Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode In & Out Of Love.
Helen Fisher says love is a biological drive and a survival mechanism. She discusses the science of love and how much control we have over who we love, how we love, and whether that love lasts.
Helen
Is “Slow Love” The Key To A Successful Relationship?
Helen discusses the emerging “slow love” phenomenon on CBS This Morning
What Makes a Healthy Partnership?
Helen Speaking on healthy partnerships at the Palm Health Foundation.
Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other
Helen E. Fisher, Xiaomeng Xu, Arthur Aron and Lucy L. Brown
Review Article
Front. Psychol., 10 May 2016 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00687
Individuals in the early stage of intense romantic love show many symptoms of substance and non-substance or behavioral addictions, including euphoria, craving, tolerance, emotional and physical dependence, withdrawal and relapse. We have proposed that romantic love is a natural (and often positive) addiction that evolved from mammalian antecedents by 4 million years ago as a survival mechanism to encourage hominin pair-bonding and reproduction, seen cross-culturally today in Homo sapiens. Brain scanning studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging support this view: feelings of intense romantic love engage regions of the brain’s “reward system,” specifically dopamine-rich regions, including the ventral tegmental area, also activated during drug and/or behavioral addiction.
The Neurochemical Makeup of the Presidential Candidates
Helen discusses the neurochemical makeup of Clinton, Sanders, and Trump.
Four broad temperament dimensions: description, convergent validation correlations, and comparison with the Big Five
Front. Psychol., 03 August 2015 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01098
Helen E. Fisher, Heide D. Island, Jonathan Rich, Daniel Marchalik, and Lucy L. Brown
A new temperament construct based on recent brain physiology literature has been investigated using the Fisher Temperament Inventory (FTI). Four collections of behaviors emerged, each associated with a specific neural system: the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen/oxytocin system. These four temperament suites have been designated: (1) Curious/Energetic, (2) Cautious/Social Norm Compliant, (3) Analytical/Tough-minded, and (4) Prosocial/Empathetic temperament dimensions. Two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have suggested that the FTI can measure the influence of these neural systems. In this paper, to further the behavioral validation and characterization of the four proposed temperament dimensions, we measured correlations with five variables: (1) gender; (2) level of education; (3) religious preference; (4) political orientation; (5) the degree to which an individual regards sex as essential to a successful relationship.
Four Styles of Thinking and Behaving
Helen Fisher at PopTech: What We Want
Helen discusses the biology of love. From the importance of one-night stands to the solidity of marriage, Fisher shreds the common wisdom of what love is and isn’t in the 21st century.
The Tyranny of Love: Love Addiction—an Anthropologist’s View
Fisher, HE (2014) The Tyranny of love: Love addiction—an anthropologist’s
view. In Laura Curtiss Feder and Ken Rosenberg, Eds. Behavioral
addictions: criteria, evidence and treatment. Elsevier Press
THE TYRANNY OF LOVE:
Love addiction—an anthropologist’s view
“When we want to read of the deeds of love,
George Bernard Shaw
whither do we turn? To the murder column.”
Laymen and scientists have long regarded romantic love as part of the supernatural, or as an invention of the Troubadours in 12th century France, or as the result of cultural tradition. However, current data collected using brain scanning (functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI) indicate that feelings of intense romantic love engage regions of the brain’s “reward system,” specifically dopamine pathways associated with energy, focus, motivation, ecstasy and craving, including primary regions associated with addiction (Bartels and Zeki 2000; Fisher et al 2003; Bartels and Zeki 2004; Aron et al 2005; Fisher et al 2005; Ortigue et al 2007; Fisher et al 2010a; Acevedo et al., 2011, Xu et al 2011). Moreover, men and women who are passionately in love show all of the basic symptoms of addiction, including craving, tolerance, emotional and physical dependence, withdrawal and relapse (see Fisher 2004).
Because romantic love is regularly associated with a suite of traits linked with all addictions, several psychologists have come to believe that romantic love can potentially become an addiction (Peele 1975; Halpern 1982; Tennov 1979; Hunter et al 1981; Mellody et al 1992; GriffinShelley 1991; Schaef 1989). However, many define addiction as a pathological, problematic disorder (Reynaud et al 2010); and because romantic love is a positive experience under many circumstances (i.e. not harmful), researchers remain largely unwilling to officially categorize romantic love as an addiction.
