{"id":40802192501,"date":"2014-02-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/school-of-science\/-of-relationships-survey-the-dos-and-donts-of-valentines-day\/"},"modified":"2021-07-06T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:39:07","slug":"science-of-relationships-survey-the-dos-and-donts-of-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/science-of-relationships-survey-the-dos-and-donts-of-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Science of Relationships Survey: The Do\u2019s and Don\u2019ts of Valentine\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In conjunction with &#8220;Relationship Science Month,&#8221; Monmouth University Professor Gary W. Lewandowski, Haverford College Professor Benjamin Le, and University of Texas Professor Timothy J. Loving of <a title=\"www.ScienceOfRelationships.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scienceofrelationships.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.ScienceOfRelationships.com<\/a>\u00a0surveyed over 1,000 adults in the United States, representing 49 states, to learn more about what people really think about Valentine&#8217;s Day. This large-scale national survey answers some of the most common questions about Valentine&#8217;s Day.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a sample of some of the interesting things we learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The vast majority of Americans view Valentine&#8217;s Day as &#8220;Just another day,&#8221; with only 24% saying that they &#8220;love&#8221; it. Singles who are looking for a relationship said they love Valentine&#8217;s Day more than singles that aren&#8217;t looking.<\/li>\n<li>Women &#8220;love&#8221; Valentine&#8217;s Day more than men do, while men &#8220;hate&#8221; it more than women do. Women &#8220;love&#8221; it because it&#8217;s an opportunity to receive love and affection. Men &#8220;love&#8221; it because they get to have sex, but not just any kind of sex, &#8220;better than normal&#8221; sex. Men and women who hate Valentine&#8217;s Day blame commercialization.<\/li>\n<li>Most Americans said its ok to go on a first date on Valentine&#8217;s Day. Ok to propose marriage? That isn&#8217;t so clear: 57% said &#8220;yes,&#8221; 43% said &#8220;no (it is gross or clich\u00e9).&#8221; Women thought it was more ok than men.<\/li>\n<li>If you want to break up with your partner, you should do it before Valentine&#8217;s Day (69%). Think you&#8217;re being nice by putting it off until after? You&#8217;re in the minority (29%).<\/li>\n<li>70% of those surveyed indicated both couple members should plan Valentine&#8217;s Day festivities. If only one partner does the planning, it is the guy&#8217;s responsibility.<\/li>\n<li>Flowers on Valentine&#8217;s Day? Red roses are your best bet, carnations are a safe bet, while daisies are a bad bet since they were ranked as the worst choice. Thinking of going for a more exotic choice?\u00a0 It&#8217;s risky. 15% of those surveyed ranked &#8220;something exotic&#8221; (e.g., orchids) as their most preferred, but 17% ranked it as their least favorite.<\/li>\n<li>The top three gifts women want for Valentine&#8217;s Day are jewelry (35%), flowers (24%), or a heartfelt card\/gift (10%). Men want sex (44%), thoughtful card (9%), and &#8220;other&#8221; (14%; ex. Video game). And nobody wants a gag gift or a pet.<\/li>\n<li>You should spend between $26 and $159 dollars on a gift. If you plan on spending toward the lower end of that range, perhaps you&#8217;re in love. People who reported being in love were willing to spend <em>less<\/em>\u00a0than those not in love.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For other ScienceOfRelationships.com articles depicting the science of Valentine&#8217;s Day, the site includes research-based information about bad gifts to give, reasons for giving gifts, the perfect Valentine&#8217;s date, advice for singles, how Valentine&#8217;s Day could threaten your relationship, and the science of Valentine&#8217;s Day cards.<\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"ScienceOfRelationships.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scienceofrelationships.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ScienceOfRelationships.com<\/a>\u00a0website, read by millions of visitors, examines relationship themes in pop culture, provides engaging summaries of cutting-edge research, and answers common questions that people have about relationships. Common topics include attraction, dating, marriage, sex, cheating\/infidelity, communication, parenting, and break-ups. In each case, scientists incorporate research findings into witty and provocative articles that help readers learn more about one of the most important facets of their lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CONTACT:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To learn more about the Valentine&#8217;s Day Survey results mentioned here, additional results, or the ScienceOfRelationship.com site, please contact:<\/p>\n<p>Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., Ph.D.; Monmouth University; <a href=\"mailto:glewando@monmouth.edu\">glewando@monmouth.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Benjamin Le, Ph.D.; Haverford College; <a href=\"mailto:ble@haverford.edu\">ble@haverford.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Timothy J. Loving, Ph.D.; University of Texas: Austin; <a href=\"mailto:tjloving@utexas.edu\">tjloving@utexas.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This large-scale national survey answers some of the most common questions about Valentine\u2019s Day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"person":[],"audience":[14,17,11,8],"school":[44,26],"program":[],"class_list":["post-40802192501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","mediacontact-petra-ludwig","audience-alumni","audience-community-member","audience-current-student","audience-faculty","school-psychology","school-school-of-humanities-and-social-sciences"],"squareimage":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802192501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802192501"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802192501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802256866,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802192501\/revisions\/40802256866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802192501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802192501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802192501"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=40802192501"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=40802192501"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=40802192501"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=40802192501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}