It’s summertime ☀️, and although academic classes are officially over, the work of sharing our love research and communicating science effectively does not stop!
Sharing love with The positive psychology Community
Feeling loved has important implications for human flourishing and well-being 🥰. Recently, Saida Heshmati gave an invited keynote talk at the 10th annual Western Positive Psychology Association (WPPA) conference. This event was hosted at Claremont Graduate University with the theme “Flourishing in Challenging Times.” In Saida’s talk, “Feeling Loved Across Cultures,” she discussed the broader Love Across Cultures Project and presented findings from analyses of data collected in Spain 🇪🇸 and Brazil 🇧🇷. (To watch a recording of Saida’s talk, see the video link [Click here])
It was a pleasure to share and discuss the Project with colleagues in the field of positive psychology. The Q&A portion of the talk was especially engaging, providing an opportunity to answer thoughtful questions about the study and connect with audience members interested in culture, love, and well-being. Two PhD students’ (Neda Semsar & Shohreh Shahangian) poster presentations—which used interview data from Spain—won first and second place in the poster contest for this event, too!
Sharing Love Data and Preprints
We also wanted to share that data and preprints based on our research in Spain and Brazil are now available!
Recently, we have shared our love data on The Love Consortium (TLC)’s Dataverse. The TLC Dataverse is an online repository designed to support scientific collaboration on social behavior and relationships. Through this resource, researchers can search for secondary datasets that measure constructs related to love and relationships from leading TLC scientists in the field. We currently have shared deidentified data from both the Spain and Brazil studies, including qualitative interview scripts and quantitative survey responses. If you would like to collaborate or use our data for your next research project, please see the TLC Dataverse website for more instructions on how to gain access. Below are the direct links to our datasets on the Dataverse:
Spain 🇪🇸: Heshmati, Saida; Oravecz, Zita, 2026, "Cultural Models of Everyday Love in Contemporary Spain: A Mixed-Methods Cultural Consensus Study, 2025", https://doi.org/10.15139/S3/M1SCDI, UNC Dataverse, V1
Brazil 🇧🇷: Heshmati, Saida, 2026, "A Mixed-Methods Cultural Investigation of Love in Everyday Life and Well-Being in Contemporary Brazil, 2026", https://doi.org/10.15139/S3/QGMUHT, UNC Dataverse, V1
We have been making strides toward sharing our work with broader audiences in an open science manner. We have an Open Science Framework Project page (https://osf.io/xpdy7/overview) that we will regularly update throughout the duration of this Project. We have also made the first two manuscripts from this Project available as preprints on PsyArXiv. Both manuscripts are based on data collected in Spain. One manuscript presents the main mixed-methods analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data using a Cultural Consensus Theory framework. The second manuscript investigates individual differences in shared agreement beliefs based on various factors, such as gender, personality traits, and personal values. Please note that, because these are preprints, they have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals, so there may be differences between them and the final published versions. Below are the PsyArXiv preprint links:
(1) Mixed-Methods CCT Spain: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/92n6c_v1
Heshmati, S., Rombaoa, J. P., Williams, L., Hussein, D., Goicoechea, C., Villamil, A., Oselio, C., Salamati, S., Abramson, C. M., Sánchez-Jankowski, M., Anders, R., Perakakis, P., Donaldson, S., Fredrickson, B. L., & Oravecz, Z. (2026). Cultural models of everyday love in contemporary Spain: A mixed-methods cultural consensus study. PsyArXiv. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/92n6c_v1
(2) Individual Differences: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/xrz42_v1
Heshmati, S., Williams, L., Hussein, D., Rombaoa, J. P., Anders, R., & Oravecz, Z. (2026). Individual differences in cultural attunement and evaluative style. PsyArXiv. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/xrz42_v1
Sharing The FLQ Tool
Lastly, we wanted to draw attention to a new section for the Felt Love Questionnaires (FLQ) on the Lab Website under Resources (main page navigation bar). There, we provide a guide for researchers interested in using the Felt Love Questionnaires that have been developed and used to date in research on love in everyday life. Currently available are the FLQ-US, FLQ-Spain, and FLQ-Brazil. This page will be regularly updated as we develop and refine the FLQs for each culture and as the Project progresses.
Looking ahead…
As we look ahead, we are excited to continue expanding the Love Across Cultures Project. We are currently writing up the mixed-methods Cultural Consensus Theory manuscript based on the Brazil data and preparing for the next phase of data collection, with upcoming travel to Japan 🇯🇵 in late July 2026. We look forward to continuing this work and sharing more updates as the Project grows across cultural contexts.
