Aug+Sep 2025: Community-building, Love Project Updates, & Social Media!

You might notice that our website looks a little different…that’s because we have renamed our lab to the HEART Lab (Human Emotion And Relationships across Time & Culture)! The past two months at the HEART Lab have been filled with community, creativity, and a lot of qualitative coding. 

We were excited to finally get together for an in-person lab gathering, giving us the chance to connect outside of our usual research setting. It was a great reminder that collaboration is at the heart of our work. 

We had a lot of fun filming “Vogue-style” interviews to give everybody a glimpse into our Love in Everyday life research, which investigates the different scenarios that make people feel loved. You will be able to watch this reels video on our brand new Instagram @psych_heartlab! Follow us for updates on our projects, behind-the-scenes insights, and highlights from our findings. 

Love is in the little things… Watch how people describe the everyday moments that make them feel loved 💖 At the HEART Lab at Claremont Graduate University in California, we study these very moments. Our research explores how people across cultures and relationships experience and express love in daily life - from small gestures to life-changing bonds. 💭What about you? How do you feel loved in everyday life? Share below 👇
Meet the HEART Lab Team! Swipe through to see a few of our amazing Research Assistants and our Principal Investigator. To learn more about everybody’s exciting research projects and to meet the rest of the team, check out our website in the bio
Meet the HEART Lab Team! Swipe through to see a few of our amazing Research Assistants and our Principal Investigator. To learn more about everybody’s exciting research projects and to meet the rest of the team, check out our website in the bio!
Welcome to the HEART Lab 💟! We explore how love, emotions, and human connection shape well-being across cultures and throughout the lifespan. Follow along as we share our research process, findings, and journey in the psychological exploration of lo
Welcome to the HEART Lab 💟! We explore how love, emotions, and human connection shape well-being across cultures and throughout the lifespan. Follow along as we share our research process, findings, and journey in the psychological exploration of love.
Love is in the little things… Watch how people describe the everyday moments that make them feel loved 💖 At the HEART Lab at Claremont Graduate University in California, we study these very moments. Our research explores how people across cu
Meet the HEART Lab Team! Swipe through to see a few of our amazing Research Assistants and our Principal Investigator. To learn more about everybody’s exciting research projects and to meet the rest of the team, check out our website in the bio Welcome to the HEART Lab 💟! We explore how love, emotions, and human connection shape well-being across cultures and throughout the lifespan. Follow along as we share our research process, findings, and journey in the psychological exploration of lo

As summer wraps up, we’re also excited to share a major milestone in our study on Love in Everyday Life in Spain. Not only have we completed the qualitative coding of over 100 interviews and focus groups, but we have also finished quantitative data collection with a representative sample across Spain. These two phases are now coming together in our mixed methods design.

The thematic content analysis of the interviews gave us a rich understanding of the everyday scenarios in which people feel loved, and these insights directly informed the items we tested in our quantitative survey. We are now moving into the analytic phase, applying Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT) with Bayesian psychometric modeling to examine the extent to which people in Spain share common beliefs about love. This next stage will allow us to identify both the cultural patterns of agreement and the unique ways individuals differ in how they understand and experience love.

We look forward to sharing the results of this analysis in the months to come, as these findings will provide a critical foundation for developing culturally grounded measures of love and for comparing shared beliefs across the different countries in our larger cross-cultural project.

— The HEART Lab Team

July 2025: “Expressing Love Predicts Feeling Loved in Daily Life” Media Features!

Image Credit: Lindy Williams, Individualized Modeling of Processes in Emotion and Cognition (IMPEC) Lab

Access the research study here.

New research article “How much we express love predicts how much we feel loved in daily life” has been recently been published in the online research journal, PLOS One. This work was authored by Project Team Members Lindy Williams, Saida Heshmati, and Zita Oravecz, along with co-authors Sharon H. Kim, Yanling Li, Joachim Vandekerckhove, and Robert W. Roeser. The research investigated the reciprocal dynamics of feeling and expressing love and its relation to well-being using an ecological momentary assessment design.

Access research article (Open-Access journal) with this link:

There has also been press releases and media coverage for this research article, as well as mention of the Templeton Project!

