Bio:
Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. She's best known as an expert on romantic love, and her beautifully penned books -- including Anatomy of Love and Why We Love -- lay bare the mysteries of our most treasured emotion.
What happens to a person when they fall in love?
The first thing that happens is that your beloved begins to take on what I call “special meaning.” As a truck driver once said, “The world had a new center and that center was Maryanne.” Then you begin to focus all your attention on this special person. You can remember tiny things he or she said or did--and you dote on the things that you adore. You feel tremendous elation, euphoria, ecstasy when things are going well and terrible despair when things go wrong. Real mood swings. You have a huge amount of energy, too, so much that is it often hard to sleep. But most important: you can't stop thinking about this person. You obsessively think about him or her. And you yearn, indeed crave, to win emotional union with this sweetheart. Sure, most people would like to go to bed with a beloved; and they can get very jealous if they think this person is with another. But even more important than making love, they want this person to return their affection, to respond, to call, to write e-mails, to go out with them--and reciprocate their passion.
Did you find any brain differences between your male and female subjects?
Many of the same brain regions became active in both sexes. In fact, men fall in love faster than women do. But we did find some gender differences: Men tended to show more activity in brain regions associated with the integration of visual stimuli, and with penile erection. Women tended, instead, to show more activity in regions associated with emotion, attention and recalling memories.
Actually, these gender differences make pretty good evolutionary sense. Ancestral men needed to see if a woman showed visual signs of youth and health, signs that she would bear him healthy babies. And when a man saw a good reproductive partner, it would have been adaptive for him to become sexually aroused--to start the mating process. But a woman can't “size up” a man just by looking at him. A woman needs a good provider and protector. So an ancestral woman needed to remember all the things a mating partner had done for her, what he had given her and what he had promised. No wonder women in love evolved the tendency to activate brain circuits for remembering. In fact, women still remember many more of the details of a love affair than men do.
Why only scan the brains of people newly in love? Does that mean that love changes over time?
Yes, love does change over time. We have all experienced this. But this study tells us much more about how this happens. Our subjects who were in longer relationships showed activity in some additional brain regions, areas associated with the processing of emotions. We don't know what this means yet. But I think someday we will find that as true love progresses, brain circuits for thinking rationally about the relationship become more active, and brain areas that generate that tremendous passion begin to relax so that the craving slowly subsides, replaced by deeper, calmer, less urgent feelings.
So you would probably say that romantic love evolved in human beings, right? How did that happen? Why do we love?
I think that the precursor of romantic love, animal attraction, evolved long before human beings—to enable all mammals to focus their mating energy on specific partners, thereby conserving courtship time and energy. In fact, many became attracted immediately – the forerunner of love-at-first sight. But I think this brain system became much more elaborate after our first forbearers descended from the tress of Africa some 4 million years ago. With the evolution of pair bonding and male/female attachment, both men and women began to develop a more complex system for choosing a mate: romantic love. Then, the courtship process became even more intense (probably about 2 million years ago) and the brain circuitry for romantic love took its modern form.
Why do we love? I think romantic love evolved for many Darwinian purposes. Children who fall in love are practicing for life's greatest challenge, choosing an appropriate mating partner. Those of reproductive age fall in love to start a breeding partnership. People who divorce and fall in love again are beginning yet another potentially reproductive relationship. And older folks who fall in love have found a kindred spirit with whom to share the problems (and joys) of aging. In fact, we were probably designed to fall in love with more than one person during our lives, largely so that we would bear children with several partners and thereby increase genetic variety in our lineage.
Why do we choose one person rather than another?
Why him? Why her? There are many, many forces that play a role in who we fall in love with. Timing is important; you tend to fall in love when you are ready, particularly when you are lonely. Proximity is often crucial; we fall for people who we interact with. Both men and women are excited by individuals they regard as mysterious. And most fall in love with someone of the same ethnic, social, religious, educational and economic background and with a similar amount of physical attractiveness, a comparable intelligence and parallel attitudes, expectations, values and interests. We gravitate to people like ourselves.
But most important is your “love map.” We grow up in a sea of experiences that sculpt our romantic choices. Our mother's sense of humor; our father's interest in politics and music; how those around us view honor, justice, loyalty and politeness: thousands of subtle forces build our individual interests, values and beliefs. So by the teenage years, each of us has constructed an unconscious catalogue of aptitudes and mannerisms we are looking for in a mate. Then when we meet someone who fits within this “love map” and they begin to flirt, the interaction may trigger the brain chemistry of romance and we fall head over heels in love.
