Singles Research & Writing

Blogs About Singles And Single Life

  • Living Single” blog at Psychology Today
  • All Things Single (and More)” here on this website
  • My writings at Medium
  • Monthly column at Unmarried Equality
  • Links to my guest blog posts are here. They include contributions to:
    • “Solo-ish,” Washington Post
    • “In Theory,” Washington Post
    • “Room for Debate,” New York Times
    • “The Science of Us,” New York Magazine

For links to many of my articles on single life, arranged by topic, go toWhat we really know about single life.”

For links to the most popular blog posts from my first decade of writing the “Living Single” blog at Psychology Today, go to “10 years of living single: Badass loners are your favorite.”

Media Appearances and Mentions

Magazines and newspapers
Radio and podcasts
TV and video
  • University of Leeds (UK) Singles Studies Seminar Series

    Lessons from three decades of studying singlehood
    Lecture by Bella DePaulo
    Moderated by Tendai Mangena

  • American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA)

    Bella DePaulo, panelist, “Landing the impossible book deal”
    American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA)
    Sherry Amatenstein, moderator

  • Corporate Lecture at Merck

    “Creating a singles-friendly work environment,” lecture by Bella DePaulo
    Women’s Network at Merck

  • Jean Chatzky, Your Money Map

    Solo and secure: How single people can thrive as they age
    Jean Chatzky, interviewing Bella DePaulo

  • International Singles Studies Conference

    Bella DePaulo’s talk, “Lessons from 3 decades of studying singlehood”
    International Singles Studies Conference, Boston

  • Open to Debate, NPR

    Married or single?
    Bella DePaulo and Jonathan Rothwell
    John Donvan, moderator

What We Really Know About Single Life

This page started out as a collection of critiques of studies of married vs. single people. I have now expanded it to include collections of writings on all sorts of topics about single life. Scroll down to see them.

Myth-Busting about Single Life

HAPPINESS On getting married and (not) getting happier: What we know

PHYSICAL HEALTH and MENTAL HEALTH Getting married and (not) getting healthy

LONGEVITY Debunking the myth that married people live longer

RELATIONSHIPS, ATTACHMENT, CAREGIVING, VOLUNTEERING Single people are caring, connected, attached, and unselfish

SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES Single parents and their children: Don’t believe the prophesies of doom

NO CHILDREN Adults with no kids: Naming, shaming, and talking back to the shaming

SEX Getting married and (not) getting sex (and other sex-relevant topics)

MONEY Getting married and getting more money (and other articles about the economics of single life)

COLLECTION OF CRITIQUES What’s wrong with studies and claims about the supposed benefits of marriage?

Other Topics
How we live now

21 century living arrangements

Living alone

The best of single life

Single at heart

The real reasons for living single

Solitude

Friendship

The Community of Single People

The benefits of being single — for single people and for society

Some basics about single life

Demographics (number of singles, age when people marry, rates of divorce and remarriage, etc., and what it all means)

Defining single and naming different categories of singles

Personalities and types of single people

Gender differences (in living single, marrying, divorcing, remarrying, bereavement, living alone, and living apart together)

Single men (separate category because so much writing about singles is about single women)

Lifelong single people

Older single people

Divorce, widowhood, remarriage

Singlism and matrimania, and why we need advocacy for single people

Singlism and matrimania

People deny singlism exists and get mad at you for pointing it out. Why?

Singles advocacy and the issue of privilege

How singles are celebrated and stereotyped and shamed

Singles in different domains and different places

The workplace

Research and teaching

Religions and places of worship

Advertising, marketing, and business

Politics

Health care and illness

Psychotherapy and mental health

Housing (buying homes, housing discrimination, living arrangements)

The military and foreign service

Popular culture and beyond (TV, movies, magazines, literature, the arts, opera, etc.)