Recently, Saida Heshmati was featured on a podcast for The Last Show with David Cooper, which is a variety talk show podcast that features an eclectic group of guests that span a variety of professional backgrounds and covers a wide array of topics. Specifically, Dr. Saida Heshmati was part of the episode “Revenge Donations - July 10, 2025.” In this episode, Dr. Heshmati discussed with host David Cooper the basics of the primary findings of the newly published research study as well as the general research on love in daily life that is being investigated in this Templeton Project. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts (Dr. Heshmati is featured starting at the 1 hour and 14 minute mark) here:

Moreover, this publication has also had several media features (e.g., news outlets AOL, Yahoo News, EurekAlert). See all media features here: https://plos.altmetric.com/details/178779251/news

June 2025: Recap of Symposium Presentation at APS 2025

Pictured (left to right): Lindy Williams, Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa, and Andrew Villamil

Last month (May 23, 2025), the Research Team was invited to present a research symposium at the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Conference in Washington, D.C. The symposium was chaired by Dr. Saida Heshmati, with Dr. Zita Oravecz serving as discussant. The symposium featured three presentations:

  • “What Makes Older Adults Feel Loved in Everyday Life” – presented by Lindy Williams, et al.

  • “Do U.S. Immigrants Come to a Unique Consensus on What It Means to Feel Loved?” – presented by Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa & Saida Heshmati

  • “What Does It Mean to Feel Loved in Spain? A Cultural Consensus Theory Approach” – presented by Andrew Villamil, et al.

A Brief Overview of the Talks

What Makes Older Adults Feel Loved in Everyday Life?

Lindy Williams provided a brief overview of past Cultural Consensus Theory research on love with samples of U.S. adults and young adults. Then, she discussed the empirical findings from recent research on a sample of over 400 older adults (above the age of 65 years). Based on the study by Williams and colleagues, older adults do indeed come to a consensus on what everyday life experiences make most people feel loved when presented with over 60 items on the Felt Love Questionnaire. The top three experiences most highly agreed upon as "loving were “someone cares for them when they are sick,” “a child snuggles up to them,” and “someone tells them: ‘I love you,’” which are also highly agreed upon in the general U.S. population of adults and also for a sample of younger adults (age 18–25).

Do U.S. Immigrants Come to a Unique Consensus on What It Means to Feel Loved?

Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa presented findings from recent CCT empirical research on a sample of over 200 U.S. immigrants. Using the same set of items from the Felt Love Questionnaire, Rombaoa found that U.S. immigrants reach a similar consensus on what experiences constitute “love” in daily life. However, certain scenarios were not congruent with the general U.S. population, such as “someone insists to spend all their time with them” (loving for immigrants, non-loving for general population) and “they hear or sing their country’s national anthem” (non-loving for immigrants, loving for the general population).

“What Does It Mean to Feel Loved in Spain? A Cultural Consensus Theory Approach

Andrew Villamil gave an overview of the methods and results from the qualitative research data collection in Spain earlier this year, as well as a general overview of the 5-year Project plan for the six target countries (Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Kenya). In this presentation, Villamil presented results from the qualitative data analyses and noted emergent themes salient in Spain, such as: “strong emphasis on family,” “passionate physical expression,” “community solidarity,” and “group belonging.” Findings from the qualitative data analyses informed how the Team on how to revise and refine the Felt Love Questionnaire for the upcoming Spanish quantitative data collection via Qualtrics during this month and next.

You can access the slides (PDF) for the talks here, and see photos from APS below!

This summer, we’re continuing to code our interviews and are wrapping up quantitative data collection of our Spain sample.

And as always, thank you for following our journey of love across cultures.

Apr+May 2025: Progress, Presentations, and Preparing for What’s Next

Spring is in full bloom, and so is our project! After months of dedication and hard work, we're excited to share that all translations and transcriptions are officially complete. With guidance we previously received from experts at UC Berkeley and Rice University, we’ve now entered the qualitative coding phase of our research. Using ATLAS.ti, we’re carefully analyzing the interviews and focus groups, pulling out insights about how love is experienced and expressed in the Spanish culture. 


