TY - JOUR
T1 - Men say "I love you" before women do
T2 - robust across several countries
AU - Watkins, Christopher D.
AU - Bovet, Jeanne
AU - Fernandez, Ana Maria
AU - Leongómez, Juan David
AU - Zelazniewicz, Agnieszka
AU - Correa Varella, Marco Antonio
AU - Wagstaff, Danielle
N1 - Funding Information:
In alphabetical order, we are grateful to the following for support of the work: Carlota Batres, Graeme Bletcher, Samuela Bolgan, Martha Lucia Borras Guevara, Clare Cunningham, Jitka Fialova, Amanda Hahn, Corinne Jola, Max Korbmacher, Colin McLean, Tomaso Querci, Gislene Rocha, Elena Rusconi, Alexandre Schwob, and Zuzana Sterbova. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022/6/1
Y1 - 2022/6/1
N2 - Feeling and expressing love is at the core of romantic relationships, but individuals differ in their proclivity to worry about their relationships and/or avoid intimacy. Saying “I love you” signals a commitment to a future with our romantic partner. Contrary to gender stereotypes, research in the United States demonstrates that men are more likely to confess love first. We aimed to replicate this sex difference in an online cross-national sample (seven countries, three continents), while testing for variation according to attachment style and environment (the national sex ratio). Men were more likely to confess love first in a relationship, with preliminary evidence that this was more likely when men had more choice (more female-biased sex ratio). Independent of biological sex, highly avoidant respondents were less happy to hear “I love you” than less avoidant respondents, and highly anxious respondents were happier to hear “I love you” than less anxious respondents. Our findings suggest that prior observations generalize beyond an ethnically homogenous sample and incorporate attachment theory into the study of love confessions. Our research suggests a dissociation between initial declarations of love (moderated by biological sex) and emotional responses to love confessions, moderated by attachment style but not by biological sex.
AB - Feeling and expressing love is at the core of romantic relationships, but individuals differ in their proclivity to worry about their relationships and/or avoid intimacy. Saying “I love you” signals a commitment to a future with our romantic partner. Contrary to gender stereotypes, research in the United States demonstrates that men are more likely to confess love first. We aimed to replicate this sex difference in an online cross-national sample (seven countries, three continents), while testing for variation according to attachment style and environment (the national sex ratio). Men were more likely to confess love first in a relationship, with preliminary evidence that this was more likely when men had more choice (more female-biased sex ratio). Independent of biological sex, highly avoidant respondents were less happy to hear “I love you” than less avoidant respondents, and highly anxious respondents were happier to hear “I love you” than less anxious respondents. Our findings suggest that prior observations generalize beyond an ethnically homogenous sample and incorporate attachment theory into the study of love confessions. Our research suggests a dissociation between initial declarations of love (moderated by biological sex) and emotional responses to love confessions, moderated by attachment style but not by biological sex.
U2 - 10.1177/02654075221075264
DO - 10.1177/02654075221075264
M3 - Article
VL - 39
SP - 2134
EP - 2153
JO - Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
JF - Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
SN - 0265-4075
IS - 7
ER -