But even when romantic love can’t be regarded as harmful, it is associated with intense craving and anxiety and can impel the lover to believe, say and do dangerous and inappropriate things. Moreover, all forms of substance abuse, including alcohol, opioids, cocaine, amphetamines, cannabis, and tobacco activate reward pathways (Volkow et al., 2007; Diana 2013; Koob and Volkow 2010; Melis et al., 2005; Frascella et al., 2010; Breiter et al 1997), and several of these same reward pathways are also found to be activated among men and women who are happily in love, as well as those rejected in love (Bartels and Zeki 2000; Fisher et al 2003; Bartels and Zeki 2004; Aron et al 2005; Fisher et al 2005; Ortigue et al 2007; Fisher et al 2010; Acevedo et al., 2011, Xu et al 2011). So regardless of its official diagnostic classification, I believe romantic love should be treated as an addiction (Fisher 2004): a positive addiction when one’s love is reciprocated, nontoxic and appropriate (i.e. neither partner is married to someone else or has other inappropriate lifestyle issues); and a negative addiction when one’s feelings of romantic love are inappropriate, toxic, not reciprocated and/or formally rejected (Fisher 2004).
This chapter maintains that romantic love is a natural addiction (Brown, in Frascella et al., 2010) that evolved from mammalian antecedents at the basal radiation of the hominid clade some 4.4 million years ago in conjunction with the evolution of serial social monogamy and clandestine adulteryhallmarks of the human reproductive strategy (Fisher 1998; Fisher 2004; Fisher 2011). Its purpose was to motivate our forebears to focus their mating time and energy on a single partner at a time, thus initiating the formation of a pairbond to rear their young together as a team (Fisher 1992; Fisher 1998; Fisher et al., 2006, Fisher 2011). The chapter discusses the traits associated with both positive and negative love addiction; it traces the evolution of love addictions to their likely origins; it proposes a theory for the biopsychological foundations of different types of love addiction; and it offers some scientificallybased suggestions for treatment of individuals suffering from rejection addiction.
ROMANTIC LOVE AS A POSITIVE ADDICTION
Human romantic love, also known as passionate love, obsessive love, and “being in love,” is a crosscultural phenomenon. In a survey of 166 societies, Jankowiak and Fischer (1992) found evidence of romantic love in 147 of them. No negative evidence was found; in the 19 remaining cultures, anthropologists had failed to ask the appropriate questions. Jankowiak and Fischer concluded that romantic love constitutes a human universal, or near universal phenomenon (Jankowiak and Fischer 1992).
Romantic attraction is associated with a suite of psychological, behavioral and physiological traits (Liebowitz 1983; Fisher 1998; Hatfield et al. 1988; Hatfield and Sprecher 1986; Harris 1995; Tennov 1979). This passion begins as the lover starts to regard the beloved as special and unique; the beloved takes on “special meaning.” The lover focuses his/her attention on the beloved (saliency), as well as aggrandizes the beloved’s better traits while overlooking or minimizing their flaws. The lover expresses increased energy (hypomania), as well as ecstasy when the love affair is going well, mood swings into despair (and anhedonia) when problems in the relationship arise, and often general anxiety about their role, how to please and how to achieve their goal: union with the beloved. Adversity and social barriers heighten romantic passion and craving (frustration attraction). The lover suffers when apart from the beloved (separation anxiety), as well as expressing one or more sympathetic nervous system reactions when with the beloved, including sweating, stammering, butterflies in the stomach, a pounding heart and/or difficulty eating or sleeping: the lover is emotionally and physically dependent. They also distort reality, change their priorities and daily habits to accommodate the beloved, experience personality changes (affect disturbance) and sometimes do inappropriate or dangerous things to remain in contact with or impress this special other.
Neural Correlates of Four Broad Temperament Dimensions: Testing Predictions for a Novel Construct of Personality
Lucy L. Brown, Bianca Acevedo, Helen E. Fisher
Four suites of behavioral traits have been associated with four broad neural systems: the 1) dopamine and related norepinephrine system; 2) serotonin; 3) testosterone; 4) and estrogen and oxytocin system. A 56-item questionnaire, the Fisher Temperament Inventory (FTI), was developed to define four temperament dimensions associated with these behavioral traits and neural systems. The questionnaire has been used to suggest romantic partner compatibility. The dimensions were named: Curious/Energetic; Cautious/Social Norm Compliant; Analytical/Tough-minded; and Prosocial/Empathetic. For the present study, the FTI was administered to participants in two functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that elicited feelings of love and attachment, near-universal human experiences. Scores for the Curious/Energetic dimension co-varied with activation in a region of the substantia nigra, consistent with the prediction that this dimension reflects activity in the dopamine system. Scores for the Cautious/Social Norm Compliant dimension correlated with activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in regions associated with social norm compliance, a trait linked with the serotonin system. Scores on the Analytical/Tough-minded scale co-varied with activity in regions of the occipital and parietal cortices associated with visual acuity and mathematical thinking, traits linked with testosterone. Also, testosterone contributes to brain architecture in these areas. Scores on the Prosocial/Empathetic scale correlated with activity in regions of the inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula and fusiform gyrus. These are regions associated with mirror neurons or empathy, a trait linked with the estrogen/oxytocin system, and where estrogen contributes to brain architecture. These findings, replicated across two studies, suggest that the FTI measures influences of four broad neural systems, and that these temperament dimensions and neural systems could constitute foundational mechanisms in personality structure and play a role in romantic partnerships.