Biological Anthropologist Answers Love Questions From Twitter ❤️ | Tech Support | WIRED

the human brain is not built to deal with more than about five to nine options after that the brain just spaces out you choose nobody hi i'm dr helen fisher i'm a biological anthropologist i study love and this is love support [Music] this person calls herself ruth bader love at first sight is probably bull right wrong love at first sight is extremely easy to explain this is a brain system it's like the fear system or the anger system and it can be triggered instantly you got to be ready for it and we all carry in our head what i call a love map an unconscious and conscious list of what you're looking for in a partner but the moment comes you're ready to fall in love you see somebody from across the crowded room or wherever they fit within your love map you go over and you speak to them they smile sweetly at you they say something that's funny or charming or interesting and boom instantly trigger that brain circuitry uh for romantic love attachment that other brain system grows slowly you have to get to know somebody to begin to feel attachment but romantic love can be instant yes this is from izzy lean who created love this is too much to handle well love evolved for millions of years we have formed partnerships pair bonding or monogamy mono means one and gamma means spouse one spouse that's all it means to scientists people are also adulterous but they form partnerships 97 of mammals do not pair up to where they're young people do it's a hallmark of the human animal and along with the evolution of pair bonding came the evolution of the human brain systems for the sex drive romantic love and feelings of deep attachment i and my colleagues have put 15 people into a brain scanner who had just been rejected in love and the brain goes just the wiring just goes crazy i mean when you're madly in love with somebody and you've been dumped it's one of the worst experiences i mean people pined for love they live for love they kill for love and they die for love and i do think that it is an addiction because we found activity in a particular brain region it's called the nucleus accumbens that particular brain region is active in all of the addictions all the substance addictions all the behavioral addictions like gambling and it becomes just as active when you've been rejected in love and when this person says this is too much to handle but we all do handle it the vast majority of us do get over it and i've been able to prove in the brain that time does heal because it is our survival it is a survival mechanism it evolved millions of years ago and it will be with us millions of years from now romantic love is primordial it's adaptable and it's eternal so this will always be too much to handle but we'll do it anyway this person is skz is my universe how to try and fall in love during a pandemic dating apps aren't really doing it they're doing it for a lot of people about 40 percent of singles in america said that they met their last first date on the internet here are the two mistakes that they make perhaps this person is making them too first mistake is they binge the human brain is not built to deal with more than about five to nine options after that the brain just spaces out you you choose nobody so the first thing that you've got to do is after you've met nine people and that's what this person needs to do get off the internet site get off of it and get to know at least one of these people better the more you get to know somebody the better you tend to like so number one don't binge number two think of reasons to say yes instead of no we have this big brain region linked with negativity bias we're built to remember the negative and when you have just met somebody you know so little about them that you overweight those few things that you know and so you'll say oh i don't know she likes cats i like dogs never going to work get over it think of reasons to say yes i call it positive illusions the ability to overlook what you don't like about somebody and focus on what you do this is from somebody called the gin bunny too can you truly be in love and cheat alas you can you know these are different brain systems sex drive and romantic love are different brain systems and you can be madly in love with somebody and also sleep around as a matter of fact i do think that the brain is unfortunately built for both i've looked at adultery in 40 cultures and you see it everywhere in the world even in places where you could get your head chopped off for it we seem to have the ability to be madly in love with some person and deeply attached to that person and also sneak around i call it a dual human reproductive strategy a tremendous drive to fall in love form a partnership and have your babies and also to cheat next up is from rodney j gavino google search how does attraction work why him why her why do you fall in love with one person rather than another there's all kinds of cultural reasons that we tend to fall in love when the timing is right we tend to fall in love with somebody who's around proximity is important we tend to fall in love with somebody from the same ethnic and socioeconomic background somebody of the same level of education and there's four basic brain systems that each one of them is associated with a constellation a suite a group of personality traits dopamine serotonin testosterone and estrogen systems i created a questionnaire to see to what degree you express the traits in all four of these basic brain systems it's now been taken by over 15 million people in 40 countries and i'm able to watch who's naturally drawn to whom if you're very high on the traits in the dopamine system risk taking novelty seeking curious creative you tend to be drawn to people like yourself if you are very high on the traits of the serotonin system you tend to be traditional conventional follow the rules respect authority detail-oriented rather than theoretical you're also drawn to people like yourself so if you're very high testosterone you tend to be analytical logical direct decisive good at things like math engineering computers music music is very structural and you're drawn to your opposite high estrogen people and this is men as well as women many more women in that category they tend to see the big picture they think long term they're very imaginative very good at reading posture gesture tone of voice we all express all four systems this is what the problem is with most personality questionnaires today they put you in one bucket or another we express all four brain systems and the traits in each but we express some more than others now there's all kinds of circumstances where people are drawn to their opposite in ways because they had a bad love affair they've been running around all their lives and now they want something more stable so they go for the traditional even if they're very risk-taking this human variety but the bottom line is there's patterns to culture there's patterns to nature and there's patterns to personality this is from sad short friend to how does someone know if they're feeling romantic or platonic attraction there's a literal list of traits that are associated with feelings