(Laughter)
"What 'tis to love?" Shakespeare said. I think our ancestors -- I
think human beings have been wondering about this question since they
sat around their campfires or lay and watched the stars a million
years ago. I started out by trying to figure out what romantic love
was by looking at the last 45 years of the psychological research and
as it turns out,
The first thing that happens is, a person begins to take on what I call, "special meaning." As a truck driver once said to me, "The world had a new center, and that center was Mary Anne."
George Bernard Shaw said it differently. "Love consists of overestimating the differences between one woman and another." And indeed, that's what we do.
(Laughter)
And then you just focus on this person. You can list what you don't like about them, but then you sweep that aside and focus on what you do. As Chaucer said, "Love is blind."
In trying to understand romantic love, I decided I would read poetry
from all over the world, and I just want to give you one very short
poem from eighth-century China, because it's an almost perfect example
of a man who is focused totally on a particular woman. It's a little
bit like
And it goes like this. It's by a guy called Yuan Zhen. "I cannot bear to put away the bamboo sleeping mat. The night I brought you home, I watched you roll it out." He became hooked on a sleeping mat, probably because of elevated activity of dopamine in his brain, just like with you and me.
But anyway,
But the main characteristics of romantic love are craving: an intense
And last but not least,
And then, the very last question -- I would always have to work
myself up to this question, because I'm not a psychologist. I don't
work with people in any kind of traumatic situation. My final question
was always the same. I would say,
So we scanned their brains, looking at a photograph of their sweetheart and looking at a neutral photograph, with a distraction task in between. So we could look at the same brain when it was in that heightened state and when it was in a resting state. And we found activity in a lot of brain regions. In fact, one of the most important was a brain region that becomes active when you feel the rush of cocaine. And indeed, that's exactly what happens.
I began to realize that -
It comes from the motor of the mind,
the wanting part of the mind,
the craving part of the mind.
The kind
of part of the mind when you're reaching for that piece of chocolate,
when you want to win that promotion at work. The motor of the brain.
It's a drive.
And in fact, I think it's -
And I've also come to think that -
- One is
the sex drive : the craving for sexual gratification. W.H. Auden called it an "intolerable neural itch," and indeed, that's what it is. It keeps bothering you a little bit, like being hungry. - The second of
these three brain systems is
romantic love : that elation, obsession of early love. - And the third brain system is
attachment : that sense of calm and security you can feel for a long-term partner.
And I think that;
- The
sex drive evolved -to get you out there, looking for a whole range of partners. You can feel it when you're just driving along in your car. It can be focused on nobody. - I think
romantic love evolved to enable you
-to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time, thereby conserving mating time and energy. - And I think that
attachment , the third brain system, evolved to enable you -to tolerate this human being at least long enough to raise a child together as a team. So with that preamble,
I want to go into discussing the two most profound social trends. One of the last 10,000 years and the other, certainly of the last 25 years, that are going to have an impact on these three different brain systems: lust, romantic love and deep attachment to a partner.
The first is women working, moving into the workforce. I've looked at 130 societies through the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations. Everywhere in the world, 129 out of 130 of them, women are not only moving into the job market -- sometimes very, very slowly, but they are moving into the job market -- and they are very slowly closing that gap between men and women in terms of economic power, health and education. It's very slow.
For every trend on this planet, there's a counter-trend. We all know of them, but nevertheless -- the Arabs say, "The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on." And, indeed, that caravan is moving on. Women are moving back into the job market. And I say back into the job market, because this is not new. For millions of years, on the grasslands of Africa, women commuted to work to gather their vegetables. They came home with 60 to 80 percent of the evening meal. The double income family was the standard. And women were regarded as just as economically, socially and sexually powerful as men. In short, we're really moving forward to the past.
Then, women's worst invention was the plow. With the beginning of plow agriculture, men's roles became extremely powerful. Women lost their ancient jobs as collectors, but then with the industrial revolution and the post-industrial revolution they're moving back into the job market. In short, they are acquiring the status that they had a million years ago, 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago. We are seeing now one of the most remarkable traditions in the history of the human animal. And it's going to have an impact.
I generally give a whole lecture on the impact of women on the business community. I'll say just a couple of things, and then go on to sex and love. There's a lot of gender differences; anybody who thinks men and women are alike simply never had a boy and a girl child. I don't know why they want to think that men and women are alike. There's much we have in common, but there's a whole lot that we do not have in common.