Celebrities, world figures, and people in politics and the media

Singles around the world

We need to rethink these matters

Relationships, family, and love

Living single during a pandemic

Holidays  (including single people’s celebrations of the milestones in their lives)

Pets

Loneliness

Sex, sexuality, and monogamy

Marriage (including marrying yourself)

Resources: Books, talks, discussion groups, advocacy groups and more

Books about single life: Reviews and discussions

Blogs about single people and single life

Best TED talks and other talks for single people

Lots of RESOURCES: Books, blogs, videos, podcasts, discussion groups, advocacy groups, academic writings, and more 

Totally off-topic

Here’s what I know about lying and detecting lies

Scholarly Papers

DePaulo, B. M., & Morris, W. L. (2005). Singles in society and in science. Psychological Inquiry, 16, 57-83.

DePaulo, B. M., & Morris, W. L. (2005). Should singles and the scholars who study them make their mark or stay in their place? Psychological Inquiry, 16, 142-149.

DePaulo, B. M., & Morris, W. L. (2006). The unrecognized stereotyping and discrimination against people who are single. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 251-254. (Also available in the book Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It.)

Morris, W. L., Sinclair, S., & DePaulo, B. M. (2007). No shelter for singles: The perceived legitimacy of marital status discrimination. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 10, 457-470.

Schutz, A., Hertel, J., DePaulo, B. M., Morris, W. L., & Stucke, T. S. (2007). She’s single, so what? How are singles perceived compared with people who are in romantic relationships? Zeitschrift fur Familienforschung (Journal of Family Research), 19, 139-158.

Morris, W. L., DePaulo, B. M., Hertel, J., & Taylor, L. C. (2008). Singlism – another problem that has no name: Prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination against singles. In M. A. Morrison & T. G. Morrison (Eds.), The psychology of modern prejudice (pp. 165-194). New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Morris, W. L., and DePaulo, B. M. (2009) Singlehood. In H. Reis & S. Sprecher (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Human Relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

DePaulo, B. (2011). Single people. In D. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Psychology.

Casper, W. J., & DePaulo, B. (2012). A new layer to inclusion: Creating singles-friendly work environments. In N.P. Reilly, A. Gorman, & M. J. Sirgy (Eds.), Work and Quality of Life: Ethical Practices in Organizations (pp. 217-234). New York: Springer.

DePaulo, B. (2012). Single, no children: Who is your family? In A. Vangelisti (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Family Communication (2nd ed., pp. 190-204). New York: Routledge.

DePaulo, B. (2013). The proliferation of life choices and the resistance that followsAnalyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13, 34-37.

DePaulo, B. (2013). Happy singles. In L. Bormans (Ed.), The World Book of Love (pp. 46-47). Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers.

DePaulo, B. (2014). Single in a society preoccupied with couples. In R. J. Coplan & J. C. Bowker (Eds.), The Handbook of Solitude: Psychological Perspectives on Social Isolation, Social Withdrawal, and Being Alone (pp. 302-316). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

DePaulo, B. (2014). A Singles Studies perspective on mount marriagePsychological Inquiry, 25, 64-68.

DePaulo, B. (2016). Singles and mental health. In H. Friedman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of mental health (2nd ed., Vol 4, pp. 158-165). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

DePaulo, B. (2017, Summer). The urgent need for a Singles Studies discipline. (Forum on Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies.) Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 42, 1015-1019.

DePaulo, B. (2018). Toward a positive psychology of single life (pp. 251-275). In D. Dunn (Ed.), Positive psychology: Established and emerging issues. New York: Routledge.

DePaulo, B., Kislev, E. (2023). Singles and mental health. In: Friedman, H.S., Markey, C.H. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Mental Health (Vol. 3., pp. 240-250). Elsevier, Academic Press. 

DePaulo, B. (2023). Changing thinking, changing language, changing lives: The power and promise of Singles Studies. In K. Chowkhani and C. Wynne (Eds.), Singular selves: An introduction to Singles Studies (pp. 11-20). New York: Routledge.

DePaulo, B. (2023). Single and flourishing: Transcending the deficit narratives of single life. Journal of Family Theory and Review, 15(3), 389-411.

Abstract

The Community of Single People

The Community of Single People (CoSP) is an online Facebook group started in July 2015. It is a place for discussing all aspects of single life except dating or other attempts to escape single life. It is a closed group, so you need to ask to join. As long as you are not trying to use the group to find a date, getting admitted should not be a problem.

Here’s what I’ve written about the Community of Single People, beginning with the first announcement:

Read more