Is Romantic Love Hardwired Into Our Brains?

[Immortalis]

"It became apparent to me that romantic love was a drive -- a
drive as strong as thirst, as hunger..." --Helen Fisher

If 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.

Anthropologist Fisher argues that much of our romantic
behavior is hard-wired in [her] 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.

In 1996, Dr. Helen Fisher, with a team of behavioral
scientists, set out to investigate the mystery of "being in
love." Their objective was to find out why we love, why we
choose the people that we choose, the differences between male
and female feelings as it pertains to romance, animal love,
love at first sight, love and lust, love and marriage,
evolution of love, love and hate, and the brain in love. The
culmination of this study has now been summed in Dr. Fisher's
book, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.

The method used by Dr. Fisher and her team was to ask their
love-smitten subjects to look at a photograph of his or her
beloved, and secondly to look at another photograph of an
acquaintance who generated no positive or negative romantic
feelings. Pictures were taken of the brain and blood flows in
the brain were also recorded.

In order to scientifically study these themes, Dr. Fisher and
her team used the newest technology for brain scanning known
as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The team
endeavored to record men and women's brain activity, after
they had just fallen madly in love. The principal objective
was to record the range of feelings associated with "being 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.

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...

This book ...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.

Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love - by
Helen Fisher http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Love-Chemistry-Roma-
ntic/dp/0805069135

http://thebestreviews.com/review20806
http://www.theswartzfoundation.org/mind-brain-2006.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love http://www.helenfisher.com/
http://homepage.mac.com/helenfisher/Sites/articlespage/a2.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/02/14/science.of.lo-
ve/index.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/
http://www.curledup.com/whywelov.htm

[Sir Freder]

Of course it is, complete with the associated "feelings" self
quale of that sort of brain function.

Please recognize that as in all aspects of the human
condition, normal variations in genetics and development make
us each as different in internal structure and function as we
are in external structure and function.

[Masculist]

Sir Frederick wrote:
> Of course it is, complete with the associated "feelings"
> self quale of that sort of brain function.

What's "quale"?

> Please recognize that as in all aspects of the human
> condition, normal variations in genetics and development
> make us each as different in internal structure and function
> as we are in external structure and function.

Not that much different.

She summed it up in th elast paragraph when she equated
"romantic love" with procreation and it's requirements.
However, not many stop at one kid and move on so there must be
an equivalent drive keeping the family together for much
longer than 4 years. Funny how she doesn't postulate that.

Feminism would be a joke if it weren't for women using sex to
sell it. Four years gives women more sex partners and
therefore more power.

Tom

[Immortalis]

Masculist wrote:
> Sir Frederick wrote:
> > Of course it is, complete with the associated "feelings"
> > self quale of that sort of brain function.
>
> What's "quale"?
>
> > Please recognize that as in all aspects of the human
> > condition, normal variations in genetics and development
> > make us each as different in internal structure and
> > function as we are in external structure and function.
>
> Not that much different.
>
> She summed it up in th elast paragraph when she equated
> "romantic love" with procreation and it's requirements.
> However, not many stop at one kid and move on so there must
> be an equivalent drive keeping the family together for much
> longer than 4 years. Funny how she doesn't postulate that.
>
> Feminism would be a joke if it weren't for women using sex
> to sell it. Four years gives women more sex partners and
> therefore more power.
>

What if the selection of relashionship length has only
extended to the four to seven years as a trait promoting
childhood survival? Why would these traits need to extend to
longer periods? Wouldn't the drive to have friends and
aquaintances outside the reproductive scenario kick in as with
some lifelong relationships where the two people really do
"like" each other enough to be "good" freinds for life?

-------------------

This phenomenon, popularized in the Marilyn Monroe movie The
Seven Year Itch, is based on the notion that the fabric of
marriage gets frayed threadbare after seven years....

Evolutionists feel that the seven-year span is to humans what
a breeding season is to birds. Apparently, natural selection
has designed us to withstand the rigors of marriage for at
least long enough to raise a child to the point that it has a
reasonable chance of survival without a father. After seven
years of marriage, the first child is likely to be five or six
years old. By this age, children are strong enough to walk
without being carried, which is in keeping with constraints on
our hunter-gatherer ancestors who had to relocate their
temporary camps by distances of several miles. Children at
five or six years can feed themselves to some extent, by
collecting plant food, for example, and are alert to dangers
of wild animals.

