Andrea L Meltzer
Biographic Data
| ID | 100162 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrea L Meltzer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrea L |
| FAMILY NAME | Meltzer |
| SIGNATURE | MELTZER A L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Florida State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4353-2889 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Hormonal Contraceptives and Women’s Mate-Value-Related Traits and Outcomes
People’s perceptions of their mate value—a compilation of characteristics that are desirable to potential partners—functionally guide their mating behaviors. Hormonal contraceptives alter the hormonal profiles linked to some characteristics underlying women’s mate value (e.g., fertility, sociality, potential parenting ability). Thus, relative to naturally cycling women, women using hormonal contraceptives may perceive such characteristics more ne…
Does Sex Today Relieve Stress Tomorrow? Examining Lagged Associations Between Partnered Sexual Activity and Stress Among Newlywed Couples
Women Are Slightly More Sexually Satisfied in Their Romantic Relationships Than Men
Own and Partner Attachment Insecurity Interact to Predict Marital Satisfaction and Dissolution
Conventional wisdom suggests that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Echoing this sentiment, theoretical perspectives on close relationships suggest that the synergistic combination of both partners’ personal qualities can influence relationship outcomes above and beyond the simple additive influence of each partner’s qualities. Yet, empirical research leaves it unclear whether the interactive effects of own and partner attachment in…
Sexual Afterglow
Pioneering research suggested that sexual afterglow (lingering sexual satisfaction following an act of sex) lasts 2 but not 3 days and predicts subsequent relationship satisfaction. Nevertheless, recent research highlights the importance of considering the differential impacts of sexual acceptance and rejection. We used 2-week, daily-diary data from 576 participants to demonstrate that sexual afterglow lasted at least 1 day on average, particular…
Beyond the Binary
The evolved psychology of mate preferences
Adaptive Calibration of Dyadic Sexual Desire Is Sex Differentiated and Disrupted by Hormonal Contraceptives
Virtual speed dating
There is still much to learn about attraction and relationship formation. Here, we introduce an innovative method that utilizes modern technology to permit large‐scale, observational study of dyadic behavior that may yield new empirical insights into how people choose partners and form relationships: virtual speed dating. In doing so, we provide a methodological overview of a recent virtual speed‐dating study that we conducted, and we provide gui…
Sexual Desire is not Partner-Specific
Are changes in marital satisfaction sustained and steady, or sporadic and dramatic
Although prominent theories of intimate relationships, and couples themselves, often conceive of relationships as fluctuating widely in their degree of closeness, longitudinal studies generally describe partners' satisfaction as stable and continuous or as steadily declining over time. The increasing use of group-based trajectory models (GBTMs) to identify distinct classes of change has reinforced this characterization, but these models fail to a…
Perceptions of Infectability to Disease Moderate the Association between Daily Concerns about Contracting Covid-19 and Satisfaction with Sex
Implicit Ambivalence
Implicit ambivalence involves holding strong positive and negative implicit evaluations toward the same object. This state is common in close relationships because even the most satisfying partnerships involve in conflicts and other frustrating experiences that can be explained away through effortful motivated reasoning yet remain in memory as mental representations involving the partner. In fact, it appears normative for implicit measures of par…
Looks and status are still essential
OBJECTIVE: Although the mate preference priority model (MPPM) has advanced our understanding of mate preferences, tests of the MPPM have relied on methods using text labels and thus lack ecological validity. We address this gap by testing the MPPM using J. M. Townsend's profile-based experimental paradigm, which utilizes profiles comprising photos of pre-rated models to manipulate physical attractiveness as well as costumes and descriptions to ma…
Evidence of a Bidirectional Association Between Daily Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction That Is Moderated by Daily Stress
Newlywed Couples’ Own and Partner Sexual Disgust Sensitivities Interact to Predict Their Marital Satisfaction Through Their Sexual Satisfaction
Do people realize how their partners make them feel? Relationship enhancement motives and stress determine the link between implicitly assessed partner attitudes and relationship satisfaction