We are -- in the words of Ted Hughes, "I think that we are like two feet. We need each other to get ahead." But we did not evolve to have the same brain. And we're finding more and more gender differences in the brain. I'll only just use a couple and then move on to sex and love. One of them is women's verbal ability. Women can talk.
Women's ability to find the right word rapidly, basic articulation goes up in the middle of the menstrual cycle, when estrogen levels peak. But even at menstruation, they're better than the average man. Women can talk. They've been doing it for a million years; words were women's tools. They held that baby in front of their face, cajoling it, reprimanding it, educating it with words. And, indeed, they're becoming a very powerful force.
Even in places like India and Japan, where women are not moving rapidly into the regular job market, they're moving into journalism. And I think that the television is like the global campfire. We sit around it and it shapes our minds. Almost always, when I'm on TV, the producer who calls me, who negotiates what we're going to say, is a woman. In fact, Solzhenitsyn once said, "To have a great writer is to have another government."
Today 54 percent of people who are writers in America are women. It's one of many, many characteristics that women have that they will bring into the job market. They've got incredible people skills, negotiating skills. They're highly imaginative. We now know the brain circuitry of imagination, of long-term planning. They tend to be web thinkers. Because the female parts of the brain are better connected, they tend to collect more pieces of data when they think, put them into more complex patterns, see more options and outcomes. They tend to be contextual, holistic thinkers, what I call web thinkers.
Men tend to -- and these are averages -- tend to get rid of what they regard as extraneous, focus on what they do, and move in a more step-by-step thinking pattern. They're both perfectly good ways of thinking. We need both of them to get ahead. In fact, there's many more male geniuses in the world. And there's also many more male idiots in the world.
(Laughter)
When the male brain works well, it works extremely well. And what I really think that we're doing is, we're moving towards a collaborative society, a society in which the talents of both men and women are becoming understood and valued and employed.
But in fact, women moving into the job market is having a huge impact on sex and romance and family life. Foremost, women are starting to express their sexuality. I'm always astonished when people come to me and say, "Why is it that men are so adulterous?" "Why do you think more men are adulterous than women?" "Well, men are more adulterous!" And I say, "Who do you think these men are sleeping with?"
(Laughter)
And -- basic math!
Anyway. In the Western world, women start sooner at sex, have more partners, express less remorse for the partners that they do, marry later, have fewer children, leave bad marriages in order to get good ones. We are seeing the rise of female sexual expression. And, indeed, once again we're moving forward to the kind of sexual expression that we probably saw on the grasslands of Africa a million years ago, because this is the kind of sexual expression that we see in hunting and gathering societies today.
We're also returning to an ancient form of marriage equality. They're now saying that the 21st century is going to be the century of what they call the "symmetrical marriage," or the "pure marriage," or the "companionate marriage." This is a marriage between equals, moving forward to a pattern that is highly compatible with the ancient human spirit.
We're also seeing a rise of romantic love. 91 percent of American women and 86 percent of American men would not marry somebody who had every single quality they were looking for in a partner, if they were not in love with that person. People around the world, in a study of 37 societies, want to be in love with the person that they marry. Indeed, arranged marriages are on their way off this braid of human life.
I even think that marriages might even become more stable because of the second great world trend. The first one being women moving into the job market, the second one being the aging world population. They're now saying that in America, that middle age should be regarded as up to age 85. Because in that highest age category of 76 to 85, as much as 40 percent of people have nothing really wrong with them. So we're seeing there's a real extension of middle age.
For one of my books, I looked at divorce data in 58 societies. And as it turns out, the older you get, the less likely you are to divorce. So the divorce rate right now is stable in America, and it's actually beginning to decline. It may decline some more. I would even say that with Viagra, estrogen replacement, hip replacements and the incredibly interesting women -- women have never been as interesting as they are now. Not at any time on this planet have women been so educated, so interesting, so capable. And so I honestly think that if there really was ever a time in human evolution when we have the opportunity to make good marriages, that time is now.
However, there's always kinds of complications in this. These three brain systems -- lust, romantic love and attachment -- don't always go together. They can go together, by the way. That's why casual sex isn't so casual. With orgasm you get a spike of dopamine. Dopamine's associated with romantic love, and you can just fall in love with somebody who you're just having casual sex with. With orgasm, then you get a real rush of oxytocin and vasopressin -- those are associated with attachment. This is why you can feel such a sense of cosmic union with somebody after you've made love to them.