The Science of Romance - by Nigel Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573929700/

> Tom

[Vernon Doz]

Sir Frederick wrote:
> On 8 Jan 2007 13:34:53 -0800, "Masculist"
> <MASCULIST@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Sir Frederick wrote:
> >> Of course it is, complete with the associated "feelings"
> >> self quale of that sort of brain function.
> >
> >What's "quale"?
>
> "Quale" is singular form of "qualia".
>
> The various processes of our brain are IMO represented in
> our experience as "self qualia", "mind" being one such
> (others : feelings, consciousness, personification, etc.).
>
> The use of qualia or quale in association with self is
> unique to me. Here is the normal usage :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Interesting. Thanks Sir Fred.

> >
> >> Please recognize that as in all aspects of the human
> >> condition, normal variations in genetics and development
> >> make us each as different in internal structure and
> >> function as we are in external structure and function.
> >
> >Not that much different.
>
> Actually more, our brains are the most recent part of our
> bodies to have evolved, more variations remains.

Good point.

Tom

> >She summed it up in th elast paragraph when she equated
> >"romantic love" with procreation and it's requirements.
> >However, not many stop at one kid and move on so there must
> >be an equivalent drive keeping the family together for much
> >longer than 4 years. Funny how she doesn't postulate that.
> >
> >Feminism would be a joke if it weren't for women using sex
> >to sell it. Four years gives women more sex partners and
> >therefore more power.
> >
> >Tom

[Day Brown]

"The Forest People", an anthro classic on the Mbuti pygmi is
instructive. Still living as they have for the last 100,000
years or whatever, 1/3 of the tribe was monogamous, finding
someone at puberty, staying mated thereafter. But 1/3 used
what we now call 'serial monogamy', and 1/3 were
promiscuous, with some members changing phase, such as the
death of a partner.

But no matter, none of these was assumed to be the model for
everyone. Whatever floats your boat. The notion that hominids
were generally monogamous is absurd when you consider the
problems small groups have with genetic diversity. Inbred
hillbilly tribes have trouble after just a few generations.
One of the ways the femals can maximize diversity is to use a
different sperm donor for every conception. Thus "fertility
rites" were common even tho the people were nominally
monogamous.

I read that the DNA suggests that Native Europeans evolved in
villages of 150-300 over the last 10,000 years or so. Africans
in tribes of 75-150, with other races somewhere in the range.
In any case, the number of potential mates available at any
one time was way too small for people to be thinking of the
"perfect match". People made do with what was available.

The fact that monogamy gets so much press is a result of the
priorities of larger organizations like corporations,
religions, & government, which would prefer to see all of us
in the smallest possible social units so as to maximize our
personal dependance on their functions. Monogamy has, in fact,
proved to be a disaster ever since birth control came in. When
the wives of honorable men bore no son, that Y chromosome line
is out of the gene pool, while at the same time, the charming
philanderers have sired bastards all over the county. So after
a couple of generations of this, we hear Dr. Laura say "Well,
you picked him honey." To which I ask, yes, but what do young
women now have to pick *from*?

[Turin]

Vernon Dozier postulated:
> Sir Frederick wrote:
>> On 8 Jan 2007 13:34:53 -0800, "Malefeminist"
>> <MALEFEMINIST@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Sir Frederick wrote:
>>>> Of course it is, complete with the associated "feelings"
>>>> self quale of that sort of brain function.
>>> What's "quale"?
>> "Quale" is singular form of "qualia".
>>
>> The various processes of our brain are IMO represented in
>> our experience as "self qualia", "mind" being one such
>> (others : feelings, consciousness, personification, etc.).
>>
>> The use of qualia or quale in association with self is
>> unique to me. Here is the normal usage :
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
>
> Interesting. Thanks Sir Fred.

That's something that people like Tom sometimes say when the
response is all Greek to them.

>>>> Please recognize that as in all aspects of the human
>>>> condition, normal variations in genetics and development
>>>> make us each as different in internal structure and
>>>> function as we are in external structure and function.
>>> Not that much different.
>> Actually more, our brains are the most recent part of our
>> bodies to have evolved,

Except, in Tom's case.

>> more variations remains.

That's for sure.

> Good point.

Lmao

- - -

This has been another enlightening moment, with:

Turin

I have such sites to show you...
------------------------

http://members.fortunecity.com/turinturambar/
http://groups.google.com/group/Men_First

------------------------

"He who changeth, altereth, misconstrueth, argueth with,
deleteth, or maketh a lie about these words or causeth them to
not be known shall burn in hell forever and ever...."

-----

> Tom
>
>>> She summed it up in th elast paragraph when she equated
>>> "romantic love" with procreation and it's requirements.
>>> However, not many stop at one kid and move on so there
>>> must be an equivalent drive keeping the family together
>>> for much longer than 4 years. Funny how she doesn't
>>> postulate that.
>>>
>>> Feminism would be a joke if it weren't for women using sex
>>> to sell it. Four years gives women more sex partners and
>>> therefore more power.
>>>
>>> Tom