Do people realize the evaluative feelings that are spontaneously activated by their partner? If so, do they use those evaluations when judging their romantic relationships? To answer these questions, we investigated the association between automatic partner attitudes and judgments of relationship satisfaction in 7 studies. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 86 correlations that revealed a very weak association between implicitly and explicitly assess…
The implications of changing hormonal contraceptive use after relationship formation
Kiss and Makeup? Examining the Co-occurrence of Conflict and Sex
Associations Between Premarital Factors and First-Married, Heterosexual Newlywed Couples’ Frequency of Sex and Sexual Satisfaction Trajectories
Sex is a defining feature of marriage with important implications for marital success. Nevertheless, frequency and quality of sex decline across the early years of marriage. Given many modern-day couples in the U.S. are delaying marriage and thus experiencing many traditional aspects of marriage before their nuptials, the current research explored the extent to which premarital factors such as courtship duration, cohabitation, and children are as…
Sex-Differentiated Changes in Sexual Desire Predict Marital Dissatisfaction
Attraction During Ovulation
Relationship Satisfaction and Commitment
Mate Choice Effects
Attentional and evaluative biases help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity
Two longitudinal studies of 233 newlywed couples suggest that automatic attentional and evaluative biases regarding attractive relationship alternatives can help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity. Both studies assessed participants' tendency to automatically disengage attention from photos of attractive, opposite sex individuals; one study assessed participants' tendency to devalue those individuals by comparing their attractiv…
Sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for the trajectory of marital satisfaction
Do men value physical attractiveness in a mate more than women? Scientists in numerous disciplines believe that they do, but recent research using speed-dating paradigms suggests that males and females are equally influenced by physical attractiveness when choosing potential mates. Nevertheless, the premise of the current work is that sex differences in the importance of physical attractiveness are most likely to emerge in research on long-term r…
Student Ratings of a Male and Female Professors’ Lecture on Sex Discrimination in the Workforce
Sex-Differentiated Changes in Sexual Desire Predict Marital Dissatisfaction
Attentional and evaluative biases help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity
Two longitudinal studies of 233 newlywed couples suggest that automatic attentional and evaluative biases regarding attractive relationship alternatives can help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity. Both studies assessed participants' tendency to automatically disengage attention from photos of attractive, opposite sex individuals; one study assessed participants' tendency to devalue those individuals by comparing their attractiv…
Who is sexually faithful? Own and partner personality traits as predictors of infidelity
Infidelity can have harmful consequences for all those involved. Although prior research has demonstrated some reliable associations between certain personality traits and infidelity, the associations between other personality traits and infidelity are less clear. Moreover, prior research has been limited in addressing the role of partner personality and whether any effects are independent of relationship satisfaction. Thus, we pooled data from t…
Associations Between Premarital Factors and First-Married, Heterosexual Newlywed Couples’ Frequency of Sex and Sexual Satisfaction Trajectories
Sex is a defining feature of marriage with important implications for marital success. Nevertheless, frequency and quality of sex decline across the early years of marriage. Given many modern-day couples in the U.S. are delaying marriage and thus experiencing many traditional aspects of marriage before their nuptials, the current research explored the extent to which premarital factors such as courtship duration, cohabitation, and children are as…
Do people realize how their partners make them feel? Relationship enhancement motives and stress determine the link between implicitly assessed partner attitudes and relationship satisfaction
Do people realize the evaluative feelings that are spontaneously activated by their partner? If so, do they use those evaluations when judging their romantic relationships? To answer these questions, we investigated the association between automatic partner attitudes and judgments of relationship satisfaction in 7 studies. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 86 correlations that revealed a very weak association between implicitly and explicitly assess…
Are changes in marital satisfaction sustained and steady, or sporadic and dramatic