But these three brain systems: lust, romantic love and attachment, aren't always connected to each other. You can feel deep attachment to a long-term partner while you feel intense romantic love for somebody else, while you feel the sex drive for people unrelated to these other partners. In short, we're capable of loving more than one person at a time. In fact, you can lie in bed at night and swing from deep feelings of attachment for one person to deep feelings of romantic love for somebody else. It's as if there's a committee meeting going on in your head as you are trying to decide what to do. So I don't think, honestly, we're an animal that was built to be happy; we are an animal that was built to reproduce. I think the happiness we find, we make. And I think, however, we can make good relationships with each other.
So I want to conclude with two things. I want to conclude with a worry, and with a wonderful story. The worry is about antidepressants. Over 100 million prescriptions of antidepressants are written every year in the United States. And these drugs are going generic. They are seeping around the world. I know one girl who's been on these antidepressants, SSRIs, serotonin-enhancing antidepressants -- since she was 13. She's 23. She's been on them ever since she was 13.
I've got nothing against people who take them short term, when they're going through something horrible. They want to commit suicide or kill somebody else. I would recommend it. But more and more people in the United States are taking them long term. And indeed, what these drugs do is raise levels of serotonin. And by raising levels of serotonin, you suppress the dopamine circuit. Everybody knows that. Dopamine is associated with romantic love. Not only do they suppress the dopamine circuit, but they kill the sex drive. And when you kill the sex drive, you kill orgasm. And when you kill orgasm, you kill that flood of drugs associated with attachment. The things are connected in the brain. And when you tamper with one brain system, you're going to tamper with another. I'm just simply saying that a world without love is a deadly place.
So now --
(Applause)
Thank you.
I want to end with a story. And then, just a comment. I've been studying romantic love and sex and attachment for 30 years. I'm an identical twin; I am interested in why we're all alike. Why you and I are alike, why the Iraqis and the Japanese and the Australian Aborigines and the people of the Amazon River are all alike. And about a year ago, an Internet dating service, Match.com, came to me and asked me if I would design a new dating site for them. I said, "I don't know anything about personality. You know? I don't know. Do you think you've got the right person?" They said, "Yes." It got me thinking about why it is that you fall in love with one person rather than another.
That's my current project; it will be my next book. There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another. Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love. You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your "love map," an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems. And that's what I'm now contributing to this.
But I want to tell you a story, to illustrate. I've been carrying on here about the biology of love. I wanted to show you a little bit about the culture of it, too, the magic of it. It's a story that was told to me by somebody who had heard it just from one -- probably a true story. It was a graduate student -- I'm at Rutgers and my two colleagues -- Art Aron is at SUNY Stony Brook. That's where we put our people in the MRI machine.
And this graduate student was madly in love with another graduate student, and she was not in love with him. And they were all at a conference in Beijing. And he knew from our work that if you go and do something very novel with somebody, you can drive up the dopamine in the brain, and perhaps trigger this brain system for romantic love.
(Laughter)
So he decided he'd put science to work. And he invited this girl to go off on a rickshaw ride with him.
And sure enough -- I've never been in one, but apparently they go all around the buses and the trucks and it's crazy and it's noisy and it's exciting. He figured that this would drive up the dopamine, and she'd fall in love with him. So off they go and she's squealing and squeezing him and laughing and having a wonderful time. An hour later they get down off of the rickshaw, and she throws her hands up and she says, "Wasn't that wonderful?" And, "Wasn't that rickshaw driver handsome!"
(Laughter)
(Applause)
There's magic to love!
(Applause)
But I will end by saying that millions of years ago, we evolved three basic drives: the sex drive, romantic love and attachment to a long-term partner. These circuits are deeply embedded in the human brain. They're going to survive as long as our species survives on what Shakespeare called "this mortal coil."
Thank you.
Chris Anderson: Helen Fisher!
(Applause)
https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_why_we_love_why_we_cheat/transcript?language=en#t-269269
Why We Love Summary
Here are 3 lessons to help you win the race for romance:
- Love is a chemical thing, mostly based on three hormones.
- We’re all attracted to mystery, symmetry and difference.
- You have your own unique love map, which helps you find your ideal partner.