of romantic love and they are not associated with platonic attraction the first thing that happens when you fall in love is somebody takes on special meaning everything about them becomes special the car they drive looks different from every other car in the parking lot the house that they live in the street that they live on the music that they like when it's a plutonic attraction not everything is special about this human being you like them i mean you're attracted to them you find them amusing or funny or interested but you don't they don't you don't you're not obsessed with them but if you had to think about one just one trait that is most distinctive between the two when you're madly in love with somebody in a romantic attraction you are obsessed and in a plutonic attraction you don't think about them night and day this person is reprogrammed coach is online dating killing romance it can't kill romance this is a basic brain system it evolved millions of years ago it's like hunger or thirst or anger or fear you can't kill romance my next up is from needa beater i wonder what's actually going on through our bodies when we think we're in love like what chemicals are enhanced i and my colleagues have put over 100 people into a brain scanner who were madly in love the first group were people who were happily in love the second were a group of people who were rejected in love and the third was a group of people who were in love long term so we put these people in the brain scanner we had them look at a photograph of their sweetheart and also a neutral photograph so we could compare the brain under both circumstances and we were able to find that everybody who's madly loved rejected in love or in love long term begins to have activity in a tiny little factory near the base of the brain called the ventral take metal area it's way at the base of the brain and that brain region actually makes dopamine and sends dopamine to many brain regions giving you that focus the motivation the obsession the craving of intense romantic love and what's interesting to me is that little factoring the vta lies right next to the factory that orchestrates thirst and hunger thirst and hunger keep you alive today romantic love enables you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time and start the mating process and send your dna into tomorrow this is from catch my fly do you believe in soul mates if so do you believe you can have more than one yes and yes i do believe in soul mates i do not believe you can have more than one at a time so now what does a soul mate i think what this person is means is somebody who it's a true love you're not going to sleep with other people you're not thinking of going anywhere you might even consider dying for him or her it is a very deep genuine attachment intense feeling of romantic love and i think that um this is summed up best by a poet from the 15th century in india named kabir the lane of love is narrow there's room for only one and indeed when you're madly in love it's with only one person i do believe you can have a soul mate i think that you may have a series of soul mates but i don't think you can have more than one soul mate at a time from somebody called dance with voices why do people associate love with the heart why not the penis or the sternum there may be a physiological reason why it has been associated with love and that is there's a lot of characteristics a lot of things happen when you fall madly in love and one of them is the heart can really pound when you're really nervous about something i mean when you're madly in love not only do you feel that ecstasy euphoria sleeplessness loss of appetite obsessive thinking about the person craving for emotional union but also all kinds of physiological responses weakness maybe a pounding heart it really started in the 1300s with jotto in a painting prior to that there were a lot of uses of the shape of the heart in fact as early as 5000 years ago in the indus valley they were drawing things that looked like the shape of a heart and at that point it was the seed of a form of parsley plant or a an ivy leaf but it became became associated with romantic love probably with the painting by jotto in in 1309. this is from jay at 53k1 i lust hard and lose interest quick how does that work well they're not ready to fall in love we've evolved three distinctly different brain systems from mating and reproduction one is a sex drive linked with testosterone in both men and women the second is romantic love we've been able to prove this is linked with the dopamine system in both men and women that's what gives you the focus the motivation the obsession and the third brain system is attachment that sense of calm and security you can feel with a long-term partner and this individual he's in the lust stage he's not ready to fall in love you know you have to be ready to fall in love to actually do it and he's just experiencing a different brain system the lust system this question is from gertig it's a very interesting question any good data out there on divorce rates for couples that meet via online dating sites apparently if you met somebody online as opposed to offline you're less likely to divorce just by a little but you are less likely to divorce people who date online are more likely to be fully employed more likely to have higher education and more likely to be interested in a committed partnership this is from reiki array how can you be in love with somebody and jealous of them easily when you're madly in love with somebody it's called mate guarding other animals do it too and if you see your partner beginning to flirt with other individuals you could lose that partner you could lose your children you could lose your house you could lose your friends you could lose your money i mean you know the game of love matters this is from la matina 10. question of the day this person writes couples that do this together have 20 more love hormones it's not dirty well i don't know what this person has in mind but i would say play when you play with somebody you're driving up the dopamine system in the brain and that gives you focus motivation energy and optimism play with somebody stay with somebody oh that's it that's all the questions i enjoyed answering them thank you for joining me till next time you

Channel: WIRED

Views: 4,052,194

Keywords: adultery, anthropologist, attachment, biological anthropologist, dating apps expert, dr fisher, dual human reproductive strategy, falling in love, helen fisher love expert, how does attraction work, how to know when in love, innovation, love, love expert, love explained, love map, love questions, love support, love wired, ott tech support, romantic love, science & technology, valentine's day, valentines day, wired, wired love

Id: 6DYgImG1CKo

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 14 2022

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[u/NotYourCirce]

I love this! And a little encouragement for the online daters: they’re slightly less likely to divorce

[u/[deleted]]

I like how she talked about platonic vs romantic attraction, as women are often expected to settle for anyone they think they can tolerate (or try to force themselves to feel love)