Draft:Bella DePaulo
American social psychologist
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Bella M. DePaulo is an American social psychologist and author known for two distinct bodies of research: deception detection and nonverbal communication, and subsequent coverage examining the stigmatization of single people.
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Harvard University (PhD, 1979)
Bella M. DePaulo | |
|---|---|
| Born | Dunmore, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Known for | Research on deception; popularizing terms "singlism" and "matrimania" as concepts in singles advocacy |
| Awards | James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship (1985–1986) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Vassar College (BA, 1975) Harvard University (PhD, 1979) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Social psychology |
| Institutions | University of Virginia (1979–2003) University of California, Santa Barbara (2000–present) |
| Website | belladepaulo |
DePaulo received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1979 and spent about two decades as a tenured professor at the University of Virginia, before transitioning in the early 2000s to an academic affiliate position at UC Santa Barbara. She has over 150 scholarly publications and more than 33,000 citations.[1]
She established the terms "singlism" (the stereotyping, marginalization, and discrimination against people who are single), and "matrimania" (referring to an exaggerated cultural celebration of marriage and coupling) in the field of research and singles advocacy.[2][3] Her 2003 meta-analysis on cues to deception, published in Psychological Bulletin, has been cited nearly 2,000 times.[4] The Atlantic described her in 2011 as "America's foremost thinker and writer on the single experience."[5]
Biography
DePaulo earned a bachelor's degree at Vassar College in 1975,[6] and a doctorate at Harvard University in 1979.[1] She worked for two decades as a professor at the University of Virginia,[7] before moving to California where she has long been an academic affiliate at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[8] She is also an independent researcher and author,[9] and held an adjunct appointment at Antioch University Santa Barbara.[10]
Authorship
DePaulo is a prolific author, with books published independently or through a number of different publishers. Her first work appeared in 1979, under the title The PONS test manual, a volume in which she served as co-editor. Further books followed in the 1980s connected to the psychology of helping and help-seeking behaviour, and in 1980 the book Deception was published.
Since 2000, DePaulo has devoted herself to books connected to single life and the misconceptions she perceives around singles and their experience of quality of life. In 2006 the book Singled out: how singles are stereotyped, stigmatized, and ignored and still live happily ever after appeared. Four years later, Singlism: what it is, what it matters, and how to stop it was published. DePaulo coined the word singlism in 2010 as a description of stereotypes and discrimination against single people in modern American society.[11] DePaulo considers the notion that singles are selfish to be exaggerations or lies, and points to studies in which singles show greater involvement in community organisations or wider networks of friends.[12]
Among DePaulo's later books are The Best of Single Life (2014) and How We Lie Now: redefining home and family in the 21st century (2015). In 2024, Single at Heart appeared, in which her focus is on people who, according to the research she has conducted, say they are convinced that they are suited to being single. These may be people who live in relationships in which they have their own accommodation and considerable personal freedom, or people who do not live with anyone and are not seeking a committed relationship either.
Around the time of the publication of Single at Heart, DePaulo described herself as a 71-year-old who "has always lived as a single person and always will".[13] She started the blog "Living Single" for Psychology Today in 2008, and has written articles for a number of major American daily newspapers and news magazines.[8]
Draft: Deception research
- "Bella M. DePaulo — Academic Profile". Research.com. Retrieved 2 April 2026.
- DePaulo, Bella M.; Kashy, Deborah A.; Kirkendol, Susan E.; Wyer, Melissa M.; Epstein, Jennifer A. (1996). "Lying in everyday life". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 70 (5): 979–995. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.979.
- Bond, Charles F. Jr.; DePaulo, Bella M. (2006). "Accuracy of deception judgments". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 10 (3): 214–234. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_2. PMID 16859438.
'Singlism' and 'Matrimania'
DePaulo gave the term matrimania its specific technical sense in her 2006 book Singled Out, defining it as the exaggerated cultural celebration of marriage, weddings, and coupling, and describing it as the ideological counterpart to singlism.[14][15] The word itself pre-dates DePaulo's usage.[a] DePaulo is credited with establishing the term's technical meaning within singles advocacy and scholarship, and with giving it wide circulation in that sense.[17][18]
A target article, published as the lead contribution to a 2005 dedicated double issue of Psychological Inquiry, was co-authored by DePaulo and Wendy L. Morris.[2] The article is credited with fully defining the term singlism as "the stereotyping, stigmatizing, marginalizing and discrimination against people who are single" and argued that these attitudes are widely tolerated even when analogous treatment of other groups would be condemned. Ten peer-reviewed commentaries followed in the same issue, with responses from scholars in psychology, sociology, and related disciplines.[19] Though claiming to have coined the term,[3] its use also pre-dates DePaulo's in at least one instance.[b]
Draft: Responses to target article
- Byrne, Anne; Carr, Deborah (2005). "Caught in the cultural lag: The stigma of singlehood". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2–3): 84–91. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447267.
- Pillsworth, Elizabeth G.; Haselton, Martie G. (2005). "The Evolution of Coupling". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2/3): 98–104. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447269.
- Koropeckyj-Cox, Tanya (2005). "Singles, Society, and Science: Sociological Perspectives". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2/3): 91–97. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447268.
- Rook, Karen S.; Zettel, Lisa A. (2005). "The purported benefits of marriage viewed through the lens of physical health". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2–3): 116–121. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447272.
- Williams, Kipling D.; Nida, Steve A. (2005). "Obliviously ostracizing singles". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2–3): 84–141. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447274.
- Crandall, Christian S.; Warner, Ruth H. (2005). "How a prejudice is recognized". Psychological Inquiry. 16 (2–3): 137–141. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682919. JSTOR 20447276.
Some reviewers questioned whether describing singlism as equivalent in character to racism or sexism overstates the severity of singlism. In Singled Out, DePaulo acknowledged that singlism is a comparatively mild form of bias in terms of its consequences for physical safety.[14]
Draft: references supporting use of the word
- "Are single people discriminated against? Many say yes". YouGov. 8 February 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2026.
- Dupuis, Hannah E.; Girme, Yuthika U. (2024). ""Cat Ladies" and "Mama's Boys": A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Gendered Discrimination and Stereotypes of Single Women and Single Men". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. doi:10.1177/01461672231203123. PMC 10860362.
- "Single, divorced, widowed? Social security rules may be working against you". University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. 11 September 2025. Retrieved 5 April 2026.
Other activities
DePaulo has also appeared in other media and gave a TEDx talk in 2017 which, as of 2024, had over a million views.[21][22] She has been interviewed in a wide variety of media, including the public broadcaster NPR.[8]
See also
- Amatonormativity – Assumption that everyone prospers with an exclusive, romantic relationship
Notes
- It appears in a June 2000 New York Times column by Ellen Tien, in the sense of seasonal wedding fever, without attribution to any single coiner[16]