About

Maria Gendron, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. in 2013 from Boston College. Her research focuses on emotions, which she considers to sit at an important nexus in psychological science, influencing our experiences, behavior, human bonding, relationships, health, and wellbeing. Her lab aims to describe and unpack the sources of diversity in emotional phenomena, examining how social, cognitive, and cultural processes influence emotional experience and perception. Her work is motivated by the idea that emotional phenomena emerge from multiple, interacting, domain-general systems, including the functioning of the conceptual and semantic system. She adopts a multidisciplinary approach, integrating concepts from social-cultural psychology and affective neuroscience, and employs a variety of methods such as laboratory experiments, ambulatory data collection, and cross-cultural fieldwork.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Social psychology
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Cognitive science
• Evolutionary biology
• Biology
• Neuroscience
• Communication
• Geography

Selected publications

• Development and Validation of the Broadened Fear of Being Single (B-FOBS) Scale: A Brief Measure for Use Across Relationship Statuses

  PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · 2026-03-11

  preprintOpen access

  Fear of being single (FOBS) refers to concern, anxiety, or distress about being without a romantic partner. The legacy measure of FOBS (Spielmann et al., 2013) has limited temporal scope, embeds assumptions about antecedents within item content, and requires separate versions for single and partnered individuals. We therefore developed and validated the 8-item Broadened Fear of Being Single (B-FOBS) scale, an assumption-free measure that captures both present- and future-focused FOBS and functions equivalently across relationship statuses. Across five independent samples (total N = 2,607), an EFA sample (n = 498) supported a two-factor structure, which was confirmed via CFA in another sample (n = 702) with excellent fit and measurement invariance across age, gender, relationship status, and sexual orientation. We also found strong convergent and discriminant validity, including specificity to singlehood-relevant constructs beyond the legacy measure, and good 8-week test-retest reliability (n = 486). Demographic comparisons revealed that younger individuals reported higher future-focused FOBS, whereas partnered (vs. single) individuals reported higher present-focused FOBS. An additional sample (n = 665) linked B-FOBS to several theorized antecedents (e.g., singlehood stigma, peer influence, media exposure) and consequences (e.g., settling for less, self-sacrificing, and inauthenticity in dating). A final sample of recently single individuals (n = 256) showed that higher FOBS was associated with greater post-breakup difficulty. Findings support the B-FOBS as a psychometrically robust and inclusive measure for studying FOBS across diverse populations.

  Publisher

• Affective Abstraction Predicts Variation in Alexithymia, Depression, and Autism Spectrum Quotient

  UNC Libraries · 2026-05-02

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Affective abstraction refers to how people conceptualize affective states in terms of category-level representations that generalize across specific situations (e.g., "fear" as evoked by heights, predators, and haunted houses). Here, we develop a novel task for assessing affective abstraction and test its relations with trait alexithymia, depression, and autism spectrum quotient. In a preregistered online study, participants completed a set of tasks in which they matched a cue image with one of two probe images based on similarity of affective experience. In a discrete emotion version of the task, the cue and target probe matched on a discrete emotion category while controlling for valence. In a valence version of the task, the cue and target probe matched on valence (i.e., pleasantness or unpleasantness). We further varied the degree of abstraction such that some judgments crossed semantic categories (e.g., a house cue with animal probes). Accuracy, as indexed by the proportion of choices that accorded with norms, predicted trait measures of alexithymia, depression, and autism quotient with medium effect sizes. We conducted an integrative data analysis by including data from three other (nonpreregistered) samples (<em>N</em> = 435) and found substantial moderation by sampling population (Amazon Mechanical Turk, college students) and partial moderation by gender identity. Additional constraints on generalization include that our sample included predominantly White American adults between the ages of 23 and 64. These results provide preliminary support for the notion that affective abstraction may reflect a transdiagnostic psychological process of broad relevance to individual differences in affective processing.&nbsp;

  PublisherDOI

• Naturalistic expressions require explicit inferences to guide prosocial behavior

  2026-04-27

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Contemporary theories of emotion highlight the fundamental function of emotional expressions in regulating social behavior. Yet, this basic premise relies mostly on studies using posed expressions which may diverge from naturalistic portrayals and invite explicit affective inferences due to their salient symbolic nature. Across three studies (N=1,529), we examined how naturalistic expressions differentially shape affective judgments and prosocial behaviors. Participants watched authentic videos of people in distress expressing typical versus atypical real-life crying vocalizations and either inferred the targets’ affect or donated real money to help them. Perceivers were sensitive to targets’ vocal variation when explicitly inferring affect, but not when making donation decisions without explicit inference instructions. Importantly, when perceivers explicitly inferred affect before donating, their overall donations increased and showed higher sensitivity to vocal variation. Together, these findings suggest that explicit inferential processes are central for establishing the connection between emotional expressions and prosocial behavior in everyday life.

