Home

Webpage:  http://portal.idc.ac.il/en/faculty/birnbag/Pages/Profile.aspx

Lab site: http://guritslab.wixsite.com/guritbirnbaum

Blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intimately-connected

My TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD-Kl0lTsY4 

My date with Freud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4LszoIQ94&ab_channel=ARLAVL 

 

ORCID researcher ID:  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2033-4839

Prof. Gurit Birnbaum completed her university studies in Israel and received a PhD degree in Psychology at Bar-Ilan University in 1998. She has published dozens of articles and book chapters. Her research focuses on the convoluted role played by sexuality in the broader context of close relationship. More specifically, her research is guided by complementary questions: How does the functional significance of sex change as relationships progress from initial encounters to long-term commitments and what are the processes whereby the sexual behavioral system contributes to relationship development, maintenance, and deterioration? And whether, for whom, and how might nonsexual aspects of a relationship (e.g., attachment, perceived partner responsiveness) contribute to, or compensate for, sexual deficiencies or dissatisfaction? To address these questions, her research program adopts a person × context × time interactive framework and employs longitudinal, observational, and experimental designs.


Prof. Birnbaum was a post-doc at the University of Rochester. She was a lecturer at the Psychology Department, Bar-Ilan University and the head of its Experimental Psychology Program, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University. She is a Professor of Psychology at Reichman University (IDC, Herzliya), where she received the outstanding researcher and lecturer awards. Prof. Birnbaum frequently contributes to high-quality international academic journals, and her research has been cited in leading media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine. She was an associate editor of “Personal Relationships” and serves/d as a member of the editorial board of the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,” the "European Journal of Social Psychology," “Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,” and "Archives of Sexual Behavior." Prof. Birnbaum runs a blog in Psychology Today with more than 2,000,000 readers and her TED talk on why people make sex so complicated has received more than 142,000 views.