The Illinois State University Interdisciplinary Research Group on Personal Relationships will present a research colloquium featuring Brian Ogolsky, Ph.D. from 2–3 p.m. Tuesday, October 9 in 210 Moulton Hall.

Ogolsky, an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present a talk titled “The Development and Maintenance of Romantic Relationships: A Social Ecological Approach.”

In this talk, Ogolsky will outline the individual, relational, and contextual factors that influence the ways people make commitment-related decisions. The beginning of the talk will focus on three studies that use an innovative graphing procedure to quantify changes in commitment to wed over time. Study one examines the accuracy or bias in memories of commitment-related events. Studies two and three identify and develop a typology of dating behavior. Ogolsky will conclude by presenting some new findings from a study of the effects of legal policy on the lives of couples.

This speaker series is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Interdisciplinary Initiative and the ISU Interdisciplinary Research Group on Personal Relationships, with assistance from the Departments/Schools of Psychology, Sociology-Anthropology, Communication, Family and Consumer Sciences, and from the College of Applied Science and Technology.

For special accommodations or questions, please contact Susan Sprecher at sprecher@ilstu.edu. Please allow sufficient time to arrange the accommodation.