Dying for some dopamine? Let’s boot the love system!
Lesson 1: Three hormones are responsible for the majority of your love feelings.
For centuries people have sought the source of love. People have looked to the stars, magic powers and mystical oracles, but for a few decades we’ve known what’s really behind the most complex feeling of them all: chemistry.
Depending on which neurotransmitters and hormones are released in your brain in certain situations, you experience love – or not.
Helen Fisher has identified three primary neurotransmitters, which make you fall in love: dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine.
You’re probably familiar with dopamine – it’s what makes you happy. When you’re waiting in line at the coffee shop and your favorite song comes on in the radio, which suddenly makes you tap your foot and hum along, that’s dopamine at work. It’s one of the most powerful mood changers, as it controls your attention, motivation and has addictive capacities. In fact, the response your body shows when you’re with the one you love is not that different from taking a drug like cocaine – no wonder love drives us crazy, huh?
Norepinephrine makes you feel thrilled, excited and constantly “on”. You know, those butterflies in your stomach or when you can hear your heart beating in your chest. It’s also what causes you sleepless nights and makes you lose your appetite (I remember falling so hard for a girl once, that I ate almost nothing for a week – my family thought I was sick haha).
Serotonin then completes the bunch as it makes you feel restless, so you pace back and forth in your room, while your beloved does the same in your head, as you can’t stop thinking about them. However, when this happens your level of serotonin aren’t higher, they’re lower than usual.
Lesson 2: We’re all attracted to people who are mysterious, different and visually symmetric.
So what triggers the release of these three hormones? Three things we’re all attracted to, no matter our gender or personal preferences, are mystery, difference and symmetry.
Here’s why:
Mystery triggers your curiosity and ancient instincts to maximize variety in your life (just as with food), because experiencing something new always releases dopamine.
Difference makes sure our offspring stays healthy, as mixing DNAs with a big difference creates a healthier, more balanced DNA in our children, which puts them at less risk of getting sick.
Symmetry speaks to the eye, because when we look at symmetric bodies and faces, which are considered to be more beautiful, more dopamine is released in our brain.
But in the end, we don’t all go for the same types of people, so where do we differ in our quest for love?
Lesson 3: You have your own unique love map, which helps you find your ideal partner.
Helen Fisher calls it a love map. It’s a set of characteristics, both physical and non-physical, like eye color, hair style, height, pitch of voice, kindness, motivation, and so on.
Combined, these make up your ultimate partner, the person you find most attractive. This love map is developed over time and it gets more and more refined as you get older and learn more about yourself and how you love. It unconsciously guides you, for example when you enter a crowded room, and instinctively tells you who you’re attracted to and who not.
Your love map is absolutely unique to you, and no two people have the same, which was found when observing identical twins. Even though they usually have very similar values and interests, their tastes in love are often completely different.
Note: As a fun exercise, try to write down everything you think is on your love map. You’ll be surprised at how specific the idea of your perfect partner is, that you have in your head already. It’s good to get these things out and become aware of what you’re looking for.
Why We Love Summary- Four Minute Books
https://fourminutebooks.com/why-we-love-summary/
Why We Love
- Summary and Review
by Helen Fisher
Has Why We Love by Helen Fisher been sitting on your reading list?
Pick up the key ideas in the book with this quick
summary.
We all experience the powerful phenomenon of love, be it the happiness of finding a soulmate or the depression of rejection.
But what is love, exactly?
In this book, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher explains how our feelings of romance, sexual desire and attachment are all the product of our brains. Beyond offering profound insights into what love is, she goes on to explain how and why evolution gave us the ability to love in the first place.
In this summary of Why We Love by Helen Fisher,In these book summary you’ll also discover
- the perfect measurements for a Playboy model,
- why women are indeed attracted to men with money and
- why standing on a high bridge can help you fall in love.
Why We Love Key Idea #1: The characteristics of romantic love are universal.
When we’re in love, we feel like we’re experiencing something unique to us. But, looking back across time and cultures, there are symptoms everyone feels when they fall in love.
One common symptom is the significance we give to those we love. We become intensely focused on our beloved, and they pervade our thoughts, dreams and actions. We believe they are unique and flawless, and idealize them to the extent that we see everything they do – even their weaknesses – through rose-colored glasses.
