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Envisioning sexual fantasies as any image or mental settingthat is sexually exciting or erotic for the individual, the present work aims to study the nature of the relationship between sexual fantasies and gender, sexual orientation, and some of the different dimensions of psychological well-being, such as life satisfaction and satisfaction with sex life. The present study was developed through a sample of 569 participants, aged between 18 and 29 years old, obtained by completing a Sociodemographic Questionnaire, Wilson's Sexual Fantasies Questionnaire, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale. The findings revealed that, although there are no statistically significant gender differences concerning the sex drive, there were differences in Exploratory content, favoring the male gender, and BDSM, emphasized by the female gender in comparison. The occurrence of cross-orientation fantasies was also verified, proving to be significant for the heterosexual group for the item "Being much sought after by the same-sex" with women reporting more frequently than men. There was also a significant mediation between Satisfaction with Life and Intimate Fantasies, through Satisfaction with Sex Life. These results reinforce the breadth that sexual fantasies have, both in areas closer to sexual expression (e.g., gender, sexual orientation) and in more peripheral areas (e.g., psychological well-being), proving that sexual fantasies – and their capacity for arousal – relate to one's psychological well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the psychometric characteristics of the Love Attitudes Scale: Short Form (LAS-SF), and the relationship between love style and other romantic relationships constructs in a Portuguese population. The LAS-SF measures six love styles: Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania and Agape, which are grounded on Lee’s theory. This tool is one of the most utilized assessments of love in the literature. There were 1153 Portuguese participants (554 women, mean age = 38 years). Confirmatory factor analyses evidenced that the six latent dimensions of the LAS-SF confirmed an acceptable fit to the data. The internal consistency of the Portuguese form of the LAS-SF was evaluated utilizing Cronbach’s Alpha (for subscales 0.71 to 0.78) and McDonald’s Omega (for subscales 0.71 to 0.79). Eros was positively related to satisfaction with love life, satisfaction with sex life, sexual desire, commitment, and negatively associated with romantic loneliness. Ludic orientation was positively correlated with romantic loneliness and negatively correlated with commitment. Storgic orientation was positively related to commitment. Pragma was positively related to romantic loneliness. Mania was positively related to commitment. Agape was positively correlated with satisfaction with love life and commitment, and negatively correlated with romantic loneliness. Notably, commitment mediated the relationship of the agapic love style and romantic loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various physical characteristics of a partner—visual, auditory, tactile and kinetic, olfactory, and gustatory—can affect human mate choice and romantic attraction. Evolutionary factors, as well as socioeconomic and cultural parameters play their role in these sensory preferences. A series of studies in societies varying in social, economic, and cultural parameters (10 samples in six countries with 2740 participants in total) explored cross-cultural similarities and differences of sensory preferences that people have in their romantic attraction. The results revealed that social development of countries and their cultural parameters allow prediction of preferences of certain sensory parameters in one's romantic partner's appearance. The most general distinctions of sensory preferences are in the societies with different degree of modernization, along with corresponding social and cultural parameters. The stable biologically and evolutionarily determined characteristics of physical appearance, such as smell, skin, body, etc., are important for one's sensory preferences in romantic attraction in less modernized societies, which are characterized by greater power distance, lower individualism, indulgence, and emancipative values. On the other hand, the characteristics of romantic partner's appearance, which are more flexible and easier to change, such as expressive behavior, dress, dance, etc., are more important in more modernized societies with lower Power Distance, high value of Individualism, Indulgence, and Emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We collected international studies that have used the Passionate Love Scale, the Love Attitudes Scale and the Triangular Love Scale in order to check the stability of reliability estimates of these measures across different cultures until mid-2017. We used cultural dimensions to verify if the different love components of these scales could have some cultural effects on their reliabilities. We were able to gather 79 studies from 33 countries representing 32,867 participants. We used a variance stabilizing transformation to compare Cronbach’s alphas estimations, bivariate correlation analysis for confounding and moderator analysis to check for the reliability across demographic information and various test-characteristics. The results indicated that the love dimensions tended to be reliable across studies and countries and were relatively free of cultural influences. Participants across the world tended to evaluate their romantic feelings with similar consistency and these measures should be reliable worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]