Ellen S. Berscheid

Ellen Berscheid (1936 to 2025) was an American social psychologist who spent her career at the University of Minnesota, where she earned her doctorate in 1965 and later became a Regents professor. Her research centred on interpersonal relationships, attraction, emotion and social cognition, including the question of why people fall in love. She worked with Elaine Hatfield on equity and attraction, and in 1983 she introduced the Emotion-in-Relationships Model, a theory designed to predict how people experience emotion in close relationships. Her federally funded study of love drew national attention in 1974 when Senator William Proxmire gave it his first Golden Fleece award. She later held presidencies of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology and the International Society for the Study of Interpersonal Relationships, and the American Psychological Association honoured her with a Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.