Sexuality
in Close Relationships Lab
Prof. Gurit Birnbaum
“Tell me your fantasies and I will tell you what you want out of relationships and how to get your needs met.”
Prof. Gurit Birnbaum completed her university studies in Israel and received a PhD degree in Psychology at Bar-Ilan University in 1998. She has published dozens of articles and book chapters. Her main research interests are: romantic relationships, human sexuality, and evolutionary psychology. More specifically, her research focuses on the convoluted role played by sexuality in the broader context of close relationship. Her research has involved the construction of assessment tools for studying individual differences in the sexual behavioral system, which have been used to shed light on the processes that mediate the impact of sexuality on close relationships; e.g., differential importance at different stages of development; the meaning couples attribute to their sex lives; the functional significance of sexuality within romantic relationship; and the link between sexuality and other aspects of the relationship. Her present research program employs experimental, qualitative, and daily experience methodologies to investigate the complex interplay between the attachment and sexual behavioral systems within romantic relationships and the dual potential of the sexual system for both satisfying and dysfunctional relational interactions.
Prof. Birnbaum was a post-doc at the University of Rochester. She was the head of the Experimental Psychology Program at Bar-Ilan University, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota, at Northwestern University, and at the University of Rochester. Now, she is a Professor of Psychology at Reichman University (IDC, Herzliya), where she received the outstanding researcher and lecturer awards. Prof. Birnbaum frequently contributes to international academic journals and served/serves as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, and Archives of Sexual Behavior. She was also an associate editor of Personal Relationships. Prof. Birnbaum's research has been cited in leading media outlets, including The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and Time magazine. Prof. Birnbaum runs a blog in Psychology Today with more than 1,500,000 readers and her TED talk about why people make sex so complicated has received more than 132,000 views.