Had so much fun this week filming a short clip about our lab’s research at the @uniwroc, in one of the most beautiful spots on campus. Feeling very grateful to work with such incredible people - P Sorokowski, SC Roberts, A Sorokowska, M Misiak, A Kusztal, and many others!
Call for papers
Special Issue on Romance and the Internet in Telematics and Informatics is now open for submissions!
Build a deeper understanding of love in the digital age with us.
Submission deadline: 13.10.2026
Link below
2/2 Together with an amazing team from Romania and the USA, we found preliminary evidence that the microbiome is linked to well-being, suggesting that its composition may support salutogenic processes. You can find more here: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
1/2 In the late 1600s, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked into a microscope and saw “small animals” living in his saliva. A few centuries later, we meta-analyzed what those tiny organisms - our microbiome - might mean for our well-being.
Link to the paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Link to the dataset (OSF): osf.io/k54fx/
Interested in love and mate preferences? Our dataset includes responses from 117,293 participants across 175 countries. You're welcome to use it for your own research! Paper and dataset linked below. @ with amazing collaborators from the large-scale cross-cultural consortium <3
Just got back from #HBES2025 - what an absolute blast! Fantastic conference and even more fantastic people and the society. Loved both the big talks and the between-session chats. Only downside? Wish I could clone myself to be in several places at once! :)
20th-century anthropologists called romantic love a Western invention – our new paper, with data from 9 non-WEIRD societies (N = 937), finds high levels of passion, intimacy & commitment everywhere, adding evidence for the universality of love hypothesis. doi.org/10.1016/j.ij...
2/2
Studies: • Longitudinal • Meta-analysis • Large-scale cross-cultural
Stay tuned! Especially for the cross-cultural study, we'll soon be looking for new collaborators to join our growing international consortium (visit: martakowal.com/join)
1/2 I’d be lying if I said I’m a serious, always-composed academic and that hearing about grant funding was no big deal... Well, it was! I'm so thrilled to share that I received SONATA from @NCN_PL!
Topic: Love & well-being
Amount: ~275,000 EUR
Such a tremendous loss... I never had the pleasure of meeting Ellen Berscheid, but her work has had a lasting impact on me. Her legacy shall live on.
The day has finally come... or rather, the 1,227th day. Today, I completed the Spanish course on @duolingoverde.bsky.social
I never thought it would be such a long, fun (and sometimes frustrating:) journey. Entonces, que debo hacer ahora con mi tiempo libre?!
Does a history of infectious diseases shape how we perceive our health? Our preliminary study finds mixed evidence across countries. Some analyses suggest a small positive effect, but overall, no clear link [link to the paper below] @ Amazing Large-Scale Cross-Cultural Team!
We found consistent evidence across two studies (Study 1 N = 61,067 individuals from 81 countries; Study 2 N = 6,620 individuals from 50 countries) that higher individualism predicts lower intensity of experienced love. Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
2/2 Paper: doi.org/10.1007/s105...
The TLS-15 captures love as three core components:
❤️ Intimacy
🔥 Passion
🔗 Commitment
And if you're curious about your own love level you can take the TLS-15 test and see how you compare to people from your country! martakowal.com/tls
1/2 Happy Valentine's Day! Want to study romantic love? Our team validated the TLS-15 - a short, reliable love scale - in 37 languages! You can freely use it in your research. Link to the paper below:
4/4 So what did predict SSRI usage? Unsurprisingly - biological sex and mental health problems. This paper was led by brilliant @@AdamBode4, with no less amazing Fabio Cannas Aghedu & @@Dr_Phil_K as co-authors. You can read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...
3/4 Our findings have important implications for clinical practice. If you’re considering SSRIs for mental health but worried about their impact on your romantic life, this study offers reassurance. SSRIs don’t appear to interfere with the core features of romantic love.
2/4 In our recently published paper, we analyzed data from 810 young adults in love. The results showed that SSRI users and non-users did not differ in intensity of romantic love, obsessive thinking about a loved one, commitment, and frequency of sex!
1/4 Are you considering SSRIs for mental health reasons but you are worried about their impact on your romantic life? For years, researchers speculated that SSRIs might negatively impact romantic love. But, to date, nobody actually tested this! Well, we did. Here's what we found.