For example, your beloved might have crooked teeth or a speech impediment like a lisp. And although these imperfections are generally seen as unattractive, you perceive them as part of their cuteness or specialness because they belong to the one you love.
These feelings of love are shared by people across the world.
The author’s studies have shown that these experiences of love are the same for everyone – independent of age, culture or sexual orientation.
But surely there are differences in how love is experienced around the world, right?
Indeed, but where differences between societies exist, there are clear cultural explanations. In one of the author’s studies, many more Japanese than American participants agreed with the statement “When I am talking to [the person I love] I amoften afraid that I will say the wrong thing.” This can be explained by the fact that, in Japanese society, meeting a member of the opposite sex is more formal and less frequent than in America. This shyness is therefore a consequence of culture, rather than the love itself being different.
Why We Love Key Idea #2: Romantic love is the result of chemical processes in the brain.
For thousands of years, people have wondered what the cause of love is. Some believe it is a profoundly spiritual phenomenon, but modern science has proven that it is the result of chemicals in the brain. In particular, the experience of love is caused by three key neurotransmitters: dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin.
Dopamine is one of the key neurotransmitters researchers have found to coincide with feelings of romantic love. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful neurotransmitters responsible for your mood in general, influencing attention, motivation and addiction – all important characteristics of being in love.
Dopamine helps explain why love is so addictive. Researchers have shown that when you’re with someone you love, you experience something similar to taking a drug like cocaine. Dopamine floods your brain, filling you with a feeling of bliss that you can’t wait to relive. That’s why people who’re in love feel dependent on and crave their loved ones – just as drug addicts do with their substances.
The next key neurotransmitter involved is norepinephrine, which has effects that resemble dopamine’s.
The feelings of exhilaration and stimulation that accompany love – like butterflies in the stomach or a rapid heartbeat – are caused by the release of norepinephrine. But this neurotransmitter also causes some of love’s unpleasant feelings: it’s often hard to fall and stay asleep when we’re in love, and many of us also experience a loss of appetite – both of which are caused by norepinephrine.
The last of the key love neurotransmitters is serotonin.
Serotonin is responsible for the increased restlessness and the constant thinking about your beloved. But, unlike the other two neurotransmitters, serotonin levels are actually lower when you’re in love. That’s because the level of serotonin is pushed downwards when the levels of the other two chemicals rise. In this case, less is more – the less serotonin, the more you obsess about your loved one.
Why We Love Key Idea #3: Along with romantic love, there are two other forms of affection: lust and attachment.
In the previous book summary, we learned how brain chemistry contributes to our feelings of romantic love. But romance isn’t the only way we experience love or desire. There are two other forms of affection: lust and attachment, feelings that are associated with the production of specific hormones.
Let’s start with the juicy part.
Lust is our sexual desire for someone, and it’s caused by the hormone testosterone. The more testosterone that’s released into our bodies, the more sexually aroused we become.
Then there’s attachment, the feelings of happiness and comfort we get when we’re close to a loved one. These feelings are associated with increased levels of vasopressinand oxytocin hormones in the body – hormones that are affectionately labeled the cuddle chemicals because of how they make us feel.
Although each of these forms of affection are separate, they can work in any possible combination with each other.
For example – to put it rather crudely – feelings of romantic love can trigger lust. This is because rises in the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine neurotransmitters that cause love can stimulate the production of testosterone.
But this also works the other way round: sexual desire can eventually lead to romantic love. This is because the hormonal connections go both ways, and rises in testosterone can facilitate increases in the neurotransmitters which cause romantic love.
So next time you’re thinking about having a casual sexual relationship – look out, it could lead to something more!
Why We Love Key Idea #4: We are all attracted to mystery, difference and symmetry.
Everyone has a different image of their ideal partner: some like them small, some tall, some thin, some fat. Nevertheless, there are certain factors that none of us can resist.
One type of person we all find attractive – no matter our gender – is someone different from ourselves.
We find people who’re different from us mysterious and novel, which in turn makes them more desirable. This desire for the strange and new is actually hard-wired into our brains: novelty can cause increased levels of dopamine to be released, which, as we’ve seen, leads to the feelings of romantic love.
But why has evolution led us to desire those who are different from us?
The answer could lie in the link between our genes and our immune systems. Researchers have shown that when two parents with dissimilar DNA mate, their child is less at risk of illnesses and disease than a child from parents with similar DNA. This explains why we are attracted to people different from us.