How does romantic love affect the sex drive and feelings of attachment to a partner?
I think these three basic mating drives -- lust, romantic love and attachment -- are very interconnected in the brain. For example, dopamine, the chemical associated with romance, can drive up levels of testosterone, the hormone of sexual desire. This is probably why you become so interested in “making love” to your beloved. The sex drive does not always trigger romantic love, however. Most liberated contemporary adults have had sex with someone they were not in love with. But you can begin to copulate with “just a friend” and then fall madly in love with him or her-—probably because elevated levels of testosterone (associated with the sex drive) can elevate levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.
Romantic love has a more complex relationship with feelings of attachment, that sense of calm and security one can feel for a long term partner. Generally some of the chemistry of attachment can suppress the elation and passion of romantic love. This is probably why it is hard to keep that intense passion alive as the relationship becomes more stable and long term.
How can one keep romantic love alive in a long term marriage?
Do novel things together. Novelty drives up levels of dopamine – the chemical associated with romantic love. And if you and your partner are both interested in sex, make sure to keep this part of your relationship alive.
What happens in the brain when people are rejected in love?
We have begun to study this. After we put 17 people into the brain scanner who were happily in love, we put 20 young men and women into the scanner who had recently been rejected by someone they adored. It was tough to do. I felt such anguish for each subject. Anyway, we don't know yet what happens in the brain when someone has been “dumped” because we are still analyzing the data. Nevertheless, I suspect that we will find that some of the same dopamine pathways in the “reward system” in the brain are involved—-because people don't give up loving easily. We may also find activity in brain areas associated with anger and depression.
You say that romantic love is a drive. Does this mean that we have no control over our feelings?
I think you have to treat romantic love as an addiction. When you need to expel someone from your mind, first you need to throw out all the cards and letters. Don't call. Don't write. Avoid the places where you may run into him or her. Keep busy. Do novel things with old friends or new people. And exercise. Exercise can chance brain chemistry in healing ways, as can sunlight. Some people are helped by antidepressant drugs or “talking therapy” or both.
You reveal that unrequited love can lead to stalking, homicide, suicide, depression, and high divorce and adultery rates. Does this mean that health care professionals could medicate to prevent any of these? Should they?
This is a hard question. Yes, I think that health care professionals can medicate people to help prevent crimes of passion. They already do. And these medications probably help. I think crimes of passion occur, at least in part, because dopamine activity in the brain has become pronounced, making the jilted lover obsessed, energized, focused, motivated, and often enraged. And high levels of dopamine are probably driving down levels of serotonin, reducing impulse control as well—-thus setting up the abandoned person for violent behavior. But let's not forget that people are all very different. And they grow up with different childhood experiences; they have different values and beliefs, and different ways of handling stress and rejection. So, luckily, a great many of us seem to be able to weather the agony of rejection without violence or long lasting depression. But, yes, I think antidepressant drugs and talking therapy can help people in the throws of abandonment.
How about your own love life? What are the advantages of knowing about love? Are there disadvantages? Does dissecting the biology of romantic love take away some of the mystery and passion of being in love?
Well, I have loved and won and loved and lost. I certainly know the ecstasy and despair of romantic love. But I think that learning about romantic love has given me some advantages. I certainly feel more informed, and for reasons I can't explain, more secure. I can anticipate some of the behavior of others and I have some tools to deal with various situations. And I know more about how to trigger love and how to make it last. Disadvantages? Well, perhaps I am more realistic, if you want to call that a disadvantage. But one thing I am positive about – knowing about love will never kill the passion.
If romantic love is an urge that has evolved over time, what is the future of it? Will it change?
The feeling will never change, it's too deeply embedded in the human brain. But today more and more people marry for love. In our hunting/gathering past, many wed for love; they were free to marry whom they chose. But as our forebears settled down to farm some 10,000 years ago, more and more marriages became business ventures done to exchange property or make political alliances or social ties. Romance could not be stifled. The rich took concubines; the poor still wed for love; and many probably fell in love with the person that they married. But with the growth of trade and cities and the Industrial Revolution, men and women fled farm life to live in towns. And as family obligations lessened, more began to wed for love. The steady entrance of women into the paid workforce has intensified the desire to pick a partner for one 's self and today more and more men and women practice what the Chinese call “free love.”
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