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"If you want flashes and particular experiences of romantic love, read novels. If you want to understand this central quality of human nature to its roots, read Why We Love."
―Edward O. Wilson
In Why We Love, renowned anthropologist Helen Fisher offers a new map of the phenomenon of love―from its origins in the brain to the thrilling havoc it creates in our bodies and behavior. Working with a team of scientists to scan the brains of people who had just fallen madly in love, Fisher proved what psychologists had until recently only suspected: when you fall in love, specific areas of the brain "light up" with increased blood flow. This sweeping new book uses this data to argue that romantic passion is hardwired into our brains by millions of years of evolution. It is not an emotion; it is a drive as powerful as hunger.
Provocative, enlightening, engaging, and persuasive, Why We Love offers radical new answers to age-old questions: what love is, who we love―and how to keep love alive.
- Sales Rank: #54678 in Books
- Brand: Fisher, Helen E.
- Published on: 2005-01-02
- Released on: 2004-12-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .85" w x 5.88" l, .63 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Anthropologist Fisher argues that much of our romantic behavior is hard-wired in this provocative examination of love. Her case is bolstered by behavioral research into the effects of two crucial chemicals, norepinephrine and dopamine, and by surveys she conducted across broad populations. When we fall in love, she says, our brains create dramatic surges of energy that fuel such feelings as passion, obsessiveness, joy and jealousy. Fisher devotes a fascinating and substantial chapter to the appearance of romance and love among non-human animals, and composes careful theories about early humans in love. One of her many surprising conclusions suggests that, since "four-year birth intervals were the regular pattern of birth spacing during our long human prehistory," our modern brains still deal with relationships in serially monogamous terms of about four years. Indeed, Fisher gathered data from around the world showing that divorce was most prevalent in the fourth year of marriage, when a couple had a single dependent child. Fisher also reports on the behaviors that lead to successful lifelong partnerships and offers, based on what she's observed, numerous tips on staying in love. And though she's certain that chemicals are at love's heart, Fisher never loses her sense of the emotion's power or poetry.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Scientific American
A male baboon named Sherlock sat on a cliff, unable to take his eyes off his favorite female, Cybelle, as she foraged far below. Each time Cybelle approached another adult male, Sherlock froze with tension, only to relax again when she ignored a potential rival. Finally, Cybelle glanced up and met his gaze. Instantly Sherlock flattened his ears and narrowed his eyes in what baboon researchers call the come-hither face. It worked; seconds later Cybelle sat by her guy, grooming him with gusto. After observing many similar scenarios, I realized that baboons, like humans, develop intense attractions to particular members of the opposite sex. Baboon heterosexual partnerships bear an intriguing resemblance to ours, but they also differ in important ways. For instance, baboons can simultaneously be "in love" with more than one individual, a capacity that, according to anthropologist Helen Fisher, most humans lack. ADVERTISEMENT (article continues below) Fisher is well known for her three previous books (The Sex Contract, Anatomy of Love and The First Sex), which bring an evolutionary perspective to myriad aspects of sex, love, and sex differences. This book is the best, in my view, because it goes beyond observable behaviors to consider their underlying brain mechanisms. Most people think of romantic love as a feeling. Fisher, however, views it as a drive so powerful that it can override other drives, such as hunger and thirst, render the most dignified person a fool, or bring rapture to an unassuming wallflower. This original hypothesis is consistent with the neurochemistry of love. While emphasizing the complex and subtle interplay among multiple brain chemicals, Fisher argues convincingly that dopamine deserves center stage. This neurotransmitter drives animals to seek rewards, such as food and sex, and is also essential to the pleasure experienced when such drives are satisfied. Fisher thinks that dopamine's action can explain both the highs of romantic passion (dopamine rising) and the lows of rejection (dopamine falling). Citing evidence from studies of humans and other animals, she also demonstrates marked parallels between the behaviors, feelings and chemicals that underlie romantic love and those associated with substance addiction. Like the alcoholic who feels compelled to drink, the impassioned lover cries that he will die without his beloved. Dying of a broken heart is, of course, not adaptive, and neither is forsaking family and fortune to pursue a sweetheart to the ends of the earth. Why then, Fisher asks, has evolution burdened humans with such seemingly irrational passions? Drawing on evidence from living primates, paleontology and diverse cultures, she argues that the evolution of large-brained, helpless hominid infants created a new imperative for mother and father to cooperate in child-rearing. Romantic love, she contests, drove ancestral women and men to come together long enough to conceive, whereas attachment, another complex of feelings with a different chemical basis, kept them together long enough to support a child until weaning (about four years). Evidence indicates that as attachment grows, passion recedes. Thus, the same feelings that bring parents together often force them apart, as one or both fall in love with someone new. In this scenario, broken hearts and self-defeating crimes of passion become the unfortunate by-products of a biological system that usually facilitates reproduction. Fisher's theory of how human pair-bonding evolved is just one of several hypotheses under debate today, and she does not discuss these alternatives. Similarly, some of her ideas about love's chemistry are quite speculative (which she fully acknowledges). No one familiar with the evidence, however, can disagree that romantic love is a human universal that requires an evolutionary explanation, and Fisher, more than any other scientist, has brought this important point to public awareness. Like the words of a talented lover, Fisher's prose is charming and engaging. Love poems, both modern and classic, enliven her narrative, along with poignant examples of romantic passion from other times and cultures. One chapter is a litany to passion in other animals, a vivid reminder that we are not the only species that feels deeply. Another provides new insight into the obsessive attempts of abandoned lovers to rekindle romance. Toward the end of the book, Fisher helps to redeem the self-help genre, rooting her advice in hard science. She shows how you might "trick the brain" to maintain enduring passion or recover more quickly from the pain of rejection: "Someone is camping in your brain," she reminds us, and "you must throw the scoundrel out." Engaging in activities known to increase dopamine might help; after all, love is not our only source of intense pleasure. In hands as skilled and sensitive as Fisher's, scientific analysis of love only adds to its magic. If you forgot to give your beloved a gift on Valentine's Day, it's not too late to woo him or her anew with this book, which is likely to fascinate and delight anyone who has ever been in love.
