Robin Edelstein

Robin Edelstein is a Professor of Psychology in the Personality and Social Contexts area at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997, and her Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology from the University of California, Davis, in 2005. After completing a two-year National Institutes of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, she joined the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor in 2007, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013, and to Professor in 2020. Edelstein holds faculty associate positions at the Research Center for Group Dynamics in the Institute for Social Research, the Center for Human Growth and Development, and the University of Michigan Depression Center.

Director of the Personality, Relationships, and Hormones Lab, Edelstein is a social/personality psychologist specializing in close relationships, parent-infant and adult romantic attachment, and social neuroendocrinology. Her research investigates individual differences in emotional and interpersonal processes within close relationships, their development across the lifespan, and implications for physiological, dyadic, and interpersonal outcomes. Key topics include avoidant attachment and defensive responses, hormone changes (testosterone, estradiol) during transitions to parenthood, effects on parenting and relationship satisfaction, and physiological responses to relationship experiences. She has authored influential publications such as "Why children tell: A model of children’s disclosure of sexual abuse" (2003), "Emotion and memory narrowing: A review and goal-relevance approach" (2009), "From the cradle to the grave: Age differences in attachment from early adulthood to old age" (2013), "Testosterone tradeoffs in close relationships" (2022, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology), and "Longitudinal changes in attachment orientation over a 59-year period" (2019). With over 7,800 citations on Google Scholar, her work has advanced understanding of how personality, hormones, and relationships interact. Edelstein is a Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2019) and has received awards including Rackham Faculty Research Grants, MCubed funding, and Predoctoral Fellowships from the National Institutes of Mental Health. She serves on editorial boards for Personal Relationships and Social Psychological and Personality Science.