Saying “I love you” for the first time is an important milestone in any romantic relationship. Although women are traditionally considered more emotional and able to express affection easier than men, a new cross-cultural study has shown that men are usually the first to say “I love you.”
The study authors maintain that previous findings revealed that men from the US tend to confess to being in love first, and the current study was an investigation of whether this is true for other countries.
The research team investigated this theory on a sample of 1428 participants coming from seven countries located on three different continents. The participants reported their demographic data and completed a questionnaire on attachment styles and their experiences with love confessions.
According to the findings, men are quicker to say “I love you,” but the women usually feel the same when they hear the confession. Furthermore, men from countries with a predominantly female population tend to confess first. Consistent with previous research, women reported that their male partners confessed first, which is treated as a potential memory error.
Those avoiding intimacy and closeness in a relationship don’t feel as comfortable when their partner makes a love confession.
The authors confirm that the “male confession bias” found in men from the United States also applies to other cultures. However, the study didn’t include participants from Asia and Africa. The team hopes to include these cultures in their future investigations to be able to make a global generalization.
