Helen’s Blog – Helen Fisher, PhD

Helen on a Park Bench with a Romantic Couple in the Background

Mating in the Digital Age

cover image of the Oxford Handbook of Human Mating

Charles Darwin identified two basic forms of sexual selection: intrasexual selection, in which members of the same sex of a species evolved biobehavioral mechanisms to compete with one another to win mating opportunities with the opposite sex—male–male competition and female–female competition —and intersexual selection in which members of each sex of a species evolved biobehavioral mechanisms to attract members of the opposite sex for the purpose of mating—mate choice. Miller proposed that two aspects of mate choice have evolved in tandem: (1) traits of the display producer that evolved to attract mating partners and (2) traits of the display chooser that evolved to discriminate between specic courtship displays and prefer those of specic display producers. Fisher has proposed that a third mechanism evolved in tandem with hominin mate choice: the brain system for romantic love.Read More

Powerful independent women

For: Women’s History Month Women have come a long way back–back to the days before farm living, when women in gathering/hunting societies were highly independent and powerful, economically, socially and sexually. Gone are the customs of our farming past, when women were denied an education and were married off as virgins ‘til death do they part. […]Read More

How The Pandemic Has Positively Affected Dating (DatingNews.com)

Originally posted at datingnews.com by Amber Brooks The Scoop: Dating has changed significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Many singles now get to know potential partners by spending more time connecting through video chats and over the phone. Anthropologist and Match.com Advisor Helen Fisher said she thinks these changes will be permanent — and beneficial to future daters. […]Read More

National Singles Week

Hail to my single friends on National Singles Week. I’m among you. And I’m not alone. Some 50.2 percent of all adult Americans are now single. And we rock—as is clear from the Match.com 2013 Singles in America study of all Americans, not the Match membership. Some 65% of us “work out” at least once a week. Over 80% of us save our money […]Read More

The New (Prehistoric) Dad

What will you do on Father’s Day? Skip it? From the results of a new study of 1500 men, that’s what many men expect. How odd that we overlook this holiday. Fatherhood is human. New fossil finds from East Africa suggest that ancestral men and women began to form pair-bonds over four million years ago, rearing their children as […]Read More

What’s Going on In Your Brain When You Get Dumped, According to a Scientist

amanda mcarthur may 22, 2020 Few things feel worse than getting dumped. Whether it’s out of the blue or it’s been a long time coming, the end of a relationship can be a painful thing—particularly when you didn’t have any say in its conclusion. But why exactly is that pain so severe, and why can it […]Read More

Why do men seem more forgetful and women never forget?

So many times I have begun reminiscing with a boyfriend about a holiday we shared, a movie we saw, or a trip we took—only to discover how little he remembered of the event. While I could recall what I wore, what we discussed, where we went, even what we ate, it was all a blur to […]Read More

“Wha’ choo’ thinkin’?

I am not entirely sure why men hate it when women ask “what are you thinking.” I used to do that quite a bit, actually, and I never really got anyone to answer. But my twin sister and I have asked one another this question since we were small children. We used to have a game called “now.” And […]Read More

Holidays and Relationships (Time.com)

The holiday season can be very difficult for those in new relationships. You can become embarrassed at how your partner acts around your relatives. Or you show up at his/her family event and everyone ignores you — even your partner. Some partners even vanish into their family world, forgetting you entirely. So it’s not surprising […]Read More

SUPERMAN

An acute sense of justice and fairness are traits linked with the testosterone system in the brain. So Superman’s affiliation with the “Justice League of America” is an immediate tipoff to his personality type: a high testosterone male, what I call the Director. He also looks like a Director. Testosterone builds muscle—one of Superman’s outstanding traits. His angular jaw, high […]Read More