This month also brought a few exciting opportunities to share our work with the world:

Saida Heshmati displaying positive emotions to the audience while giving her talk on the power of positive emotions! :)

At the Western Positive Psychology Association (WPPA) Conference in Sacramento,CA on April 4, 2025, Dr. Saida Heshmati was invited as a keynote speaker. She presented on positive emotions and love in a talk titled “The Power of Positive Emotions.”

*Photos courtesy of Shari Young Kuchenbecker, available online at https://wppanetwork.org/wppa-9th-annual-conference-april-4-6-2025-sacramento-ca/

Our very own lab manager, Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa, gave a guest lecture for an undergraduate course at Chapman University in Orange, California, on April 28, 2025. He was invited to give a guest lecture and critical thinking discussion on the construct of love in psychological science for the course, PSY 201: Critical Thinking. They discussed popular culture beliefs about love (e.g., love languages) versus love as it is studied by scientists in the fields of relationship science and psychology. Jaymes also provided an overview of major conceptualizations of love. The guest lecture also involved an in-class activity and discussion of the Felt Love Questionnaire (FLQ), with discussions on what it means to feel loved in daily life, cultural differences, and whether the class itself could come to a consensus on certain scenarios of Love from the FLQ.

At the Western Psychological Association (WPA) Conference in Las Vegas on May 3rd, 2025, Dr. Saida Heshmati was honored as a Presidential Speaker. Her talk, “New Directions in Cultural & Cross-Cultural Research on Love," explored the emerging work from our lab and highlighted the importance of culturally grounded approaches to studying love.

Photos courtesy of Shari Young Kuchenbecker, available at https://westernpsych.org/2025-convention-photos-6155/

A lively crowd after the talk—discussing the love research even further!

As we move into summer, we’re continuing to code our interviews and look forward to digging even deeper into the data with the start of the quantitative phase of our project. Stay tuned for more exciting updates around the corner! We also plan to dedicate our June blog post specifically to our upcoming late-May symposium presentation at the Association for Psychological Science 2025 Annual Convention!

And as always, thank you for following our journey of love across cultures.

Mar 2025: Welcoming Spring and New Beginnings

As the last few days of March pass by, the start of spring brushes on and drives our team to celebrate new beginnings—both in our research and in the world around us.

We are excited to share that our work has been and will be presented at various research conferences!

Saida’s pre-recorded presentation at the International Institute of Love Studies.

On March 14th, Saida gave a recorded talk at the International Institute of Love Studies’ Second Conference on Love Studies (Online), followed by a live Q&A session. This presentation was part of thematic panel session called “Experiences and Expressions of Love.” You can view her talk here and details about the Abstract at The Diversity of Love Journal.

We have a symposium session accepted to be held at the 2025 Annual APS (Association for Psychological Science) Convention in Washington, D.C., USA!  Saida Heshmati (Chair) and Zita Oravecz (Discussant) will co-lead the symposium, with three research talks by Lindy Williams, Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa, and Andrew Villamil. Our team members will have the opportunity to present research related to cultural consensus beliefs on love for older adults (Williams), U.S. immigrants (Rombaoa), and new empirical findings from our research in Spain (Villamil).

This month also marks the first day of spring and Persian New Year (Nowruz), a time of renewal, love, and fresh starts. Rooted in over 3,000 years of tradition, Nowruz celebrated the arrival of spring and the promise of new growth and connection. It is a time for families to gather and share meals, gifts, and beautiful moments together. Much like our research on love, this holiday reminds us that love flourishes in the moments we share with one another, in traditions that bring people together, and in the renewal of connections.

As we embrace the new season and the opportunities it brings, we’re also wrapping up transcriptions and translations of interviews from our time in Spain and preparing for the next steps in our project. Stay tuned—exciting updates are on the way!

Feb 2025: See our Media Features from February!

Hello everyone!

We wanted to share that we now have a “Media Features” link [https://www.heshmatiwellbeinglab.com/love-project-media] in our website navigation that will contain media features (e.g., podcasts, interviews, press releases) related to the project and our team members.

Currently, we have two features from February to highlight!