Although prominent theories of intimate relationships, and couples themselves, often conceive of relationships as fluctuating widely in their degree of closeness, longitudinal studies generally describe partners' satisfaction as stable and continuous or as steadily declining over time. The increasing use of group-based trajectory models (GBTMs) to identify distinct classes of change has reinforced this characterization, but these models fail to a…
Evidence of a Bidirectional Association Between Daily Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction That Is Moderated by Daily Stress
Newlywed Couples’ Own and Partner Sexual Disgust Sensitivities Interact to Predict Their Marital Satisfaction Through Their Sexual Satisfaction
Who is having more and better sex? The Big Five as predictors of sex in marriage
Men still value physical attractiveness in a long-term mate more than women
Sexual selection theory and parental investment theory suggest that partner physical attractiveness should more strongly affect men's relationship outcomes than women's relationship outcomes. Nevertheless, the contextual nature of this prediction makes serious methodological demands on studies designed to evaluate it. Given these theories suggest that men value observable aspects of partner attractiveness more than women do only in the context of…
Contrast Effects of Stereotypes
The stereotype that men are less nurturing than women frequently leads people to evaluate men less favorably than they evaluate equivalent women in situations that require nurturance and care. Nevertheless, theories of expectancy-violation suggest that such stereotypes may lead people to evaluate men who are unambiguously nurturing in such situations more positively than they evaluate equivalent women. Consistent with predictions, participants ev…
Kiss and Makeup? Examining the Co-occurrence of Conflict and Sex
Student Ratings of a Male and Female Professors’ Lecture on Sex Discrimination in the Workforce
Marriages Are More Satisfying When Wives Are Thinner Than Their Husbands
Body weight plays a significant role in attraction and relationship formation, but does it continue to shape more established relationships? The current 4-year longitudinal study of 169 newlywed couples addressed this question by examining the implications of own and partner body mass index (BMI) for the trajectory of marital satisfaction. In contrast to findings from studies of attraction and mate selection, own and partner BMI demonstrated inco…
Contrast Effects of Stereotypes
The stereotype that men are less nurturing than women frequently leads people to evaluate men less favorably than they evaluate equivalent women in situations that require nurturance and care. Nevertheless, theories of expectancy-violation suggest that such stereotypes may lead people to evaluate men who are unambiguously nurturing in such situations more positively than they evaluate equivalent women. Consistent with predictions, participants ev…
“Tell me I'm sexy . . . and otherwise valuable”
Although extant research demonstrates that body valuation by strangers has negative implications for women, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that body valuation by a committed male partner is positively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner also values them for their nonphysical qualities, but negatively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner is not committed or does not value them for their n…
Men still value physical attractiveness in a long-term mate more than women
Sexual selection theory and parental investment theory suggest that partner physical attractiveness should more strongly affect men's relationship outcomes than women's relationship outcomes. Nevertheless, the contextual nature of this prediction makes serious methodological demands on studies designed to evaluate it. Given these theories suggest that men value observable aspects of partner attractiveness more than women do only in the context of…
Sex differences in the implications of partner physical attractiveness for the trajectory of marital satisfaction
Do men value physical attractiveness in a mate more than women? Scientists in numerous disciplines believe that they do, but recent research using speed-dating paradigms suggests that males and females are equally influenced by physical attractiveness when choosing potential mates. Nevertheless, the premise of the current work is that sex differences in the importance of physical attractiveness are most likely to emerge in research on long-term r…
Telling Women That Men Desire Women With Bodies Larger Than the Thin-Ideal Improves Women’s Body Satisfaction
One source of women’s body dissatisfaction appears to be the media’s suggestion that men desire extremely thin women. Thus, three independent experiments examined whether reversing this suggestion would improve women’s weight satisfaction. In all three studies, women viewed images of female models with bodies larger than the thin-ideal. Women who were randomly assigned to be told that men found those models attractive experienced increased weight…
Who is having more and better sex? The Big Five as predictors of sex in marriage
Attraction During Ovulation