Proof for this comes from the sweaty T-shirt experiment, where women have to rate the smell of men´s sweaty T-shirts. The results indicate that “the most sexy smelling” always belongs to a man with an immune system that is different yet still compatible with that of the test person.
Another attraction bias that most people have is a desire for specifically proportioned partners.
Statistically, people with symmetric bodies and faces are perceived to be more beautiful than those with unbalanced ones. This is because when we look at more symmetrical bodies, more dopamine is released in our brain.
Another example of specific proportions involved in attraction is the female waist-to-hip ratio. Researchers have found that one of the most desirable traits in women for men is a waist-to-hip ratio of 70 percent. Unsurprisingly, researchers have also found that these are the typical measurements of a Playboy centerfold!
Why We Love Key Idea #5: Men tend to judge mates on their appearance, while women look for smart and successful ones.
As seen in the previous book summary, we all share the same biological chemistry that causes us to experience love. But this doesn’t mean that men and women experience love in exactly the same way. In fact, there are some major differences between the two.
One major difference is the characteristics we look for in a partner.
When men fall in love, the brain regions associated with visual processing are activated, which is why men are mostly attracted to a potential partner’s appearance. This leads men to judge partners primarily on how they look. In particular, men look for women who show signs of youth and beauty, like soft smooth skin.
Why these specific signs?
Because signs of youth and beauty indicate high estrogen levels in a woman – an important marker of good reproductive health – which means the potential for more offspring. Choosing a partner based on their appearance means that men are likely to fall in love very quickly – some say even at first sight.
Women, however, take a more long-term approach to love, favoring partners who can make them feel secure.
Women are attracted to men who display qualities of success, like high levels of intelligence and financial security. That’s because women have to go through pregnancy and childbirth – a long, exhausting and stressful process. A successful man is therefore attractive because they are far more likely to be able to provide for and look after a woman during this difficult period.
Why We Love Key Idea #6: We all have a “love map” which charts the characteristics we find desirable in a mate.
As we get older, we start to discover what we particularly like in our partners: a big smile, green eyes or a good sense of humor. As these details accumulate over time, they form into a love map: a chart in our unconscious mind of all the things – like eye and hair color, type of personality and sexual preferences – we find the most attractive.
But where does a love map come from?
Your particular love map derives from your personal experiences and is therefore unique to you. No one else will have the precise set of likes and dislikes that you’ve built up as a consequence of your unique experiences. We know this because studies have shown that even identical twins with similar values and interests will have developed their own preferences in love – in short, they’ve developed their own love maps.
So what does your love map do exactly?
Your love map is what guides you to falling in love with one particular person.
Let’s explain with a thought experiment. Imagine you walk into a room full of strangers. You look around and see many potential partners – but it’s likely you won’t be attracted to them all. Instead, there will be a few, or maybe just one, towards whom you’ll feel strongly drawn. This is the person who best fits your love map.
Why We Love Key Idea #7: The origins of romantic love can be traced back 3.5 million years.
Have you ever asked yourself where the idea of romantic love originates from? The answer can be found way back in our evolutionary history.
Some 3.5 million years ago, human beings made a giant evolutionary shift when they started to walk upright. Although it provided them with many advantages, walking on two feet forced mothers to carry their babies in their arms instead of on their backs. And since their hands were full, mothers could no longer gather food for themselves or easily run away from predators. This meant they needed someone – a mate – to stay with them and help keep the children safe.
This situation led to a primitive form of romantic love called serial monogamy, where mates stayed together for a period of time before moving on to form a couple with someone else.
Why serial monogamy?
Our evolutionary ancestors probably didn’t spend their entire lives together – only long enough to rear a child through infancy, so around four years. After that, the two partners would go their separate ways and form new couples with other people. This strategy would have been good for the genetic health of the group, because the more children you have with different partners, the bigger the variety of a population’s genetic material.
This benefit of serial monogamy could have led to the development of modern romantic love.
As mates raised a child together, they might have started forming an attachment to one another. While it would have faded for most couples when the children grew up, it’s likely that for others the attachment motivated them to stay together longer to have more children together. Although the primitive brains of these ancestors probably meant they couldn’t experience love in the way that we do, this development probably led towards the deep bonds we associate with romantic love today.
Why We Love Key Idea #8: As humans evolved, so did their capacity for romantic love.
