about number-space relationship in processes of encoding and recall. Investigation of the compatibility between physical stimulus size - spatial position and false recognition may provide valuable information about the cognitive representation of non-numerical magnitudes. Therefore, we applied a false memory procedure to a series of non-numerical stimulus pairs. Three versions of the pairs were used: big-right (a big character on the right/a small character on the left), big-left (a big character on the left/a small character on the right), and equal-sized (an equal sized character on each side). In the first phase, participants (N = 100) received 27 pairs, with nine pairs from each experimental condition. In the second phase, nine pairs from each of three stimulus categories were presented: (1) original pairs that were presented in the first phase, (2) mirrored pairs that were horizontally flipped versions of the pairs presented in the first phase, and (3) novel pairs that had not been presented before. The participants were instructed to press "YES" for the pairs that they remembered seeing before and to press "NO" for the pairs that they did not remember from the first phase. The results indicated that the participants made more false-alarm responses by responding "yes" to the pairs with the bigger one on the right. Moreover, they responded to the previously seen figures with the big one on the right faster compared to their distracting counterparts. The study provided evidence for the relationship between stimulus physical size and how they processed spatially by employing a false memory procedure. We offered a size-space compatibility account based on the congruency between the short- and long-term associations which produce local compatibilities. Accordingly, the compatible stimuli in the learning phase might be responsible for the interference, reflecting a possible short-term interference effect on congruency between the short- and long-term associations. Clearly, future research is required to test this speculative position.

Corrigendum: Marital Satisfaction, Sex, Age, Marriage Duration, Religion, Number of Children, Economic Status, Education, and Collectivistic Values: Data from 33 Countries.

[This corrects the article on p. 1199 in vol. 8, PMID: 28785230.].

The Associations of Dyadic Coping and Relationship Satisfaction Vary between and within Nations: A 35-Nation Study.

OBJECTIVE: Theories about how couples help each other to cope with stress, such as the systemic transactional model of dyadic coping, suggest that the cultural context in which couples live influences how their coping behavior affects their relationship satisfaction. In contrast to the theoretical assumptions, a recent meta-analysis provides evidence that neither culture, nor gender, influences the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, at least based on their samples of couples living in North America and West Europe. Thus, it is an open questions whether the theoretical assumptions of cultural influences are false or whether cultural influences on couple behavior just occur in cultures outside of the Western world. METHOD: In order to examine the cultural influence, using a sample of married individuals (N = 7973) from 35 nations, we used multilevel modeling to test whether the positive association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction varies across nations and whether gender might moderate the association. RESULTS: RESULTS reveal that the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction varies between nations. In addition, results show that in some nations the association is higher for men and in other nations it is higher for women. CONCLUSIONS: Cultural and gender differences across the globe influence how couples' coping behavior affects relationship outcomes. This crucial finding indicates that couple relationship education programs and interventions need to be culturally adapted, as skill trainings such as dyadic coping lead to differential effects on relationship satisfaction based on the culture in which couples live.