Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince, and Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction [Hardcover]

Andrew Trees (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2009

A smart, entertaining, and eye-opening look at the science of love.

Relationships should be so simple. You meet someone. You fall in love. If all goes well, that person falls in love with you. You live happily every after.

As Andrew Trees reveals in Decoding Love, this “romantic storyline” has shaped our thinking about relationships for centuries. But the fairy tale is deeply flawed. Researchers today are making shocking discoveries about how and why we choose the people we love.

Drawing from the latest studies in economics, brain science, game theory, evolutionary psychology, and other fields, Decoding Love takes on a topic we all think we understand—how we fall in love—and illustrates that most of our assumptions are wrong. Along the way, Andrew Trees offers surprising new insights into the nature of attraction and desire as well as an intimate look at the strange intersection of romance and the modern world of dating. Throughout, Decoding Love reveals the frequently bizarre scientific findings about human attraction from the powerful influence of smell to a mathematical theory that one must date twelve people before happening upon Mr. or Ms. Right. Everything from a genetic marker for infidelity to the way the pill can sway a woman’s choice of her partner is explored in this astonishing and thoroughly amusing account of what goes into determining why one person falls in love with another.

Page-turning, thought-provoking, and sparkling with wit, Decoding Love is an uncommon look at that most common of human pursuits: falling in love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Andrew Trees is the author of the novel Academy X, as well as several works on American history. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Avery (January 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583333312
• ISBN-13: 978-1583333310
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My new novel, Club Rules, just came out. It explores the inter-connected lives of several couples in a wealthy suburban town. One reader described it as Gatsby-esque--of course, that reader is my wife, so she is not an entirely trustworthy source.

I have an M.A. and a Ph.D. in American history and an M.A. in English literature. I taught for several years at a number of colleges and universities. And I have written about a wide array of subjects ranging from the founding fathers to a novel about elite private high schools. My last book, Decoding Love, explored the latest scientific research on human attraction--everything from the role that smell plays in attraction to the dollar value economists place on a good marriage. It has led to a number of appearance on The Tyra Show and the Today Show.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Done, September 25, 2010

By 

Scott Donnelly - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince, and Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction (Paperback)

I was surprised how much I liked this book. I was expecting some trite observations and generalizations but found something incredibly well researched, comprehensive and well written. The author clearly did mountains of research in cross disciplinary areas of cognitive psych, heuristics, evolutionary psych, anthropology and sociology with a unifying theme of how these affect our relationship decision making in ways we don't ... It's simpler, but akin to a Gladwell book in it's scope and ability to fascinate and surprise. Definite thumbs up.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Compilation, April 24, 2009

By 

C. P. Anderson (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince, and Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction (Hardcover)

Love is a many-splendored thing. It's also how we, as a species, manage to reproduce and survive. This book looks at love from the latter perspective. In that vein, it discusses love (and sex) through some very non-romantic lenses - psychology, evolutionary and otherwise; economics; game theory; physiology; non-verbal communication ...

Trees really does cover all the bases here. This topic is a particular interest of mine and I've picked up bits and pieces from all over the place. This is the first book I've come across, though, that really puts it all in one place.

If you're familiar with this stuff, it's all there - David Buss, The Red Queen, bonobos, The Paradox of Choice, oxytocin, vasopressin, Helen Fisher, waist-to-hip ratios, Frans de Waal ... you name it. At the same time, though, you'll probably also learn a thing or two.

If you're not familiar, however, you'll learn quite a lot. For example, do you know why humans have larger testicles than gorillas, but smaller ones than chimpanzees? How many years do you think being single take off your life? Why are there so few genes on the Y chromosome? To be able to attract a female, how much extra money does a man have to make per inch under 6' he is? What kind of smelly male T-shirts are women attracted to?

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you'll become something of an expert, as Trees covers just about everything. He also does so in a very lucid, engaging style - something that can't be said for all the experts. I can't really imagine a better introduction.

The only problems I had with the book were in the last few chapters. One of these is ostensibly a list of do's and don'ts. Most of these were prefaced in the rest of the book, but some of them were simply a grab bag of things he wanted to introduce and hadn't had a chance to do so yet. These were mostly of the form "A study said that x, so you'll definitely want to do x." No discussion, no debate, no counter-arguments, no nuances. Some readers might even see this as a problem for the rest of the book too.

Another thing that was a lacking was a happy ending. Believe me, a lot of this stuff is incredibly depressing. And it's not that Trees didn't have a chance to. His last chapter talks about marriage, which had a number of good things to be said for it. In particular, I was struck how happily married couples tend to idealize their partners. What a great way to end such a depressing book. I think Trees recognized this idea's potential, but he really didn't play it up as much as he could.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mind in Love, May 31, 2011

By 

T. Stewart "T. Stewart" (Auburn WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince, and Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction (Hardcover)

Decoding Love, by Andrew Trees, is mainly about the research done about attraction between two people. Throughout the book, the reader learns about the role that our subconscious plays in love and dating. Research shows that everything around us plays a role, from seeing someone for the first time, all the way to falling in love and wanting to spend the rest of our lives with that person. The book also explains that the expectations we have before hand about the person we want and should love has a lot to do with whether we become interested in someone or not.

The reviews for this book included one by Jancee Dunn--the author of But Enough About Me. She recommended this book, saying the author "takes on the subject both familiar and deeply mysterious and breaks down the science behind it in the most entertaining way imaginable." I agree with Dunn, Decoding Love captured my attention immediately, and it is very easy to read. There is not much vocabulary that is hard to understand, and the words really flow together. I have to say, though, that after a few chapters the information started to be repeated, but it was also presented with new information, which managed to keep me reading.

The appropriate audience for this book is mainly people who are beginning to enter the dating world, and those who still have yet to find the one they love, because this book goes deep into allowing our subconscious to do what it is supposed to, even though we are not aware of it. But anyone else can read this book as well in order to understand what is behind falling in love and the process it takes. The book is also just entertaining so it is a good read even if the subject itself is not interesting.

Trees uses overgeneralization when he says, "If someone fits the profile we think we are supposed to love, we may ignore how we actually feel." When he uses the word "we" he is including everyone, which is an overstatement since there are many people who don't necessarily have an idea of who they would want to love.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in knowing how our mind works when presented with the idea of love and understand just how everything around us is important when falling in love.

Senior English Student 2011