The science of falling in love - FT中文网
登录×
电子邮件/用户名
密码
记住我
请输入邮箱和密码进行绑定操作:
请输入手机号码,通过短信验证(目前仅支持中国大陆地区的手机号):
请您阅读我们的用户注册协议隐私权保护政策,点击下方按钮即视为您接受。
FT商学院

The science of falling in love

Anthropologist Helen Fisher took her insights out of the laboratory and into online dating

The writer is a science commentator

The scientist Helen Fisher once revealed how she ended up marrying the love of her life at 75. After months of chaste socialising, she and her beau played a game of pool, each having written down on a cocktail napkin what they wanted as a prize if they won.

After he triumphantly potted the winning ball, she opened his napkin to reveal the words: “sex and clarity”. Her napkin read: “a real kiss”. The eventual arc of their relationship — from friends to bed mates to spouses — would have been little surprise to Fisher, an anthropologist who studied the science of love and attraction. Both friendship and lust, she believed, could blossom into romantic love and then a deeper attachment.

Fisher, who died of endometrial cancer last month aged 79, left a striking legacy: legitimising love as a subject worthy of scholarly inquiry while somehow not diminishing its magic. Early on, science did not quite know what to make of her: as she told it, a reviewer rejected one of her papers on the basis that love was a supernatural phenomenon. Her punchy response was a string of books bearing such titles as The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior and Anatomy of Love: the Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce.

In 2005, while at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Fisher and colleagues used MRI technology to scan the brains of the besotted. Photos of a sweetheart, she found, prompted a rush of dopamine in the brain. Love was indeed not supernatural: it was an all-consuming, primal, hard-wired drive, akin to hunger and thirst, especially for the rejected. Being in love, she memorably quipped, was like having someone “camping inside your head”.

Fisher spent her career trying to figure out what we all long to know: how do we find that special someone who triggers our circuits? She divided people into four personality types, which she tied to their brain chemistry: risk-taking “explorers”; rule-loving “builders”; logical and analytical “directors”; and imaginative, empathetic “negotiators”. If you met your partner through match.com, you probably have Fisher to thank: the dating site, which she advised from 2005 until her death, used her inventory to play Cupid to millions.

Importantly, she took her insights out of the laboratory, dispensing unstuffy advice in Ted talks and interviews. Go ahead and use artificial intelligence in online dating to write a profile, she said in a podcast earlier this year: it can boost your confidence about making initial contact. “Then you go out, and your ancient human brain kicks into action . . . and you assess [potential partners] the way you always did,” she reassured.

She also advised online daters not to binge. Infinite choice simply paralyses our ancient brains. Her tip: pick between five and nine potential matches who are “in the ballpark” and give them a go. And don’t give up too soon; just because they don’t roar at your first joke doesn’t mean they lack a GSOH. Always a progressive, she praised younger generations, including those in polyamorous relationships, for taking longer to settle down. But there was also wise counsel to those in long-established relationships casting around to recall the passion of the early days. Staying together, she insisted, entailed working at all three phases of love that she identified: sex-based lust, romantic love and then attachment.

“Have sex,” she advised bluntly, on the same podcast. “Don’t tell me you don’t have time. You have time to get your hair cut.” To sustain romantic love, share novel experiences; maybe take up a new hobby together. As for attachment: hug, kiss and sit next to each other on the sofa when you watch TV. Closeness stokes the feel-good chemicals that keep couples roped companionably together.

Still haven’t finalised your weekend plans? It’s time to cancel the haircut.

版权声明:本文版权归FT中文网所有,未经允许任何单位或个人不得转载,复制或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵权必究。

造就埃隆•马斯克的神话

这位科技亿万富翁对唐纳德•特朗普的支持是其世界观的一部分,这种世界观来自硅谷最狂野的边界。

投资者警告称,强势美元将冲击新兴市场债券

新兴市场债务基金遭遇资金外流,因为发展中国家降息的希望破灭。

吉赛尔•佩利科,震惊法国的审判的核心人物

在法庭审理她如何被丈夫下药并被陌生人强奸时,她表现出了非凡的力量。

安东尼奥•科斯塔:“特朗普为什么要与欧洲打贸易战?”

欧洲理事会新任主席谈跨越政治分歧开展业务、面对腐败调查,以及为什么欧洲在危机中能发挥最大作用。

来自罗马的明信片:向好莱坞明星展示永恒之城秘密的“角斗士导游”

历史学家亚历山大•马里奥蒂是《角斗士II》的顾问,他兼职为汤姆•克鲁斯、比尔•盖茨和罗素•克劳做向导。

海上石油又回来了,但代价是什么?

在发生了历史上最严重的泄漏事故多年之后,公司为了寻找新的发现,正在钻探更深的海底钻井。
设置字号×
最小
较小
默认
较大
最大
分享×