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Dr. Natasha Tidwell

Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Fort Lewis College
 

About Natasha

Natasha joined Dr. Eastwick's lab while he was at Texas A&M, earning her PhD in 2014. She is currently an assistant professor at Fort Lewis College. Broadly, Natasha's research interests revolve around the factors that predict initial romantic attraction and the adaptive benefits of being in a committed relationship with a partner. More specifically, her current research centers around the following topics:

  • Ovulation and attraction: Many researchers have found that women's ovulatory cycle phase predicts mating behavior and attraction preferences both for men and women. My research examines how these effects occur and whether the timeline of human evolution can generate predictions about when moderators of these effects will emerge (e.g., inter-group aggression, pair-bonding).
  • Self-regulation in romantic contexts: Men tend to engage in sexual behavior that is "off-limits" more often than women do. Is this because men have worse control abilities in this domain than women or because they have stronger sexual impulses to overcome? I am interested in how men's and women's responses to sexual temptation differ at the processing level.
  • Adaptive benefits of attachment bonds: Close relationships are linked to well-being and good health, but are attachment bonds adaptive in other ways as well? Currently, I am examining this question by testing whether inducing thoughts of a romantic partner can enable people to perform better on difficult tasks or acquire new skills.

Publications

Tidwell, N. D., Eastwick, P. W., & Kim, A. (2017). She's not one of us: Group membership moderates the effect of fertility cues on attractiveness ratings. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 689-697. [Download Article] [OSF Preregistration]

Tidwell, N. D., & Eastwick, P. W. (2013). Sex differences in succumbing to sexual temptations: A function of impulse or control? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39, 1620-1633. [Download Article]

Tidwell, N. D., Eastwick, P. W., & Finkel, E. J. (2013). Perceived, not actual, similarity predicts initial attraction in a live romantic context: Evidence from the speed-dating paradigm. PersonalRelationships, 20, 199-215. [Download Article]

Tidwell, N. D., & Eastwick, P. W. (in press). Mate selection. In K. Keith (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

Eastwick, P. W., & Tidwell, N. D. (in press). To pair bond or not: The evolutionary psychological approach to human mating. In C. Hazan & M. Campa (Eds.), Human Bonding. New York, NY: Guilford Press.