A dipole can align to stabilize or destabilize the formation or loss of a charge, thereby decreasing (if stabilized) or increasing (if destabilized) the activation barrier to a chemical event. Field effects can therefore tune the acidity or basicity of bonds within their fields by donating or withdrawing charge density. With respect to acidity, a common trend to note is that, inductively, an electron-withdrawing substituent in the vicinity of an acidic proton will lower the pKa (i.e. increase the acidity) and, correspondingly, an electron-donating substituent will raise the pKa. The reorganization of charge due to field effects will have the same result. An electric dipole field propagated through the space around, or in the middle of, a molecule in the direction of an acidic proton will decrease the acidity, while a dipole pointed away will increase the acidity and concomitantly elongate the X-H bond. These effects can therefore help to tune the acidity/basicity of a molecule to protonate/deprotonate a specific compound, or enhance hydrogen bond-donor ability for molecular recognition or anion sensing applications. Field effects have also been shown in substituted arenes to dominate the electrostatic potential maps, which are maps of electron density used to explain intermolecular interactions.