  PublisherDOI

• Development and Validation of the Broadened Fear of Being Single (B-FOBS) Scale: A Brief Measure for Use Across Relationship Statuses

  2026-03-12

  articleOpen access

  Fear of being single (FOBS) refers to concern, anxiety, or distress about being without a romantic partner. The legacy measure of FOBS (Spielmann et al., 2013) has limited temporal scope, embeds assumptions about antecedents within item content, and requires separate versions for single and partnered individuals. We therefore developed and validated the 8-item Broadened Fear of Being Single (B-FOBS) scale, an assumption-free measure that captures both present- and future-focused FOBS and functions equivalently across relationship statuses. Across five independent samples (total N = 2,607), an EFA sample (n = 498) supported a two-factor structure, which was confirmed via CFA in another sample (n = 702) with excellent fit and measurement invariance across age, gender, relationship status, and sexual orientation. We also found strong convergent and discriminant validity, including specificity to singlehood-relevant constructs beyond the legacy measure, and good 8-week test-retest reliability (n = 486). Demographic comparisons revealed that younger individuals reported higher future-focused FOBS, whereas partnered (vs. single) individuals reported higher present-focused FOBS. An additional sample (n = 665) linked B-FOBS to several theorized antecedents (e.g., singlehood stigma, peer influence, media exposure) and consequences (e.g., settling for less, self-sacrificing, and inauthenticity in dating). A final sample of recently single individuals (n = 256) showed that higher FOBS was associated with greater post-breakup difficulty. Findings support the B-FOBS as a psychometrically robust and inclusive measure for studying FOBS across diverse populations.

  PublisherDOI

• Asymmetry in updating of emotion inferences from faces and situations.

  Emotion · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Our inferences about others' emotions often unfold over time as the information accessible to perceivers changes.Yet little is known about these dynamic aspects of emotion inference, including how flexible inferences are with different types of new information.In an integrated analysis of five studies (N total = 925), we examined how people update their inferences of emotions with sequentially unfolding face and situation cues.Using a set of diverse social situations and their portrayals by professional actors, we found robust evidence for an asymmetry in how inferences were updated.People were more likely to update their inference of what emotions someone is feeling and how intensely they are experiencing those emotions when first viewing faces compared to descriptions of situations.This suggests that emotion inferences drawn from faces are more malleable compared to those drawn from social situations, and future work is warranted to understand whether this inflexibility tracks with people's beliefs and behaviors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Theory of Constructed Emotion: More Than a Feeling

  Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2025-05-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access

  A recently published article by van Heijst et al. attempted to reconcile two research approaches in the science of emotion—basic emotion theory and the theory of constructed emotion—by suggesting that the former explains emotions as bioregulatory states of the body whereas the latter explains feelings that arise from those state changes. This bifurcation of emotion into objective physical states and subjective feelings involves three misleading simplifications that fundamentally misrepresent the theory of constructed emotion and prevent progress in the science of emotion. In this article we identify these misleading simplifications and the resulting factual errors, empirical oversights, and evolutionary oversimplifications. We then discuss why such errors will continue to arise until scientists realize that the two theories are intrinsically irreconcilable. They rest on incommensurate assumptions and require different methods of evaluation. Only by directly considering these differences will these research silos in the science of emotion finally dissolve, speeding the accumulation of trustworthy scientific knowledge about emotion that is usable in the real world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Interpersonal correlates of biased and inflexible interpretations in depression and social anxiety

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2025-01-07

  other
  Publisher

• Affective abstraction predicts variation in alexithymia, depression, and autism spectrum quotient.

  Emotion · 2025-04-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  = 435) and found substantial moderation by sampling population (Amazon Mechanical Turk, college students) and partial moderation by gender identity. Additional constraints on generalization include that our sample included predominantly White American adults between the ages of 23 and 64. These results provide preliminary support for the notion that affective abstraction may reflect a transdiagnostic psychological process of broad relevance to individual differences in affective processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Whether Emotions are Engaging or Disengaging Depends on Relationship Functions

  Affective Science · 2025-11-11

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Positive Emotion Perception Bias in Romantic Relationships

  Open MIND · 2025-01-01

  otherOpen access

  This study is part of a larger project called the perception of emotions in everyday relationships (PEER) project. In this study we will examine whether judgements about one's motivation and the relevance of one's partner's positive emotions leads to bias in perceiving a romantic partner's positive emotions, and how this relates to relationship satisfaction.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Basic mechanisms of cultural relativity in emotion perception

  NIH · $183k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa Feldman Barrett

  77 shared

• Kristen A. Lindquist

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  19 shared

• Katie Hoemann

  KU Leuven

  15 shared

• Ajay B. Satpute

  8 shared

• Alyssa N. Crittenden

  University of Nevada, Las Vegas

  5 shared

• Batja Mesquita

  KU Leuven

  5 shared

• Holly Shablack

  Washington and Lee University

  5 shared

• Michael H. Parrish

  University of California, Los Angeles

  5 shared

Labs

• Affective Science and Culture LabPI

Education

• PhD, Psychology

  Boston College

  2013

• MA, Psychology

  Boston College

  2008

• BA, Psychology

  Boston College

  2006