Saida Heshmati and Podcast host, Juan José Candón

1. Research Team Featured on Hablamos Del Amor Podcast [Feb 12, 2025]

Last month (Jan 2025) in Madrid, Spain, the research team (PI Saida Heshmati, PhD Students Jaymes Paolo Rombaoa and Andrew Villamil, and collaborators Pandelis Perakakis and Carmen Goicoechea) serendipitously met and connected with a local Spanish podcaster, Juan José Candón. He hosts a podcast called Hablamos Del Amor Con Juan José Candón [translated: “Let’s Talk About Love with Juan José Candón]; see website here.

Since the podcast was literally about love, we found it such an opportune moment to share our research and thoughts on love from psychological science and cultural perspectives.

In Season 2025 Episode 3 (February 12, 2025), Saida Heshmati and Andrew Villamil are featured. As a note, the Podcast episode is in Spanish. When Juan interviews Saida, there is a Spanish-dubbed voiceover of her responses; Andrew speaks primarily in Spanish for the interview.

You can listen to the full podcast episode on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, or you can watch the YouTube version.

2. Zita Oravecz Interview with PennState News [Feb 11, 2025]

Co-PI Zita Oravecz was interviewed by Pennsylvania State University News on the topics of how people express and feel love in their daily lives and the connection to mental health and well-being. Dr. Oravecz discusses the concept of love, how it’s defined, the primary indicators of love, and how love is expressed and felt. In the interview, Zita summarizes the findings of several past studies on love, and discusses expressing and experiencing love in relation to a holiday such as Valentine’s Day and how love can go beyond the romantic context (e.g., “Galentine’s Day” from Parks and Recreation).

Read the full interview here: https://www.psu.edu/news/health-and-human-development/story/qa-does-expressing-love-make-us-feel-more-love?utm_audience=Students&utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Penn%20State%20Today&utm_content=02-11-2025-21-13&utm_term=Research%20-%201

Credit: Olga Kaya/Getty Images. All Rights Reserved.

Jan 2025: January in Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸 : Research, Culture, and Connection

Logs of Love Jan 2025

Spain, Madrid

This January, our research team—Project Leaders Saida and Zita, along with graduate students Andrew and Jaymes—had the incredible opportunity to spend three weeks in Madrid, Spain. They spent their time in Spain fully immersing themselves in the culture of love in everyday life for the Spanish people while collecting data for the project. We are beyond grateful for the warm welcome and support from our Spain collaborators at the Complutense University of Madrid, especially Professor Pandelis Perakakis and mentee (newly minted PhD) Carmen Goicoechea, whose expertise and assistance have been invaluable.

During our time in Madrid, we conducted 14 focus groups and 54 interviews for a total of 100 participants from diverse backgrounds spanning across the lifespan, genders, relationship preferences, sexual orientations, occupations, and regions of Spain. We gathered rich insights into how love is experienced and expressed in the everyday life of Spanish people. Moreover, as part of our fieldwork we fully immersed ourselves in the Spanish culture, which included local plazas, delicious food, the city's breathtaking sights, and observing soccer (fútbol) fans cheering for their favorite team.

As January comes to an end, our team is heading back home to begin the next phase of the project. February will be dedicated to transcribing and translating our audio data and eventually preparing for qualitative coding and analysis. We’re excited to dive deeper into our findings and share what we’ve learned in the coming months.

Stay tuned—there’s so much more to come!

Some (of the many) pictures we took while in Madrid, Spain! 📸

Sep 2024: Welcome to Our Project Blog, Where Science Meets the Heart!

Sep 2024: Welcome to Our Project Blog, Where Science Meets the Heart!

Hello everyone, and welcome to our blog page! We’re thrilled to get started and share monthly updates, fun tidbits, and exciting scientific findings from our project on love. Whether you’re a fellow scientist or a curious mind, you’ll find something you’ll enjoy here. We promise to keep things interesting, informative, and illuminating. So grab your favorite snack and dive in with us!

FOLLOW THE HEART LAB oN INSTAGRAM @PSYCH_HEARTLAB

Follow Dr. Saida Heshmati on Social Media

This publication and project was made possible through the support of Grant #63364 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

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