Madeleine Fugère - Professor, Psychological Sciences

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Profile

Professor Fugère is a social psychologist specializing in the areas of human attraction and romantic relationships. She teaches courses in Psychology and in the Honors Program. Her first book, “The Social Psychology of Attraction and Romantic Relationships,” was published in 2015.  She also writes for Psychology Today; her blog is called “Dating and Mating.” Before coming to Eastern, Professor Fugère was a member of the faculty at Lynchburg College. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. In her spare time, Professor Fugère enjoys boating with her family and singing with her rock and roll band.

Teaching philosophy

“My favorite part of teaching is connecting with students, so my classes are very interactive.  My students participate in hands-on activities where we re-enact experiments, engage in class discussions and small group discussions, and apply their learning to real-life situations such as how to effectively respond to prejudicial comments.  We also discuss primary research sources and critically evaluate those research projects.”

Research Interests

“My primary research interest is human attraction and romantic relationships.  Currently, along with my students, we are studying whether women and their parents have similar or different mate preferences.  We present participants with different characteristics to rate and experimental scenarios to consider.  We then analyze whether women’s hypothetical mate preferences match their actual mate choices and whether women and their parents express similar or different mate preferences and choices.  This research reveals that women and their parents often have similar mate preferences.  It also shows that our mate preferences don’t always match our mate choices and unexpected factors can have a larger influence over our mate choices than we anticipate.”