Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (Paperback)

by Helen Fisher (Author) "Fires run through my body-the pain of loving you..." (more)
Key Phrases: human romantic love, ancestral men, mating drives, Bad Bull, Stony Brook, Nariokotome Boy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (December 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805077960
• ISBN-13: 978-0805077964
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #24,788 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #13 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > Sexuality > Psychology of Sexuality
  #67 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Science
  #67 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Psychology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating trek into the science of love, January 16, 2004

By	Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (Hardcover)

"Why We Love" is one of the most interesting books available today on the subject of love. From years of empirical research finally comes a fact filled fascinating book on love. Helen Fisher examines the chemical basis of love; yes there are chemical changes when you are in love. From workings of specific chemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine, and seratonin to fMRI examinations of the brain the book is packed with hard empirical research results. In addition to this she looks at evolutionary factors in things like how we choose our mate and how that process is different for men and women. Not to leave any stone unturned she also discusses the problem of lost love and its effects on our body and emotional health. Finally she discusses how to make romance last and includes a fascinating section on intimacy differences between male and female. "Why We Love" deserves the highest recommendation that I can give and is a book that I am likely not only to recommend but also to purchase as a gift for others who want to understand the phenomenon of love. Bravo Helen Fisher for such an enlightening work that is sure to become the new standard by which similar works will be judged.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Talk About Sex With Your Partner and Other Things I learned from Helen Fisher, November 16, 2005

By	Ian Kerner "Ian Kerner" (New York CIty) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (Hardcover)

When it comes to communicating about sex, there's often a gap between what we want to say and how we say it, and even the gentlest of words can come off as confrontational. Criticism, expressed or perceived harshly, can be the sexual kiss of death.

Anthropologists have long observed that women are "face-to-face" communicators, while men do so "side by side." This means that women are much more comfortable with direct eye contact, which probably has a lot to do with the long history female history of maternal nursing, cuddling, and generally fawning over their infants while staring lovingly into those big baby eyes.

Men, on the other hand, find direct eye contact extremely confrontational on an instinctive level. As Dr. Helen Fisher writes in her remarkable book, Why We Love, "This response probably stems from men's ancestry. For many millennia men faced their enemies; they sat or walked sat by side as they hunted game with their friends."

As a sex therapist I get asked all the time, "How do I talk to my guy about sex without making him defensive?" Now I will offer the advice, "unless you want your words to usher him into battle, use evolution to your advantage, and have a sex-talk while taking a walk or a drive."

Thanks Dr. Fisher for the infinite wisdom that abounds on every page of this remarkable book!

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A first approximation to a science of love, April 9, 2005

By	Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (Hardcover)

The one thing one can say with confidence before reading this book is that love is universal: it affects everyone on this planet and everyone that has ever lived. Love can occur spontaneously or it can be chosen, and it can be responsible for much pleasure, as well as much pain. It is so common that its celebration has become the topic of countless novels and platitudes, as well as embedded in a myriad of cliches. But can there be a science of love, i.e. can love be examined for example using the frameworks of cognitive neuroscience or neuropharmacology? Does love lend itself to the modus operandi of reductionism that is so characteristic of scientific research?

This book can be considered to be a first approximation to a science of love. Targeted to what has been called the "popular audience" it nevertheless gives enough references that interested readers can consult for more details. It is an interesting book, and the author has done a fine job in presenting her case for a neuroscientific theory of love. It convinces the reader that such a theory is not only possible, but also does not diminish the importance and mystique of romantic love. If indeed in the future a comprehensive neuroscientific theory of romantic love were finally developed, this would not mean that such an in-depth understanding would alter our personal interest in engaging in romance. Love poems and love stories will still be written, jilted lovers will still feel pain, and people will still seek out and find the person of their dreams.

That love is not an isolated process in the human brain is brought out with great clarity in the book. Indeed, love as a neuronal process or emotion is correlated with the emotions of jealousy, anger, and hatred, among others. And since romantic love is such a strong emotion, as are these others, one might be led to believe that it might, as a neuronal process, have a long lifetime. The author sheds some light on this question, quoting research from neuroscience that indicates that romantic love lasts anywhere from twelve to eighteen months. Noting this research, she nevertheless asserts that the actual lifetime of romantic love is highly variable, depending greatly on the individuals that are involved.

The most interesting part of the book was chapter 3, which is a discussion on the experimental techniques that were used by the author to study which parts of the brain are activated when a person is strongly in love, and a discussion of the brain chemistry of love. Her discussion summarizes some of her research that she conducted in 1996, with the goal of collecting data on the role of chemicals such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Dopamine in suitable levels can produce a more focused attention and highly motivated goal-directed behavior, all of these being characteristic of romantic love, the author asserts. As for norepinephrine, it can produce high energy, loss of appetite, insomnia, and extremely enhanced memory capabilities, which are again associated with romantic love. Serotonin, which has been used to treat individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, is implicated by the author in explaining why people in love seem to think incessantly about the object of their love. The author though cautions the reader that her belief that these chemicals play a role in romantic love must be weighed against the fact that these chemicals can produce different effects depending on their dose. In addition, they perform different functions depending on the region of the brain, and each will interact with the other in different ways depending on the circumstances. The author though takes as a working hypothesis that romantic love is caused by elevated levels of dopamine or norepinephrine, and decreased levels of serotonin.

The author reports that her experiments in fMRI scans indicate that there is activity in the part of the brain called the caudate nucleus when a person is strongly in love. Subjects that were in love were presented a photo of their sweetheart and the scans indicated that the caudate is highly activated when this was done. This apparently was a surprise to the author, for she states that this region was widely known to be responsible for the directing of body movement, and only has recently been shown to be also responsible for sensations of pleasure and for motivation to gain rewards. According to the author, the data indicated that the more passionate the person was about their loved one, the more active the caudate was. As stated this statement is somewhat suspect, since one would need an independent criteria for determining the degree of passion in the subject at hand. In addition to the caudate, the scans revealed that the brain region that becomes active when people eat chocolate also becomes active when people are passionately in love. This result has been widely publicized in the press and Hollywood movies, interestingly.

Another result, described as "striking" by the author, was that the fMRI experiments revealed activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain. The VTA has been revealed to be the center of the reward circuitry of the brain, and is responsible for the creation of dopamine-making cells, thus adding support to her working hypothesis. Because of the association with motivational centers of the brain, the author also claims that these experiments verified that romantic love is a fundamental human mating drive. Thus it can be hard to control, like other drives such as hunger or thirst. The author is careful to note that her experiments did not establish the role of norepinephrine and serotonin in romantic love. In addition, the role of the "thinking" part of the brain, namely the cerebral cortex, was not revealed in these experiments.