In the previous book summary, we learned that the first “humans” to experience romantic love probably felt it in a rather primitive way. But along our evolutionary path, our brains’ complexity increased and our capacity to experience love grew.
About 1.8 million years ago, there was a major evolutionary development: the appearance of language, the capability of expressing oneself with words. It’s arguable that there is no better way of displaying one’s romantic love than with language. We can be sure that the first humans’ capacity for love increased when this new ability appeared. Now they could woo, tease and flatter each other with tales, songs and gossip – things that can only be done with language.
As humans continued on their evolutionary path, the size of the human brain also increased, which further developed the experience of love.
The growth of the brain was partly due to the development of cooking. By learning to cook food, early humans increased their calorie intake, which allowed for the development of large, calorie-hungry brains. One of the areas of the brain that increased in size was the caudate nucleus, an area associated with our motivation to seek and win rewards. This led to increased efforts in trying to attract an appropriate mate – and is probably why some people will do anything to be with their loved one.
These new, larger brains also caused parents to stay together longer.
But larger brains meant larger skulls, which meant more problems during childbirth. In order for babies to fit through the birth canal, children had to be born before their brains and skulls were fully formed. Because they were born less developed, they had to go through a longer period of childhood before being able to fend for themselves. This forced couples to stay together for longer periods of time, and thereby strengthened feelings of romantic love.
Why We Love Key Idea #9: Exciting dates increase relationship satisfaction – and can even trigger love.
We all know that romantic love can ebb and flow: one day you feel immensely attracted to someone, the next detached and indifferent. Love seems to follow its own rules – but that’s not to say it’s uncontrollable. In fact, there are a few things you can do to keep the flame alive.
Like doing new and exciting things.
As explained earlier, dopamine is one of the chemicals that stimulates the feeling of romantic love – and it’s released when you do something exciting or new. This means you can harness the power of excitement to create feelings of love.
This was studied in 1974 by psychologists Arthur Aron and Donald Dutton, who tested how exciting situations can trigger love.
They set up an experiment on two bridges: one a low, stable concrete bridge, the other a wobbly rope bridge across a gorge. They asked males to walk across one of the bridges where a female researcher stood waiting for them. She asked them some questions, and then offered for them to call her afterwards if they had any questions. The men who walked across the dangerous bridge were far more likely to call the researcher afterwards.
Why?
Because the exciting situation in which they had met had triggered the feelings of romantic love.
Another way of maintaining high levels of romantic love in a long-term relationship is sexual intimacy.
Sexual intercourse stimulates the production of testosterone – which can excite the release of dopamine. Also, orgasms flood the body with cuddle chemicals: vasopressin in men and oxytocin in women.
So if you sense that your feelings for your partner are drifting away – there’s one sure thing you can do to rekindle them!
Why We Love Key Idea #10: When you’ve been rejected, force yourself to remain active.
As most people know, there are few pains greater than being rejected by someone you love. It can make you feel depressed, and want to just lie around all day. But instead of giving up on yourself, you need to stop wallowing in self-pity and take action. In fact, this is the only way to mitigate the pain.
Why?
Because being active keeps you distracted while you detach from the one you love.
When you’ve been rejected, the chemical reaction in the brain is pretty much the same as if you had desperately fallen in love: serotonin levels decrease, and you think obsessively about the person who rejected you. But instead of caving in and contacting the beloved, you have to stay strong and keep a distance to allow you to detach – with the help of a lot of distraction!
How?
Like the members of AA say: “One day at a time.” Tell yourself that you won’t contact your beloved today, and keep busy, for example, by going out with friends. Just committing yourself to keeping up with the tasks and jobs of everyday life, from washing the dishes to going to work, will keep you occupied and help you stay away.
Another benefit of being active is that it helps elevate your mood.
Seeing that new experiences release dopamine, doing something new and exciting, like rock climbing, skateboarding or bungee jumping, will help you deal with your negative feelings.
Furthermore, exercise also helps increase levels of serotonin, and some psychiatrists even say that exercise can be as effective as psychotherapy or antidepressant drugs in treating depression.
So if you’re feeling down, get up and do some sports and you’ll start feeling better right away!
Final summary
The key message in this book:
Romantic love as we know it has developed throughout our evolutionary history. Byharnessing our knowledge of the science of love, we can keep the romantic sparkalive and deal with the negative feelings of rejection.