Relationship Satisfaction and Commitment
Mate Choice Effects
Attentional and evaluative biases help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity
Two longitudinal studies of 233 newlywed couples suggest that automatic attentional and evaluative biases regarding attractive relationship alternatives can help people maintain relationships by avoiding infidelity. Both studies assessed participants' tendency to automatically disengage attention from photos of attractive, opposite sex individuals; one study assessed participants' tendency to devalue those individuals by comparing their attractiv…
Who is sexually faithful? Own and partner personality traits as predictors of infidelity
Infidelity can have harmful consequences for all those involved. Although prior research has demonstrated some reliable associations between certain personality traits and infidelity, the associations between other personality traits and infidelity are less clear. Moreover, prior research has been limited in addressing the role of partner personality and whether any effects are independent of relationship satisfaction. Thus, we pooled data from t…
Associations Between Premarital Factors and First-Married, Heterosexual Newlywed Couples’ Frequency of Sex and Sexual Satisfaction Trajectories
Sex is a defining feature of marriage with important implications for marital success. Nevertheless, frequency and quality of sex decline across the early years of marriage. Given many modern-day couples in the U.S. are delaying marriage and thus experiencing many traditional aspects of marriage before their nuptials, the current research explored the extent to which premarital factors such as courtship duration, cohabitation, and children are as…
Sex-Differentiated Changes in Sexual Desire Predict Marital Dissatisfaction
The implications of changing hormonal contraceptive use after relationship formation
Kiss and Makeup? Examining the Co-occurrence of Conflict and Sex
Newlywed Couples’ Own and Partner Sexual Disgust Sensitivities Interact to Predict Their Marital Satisfaction Through Their Sexual Satisfaction
Do people realize how their partners make them feel? Relationship enhancement motives and stress determine the link between implicitly assessed partner attitudes and relationship satisfaction
Do people realize the evaluative feelings that are spontaneously activated by their partner? If so, do they use those evaluations when judging their romantic relationships? To answer these questions, we investigated the association between automatic partner attitudes and judgments of relationship satisfaction in 7 studies. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 86 correlations that revealed a very weak association between implicitly and explicitly assess…
Perceptions of Infectability to Disease Moderate the Association between Daily Concerns about Contracting Covid-19 and Satisfaction with Sex
Implicit Ambivalence
Implicit ambivalence involves holding strong positive and negative implicit evaluations toward the same object. This state is common in close relationships because even the most satisfying partnerships involve in conflicts and other frustrating experiences that can be explained away through effortful motivated reasoning yet remain in memory as mental representations involving the partner. In fact, it appears normative for implicit measures of par…
Looks and status are still essential
OBJECTIVE: Although the mate preference priority model (MPPM) has advanced our understanding of mate preferences, tests of the MPPM have relied on methods using text labels and thus lack ecological validity. We address this gap by testing the MPPM using J. M. Townsend's profile-based experimental paradigm, which utilizes profiles comprising photos of pre-rated models to manipulate physical attractiveness as well as costumes and descriptions to ma…
Evidence of a Bidirectional Association Between Daily Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction That Is Moderated by Daily Stress
Are changes in marital satisfaction sustained and steady, or sporadic and dramatic
Although prominent theories of intimate relationships, and couples themselves, often conceive of relationships as fluctuating widely in their degree of closeness, longitudinal studies generally describe partners' satisfaction as stable and continuous or as steadily declining over time. The increasing use of group-based trajectory models (GBTMs) to identify distinct classes of change has reinforced this characterization, but these models fail to a…
Adaptive Calibration of Dyadic Sexual Desire Is Sex Differentiated and Disrupted by Hormonal Contraceptives
Psychology (29 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Developmental psychology (23 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (23 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (17 works) · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification (7 works) · Medicine (7 works) · Sexual behavior (7 works) · Sexual function and dysfunction studies (7 works) · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (6 works)