Barbara Smuts is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She is author of Sex and Friendship in Baboons (reprinted with a new preface, Harvard University Press, 1999).
From Booklist
Love, the poets tell us, is as elusive as a butterfly. Such an ephemeral concept presented a nearly irresistible challenge to anthropologist Fisher, who set out to prove that love indeed could be quantified and analyzed as if it were a tangible commodity. Commanding sophisticated methodology, from MRIs to EEGs, and complex blood analyses to comprehensive psychological surveys, Fisher employed all the technological tools of the trade to determine the difference between love and lust, between the desire for romance and the demand to reproduce. Birds and bees do, in fact, do it, and men, it turns out, are not from Mars, nor women from Venus. Love, Fisher concludes, is the product of a chemical quagmire and the result of a sociological imperative as ancient as cavemen and as elemental as amoebas. Entertainingly balancing poetic plaudits with scientific sanctions, Fisher presents both the chemistry behind love's rashest behavior and the understanding necessary to weather the emotional upheavals associated with falling in love. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
60 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
speculative, but a brilliant attempt.
By Alexander Kemestrios Ben
This book suceeds on two levels. First, it is scientifically rigorous, though speculative. (those who accuse Fisher of being a popularizer obviously have never read her technical journal articles, nor other articles on this subject by researchers. She is no more speculative than they.) Second, it is existentially enlightening and empathetic. Fisher does not just wish to share her scientific insights into romantic love, she wishes to let you know that she feels your pains and joys. She wishes to explain and understand.
Fisher begins by laying out the basic external and internal manifestations of romantic love. What does it do to people? Here she is spot on. It causes us to focus our energy on the beloved, endow that person with special meaning, increases our energy, etc. Most importantly, it causes obsessive, intrusive thinking. We can't go a minute without the object of our desire popping into our head! Now, I am not a betting man, but I am sure everyone can relate to this description.
After describing the basic characteristics of romantic love, Fisher discusses the possible neural underpinnings that cause such intense feelings. She speculates that humans have three different systems: 1)Lust. This is mostly controlled by testosterone. This drive causes one night stands and other stupid behaviors us men seem to excell at. 2) romantic love. This drive is caused by increasing dopamine levels stimulating 'pleasure centers' in the brain. Specifically, the ventral tegmental area, caudate nucleus, and probably the nucleus accumbens. Romantic love probably also involves an increase in norepinephrine and a decrease in serotonin. The last is worth a brief explanation. It is well known that increased levels of serotonin are correlated with a sense of serenity, good moods, and an ability to inhibit behavior. So, would it not make sense for romantic love to raise levels of serotonin? No, actually it would not. Serotonin is known to be very low in people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder. Does this sound familiar? Indeed, people who have early-stage romantic attachment are very obsessive. It seems that the drop in serotonin is partially responsible for our wild inability to control our thoughts during this intensely emotional stage. 3) attachment, or bonding. This stage seems to be modulated most by two very important peptides: Vasopressin and Oxytocin. Both of these peptide/hormone/neurotransmitters are responsible for creating pleasurable sensations and feelings of calm. They are also known to be the causal forces behind pair bonding in rhodents. Humans are certainly more complex than rats, but evolution is very conservative. It is reasonable to postulate these peptides as important players in the pair bonding game.
After dipping into the scientific goo, Fisher speculates on the evolution of our three mating drives. Why do humans have three? Lust evolved to spread our genes far and wide. It is the drive that makes us seek partners on the quick. Romantic love evolved to bring indviduals close together for longer periods of time. In humans this is important because we have systems of biparental care where both parents are vital in ensuring the survival of offspring. The pair bonding system probably evolved for the same reason as the romantic love system, except humans needed the bonding part to stay together during the long stage of infant development. The longer a man stayed around to provide his child with resources the better.
There are many more details, speculations, and findings reported in this fascinating work, but you will have to read it for yourself.
Personally, I am amazed at the explanatory power of Fisher's synthesis. I remember pining long hours (days, months) over many pulchritudinous young women. Some got so stuck in my noggin that I couldn't concentrate for weeks. I thought I was going mad. It seemed to me at the time that the best description of the feeling was addiction. That is, I felt like I was consistently being shot up with a powerful drug and if I didn't get my fix, I would go crazy. Hence the obsessive attempts to be around my crushes. How pathetic I was!! Yet, when I read Fisher's work, I realized love is like a uber-powerful drug. Dopamine is scandalous in its workings. How much heart-ache and bliss have our neurotransmitters caused us? How much irrational poetry and music?
To understand this feeling will not help you feel happy when you are rejected, nor will it take the pleasure away if you fall in love. It may, however, give you some peace of mind and put things into perspective.
Great book!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By The Commandments of CoCo
Very enjoyable read!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
One Star
By Ana M. Underman
This book is everything sexist, heteronormative, and stifling about evolutionary psychology. I listened to part of Helen Fisher's TED talk on NPR and was intrigued, hoping to learn more about the neurochemistry of love and attraction. Unfortunately, I found her research to be sorely lacking (she chooses her research subjects based on whether they appear TO HER to be "madly in love"-- a biased start if I ever heard one.) Ultimately, what she's really researching is what happens in the brain during the social construct called "romance."
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