By: Shawnee Arnett, Staff Writer
Love is a subject that has fascinated people for ages and gives pop culture the juice it needs to keep the public interested: a children’s movie depicting a princess falling for a prince she’d met just five minutes prior, a generic romantic comedy involving a standard meet cute, and the sixth wedding of a reality TV celebrity are all cultural events that make members of the public enamored with the idea of love. Even in the private sphere, the idea of love has its hold on people on a daily basis. Whether it involves daydreaming about frolicking in the meadows with a coworker, having the occasional evening away from the children with a spouse, or simply admiring an attractive person in a bar, love, lust and attraction are standards of human behavior. Many have come up with explanations for the existence of love over the years, which can range anywhere from “it was destiny” to “this person seemed to be agreeable”; however, many do not consider the physiological reasons for which people fall for one another. Actually, the initial reasons for attraction have nothing to do with finding “soul mates” at all. In reality, they are nothing more than the subconscious attempting to fulfill the biological urge to reproduce. Romantic, isn’t it?
One of the first things that attracts one person to another is scent. No, this does not mean that an extra spritz of perfume or cologne will ensure dating success, so please put the spray bottle down. There’s a significant possibility that humans take biological clues from other humans by way of pheromones, in a way similar to other mammals. According to the BBC, a 1995 experiment by the University of Bern in Switzerland had a group of women smell the unwashed T-shirts of various men. It was discovered “that women consistently preferred the smell of men whose immune systems were different from their own.” This suggests that humans are subconsciously drawn to a partner who will ensure a more diverse, and therefore enduring, immune system for potential offspring.
A study at the University of Saint Andrews also found that humans generally tend to look for partners who look somewhat similar to themselves. Using a program that morphs faces, psychologist David Perrett showed heterosexual students a variety of pictures of human faces. One of these pictures was taken of the student and morphed into the opposite sex in a way that the student would not be able to recognize. Perrett found that a large percentage of these students tended to find the morphed versions of their own faces to be most attractive. According to the BBC, there is also a correlation between “lung volumes, middle finger lengths, ear lobe lengths, overall ear size, neck and wrist circumferences, [and]metabolic rates” of couples, which suggests that the body acknowledges its own characteristics as genetically successful, therefore seeking out partners who also have a high chance of being genetically successful.
According to Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, humans typically go through three phases when falling in love: lust, attraction, and attachment. Each phase is accompanied by a set of hormones that work for the objective of reproduction between the two partners. The first phase, lust, is brought on by the hormones testosterone and oestrogen. Both hormones assist in finding a reproductive partner for a person, and are generally meant to promote conception between both partners. Though testosterone is usually known as the male sex hormone and oestrogens (more commonly known as estrogen) are associated with women, females also produce a small amount of testosterone, which works with the estrogen in creating sexual desire.
The second phase, attraction, is thought of as the “love struck” phase. This is the time in which the meadow-frolicking daydreams come into play, and when a person cannot stop thinking about his or her lover. The attraction phase is brought on by a group of monoamine neurotransmitters, specifically epinephrine (better known as adrenaline), dopamine and serotonin. Epinephrine is the body’s stress response. It activates when a person in the attraction phase sees their object of desire, and is the culprit for dry mouth, fast heart rate, and profuse sweating. Ironically, epinephrine is also responsible for a human’s “fight or flight” response, which is activated when the person detects a threat. Dopamine triggers emotional response, and is responsible for the feeling of pleasure that a person experiences when thinking about his or her lover. The release of dopamine during the attraction phase works in the same way as when cocaine is used, which explains the intense level of adoration one feels in this phase. According to Fisher, “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship”. The final neurotransmitter of this phase, serotonin, is one of the most important chemicals involved when a person falls in love. Serotonin is involved in stabilizing a person’s mood. According to Fisher, when a person falls in love, serotonin levels drop to levels that are equivalent to people who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This may possibly explain why people in the attraction phase tend to think compulsively of their lovers.
The third phase, attachment, is the longer lasting commitment made by couples when the attraction phase has ended. If a couple makes it to attachment, the bonding experienced in this phase makes it more likely that a couple will stay together to raise children. The attachment phase is accompanied by oxytocin and vasopressin. Oxytocin, which is known as the “cuddle hormone”, is released by both men and women during orgasm. It strengthens the bond between the couple, and it is theorized that the more sex a couple has, the deeper the bond between the two partners becomes. Oxytocin is also released by the mother during childbirth and aids in the production of breast milk, which promotes bonding between mother and child. Vasopressin is also released after sex, and works with the kidneys to control thirst. According to the BBC, it was theorized that vasopressin promotes bonding during an experiment in which a group of prairie voles (which have mating patterns similar to humans) were given a drug that suppresses the effects of vasopressin. For those that were given the drug, they immediately lost interest in their significant others. Because of this phenomenon, vasopressin is thought to be critical in promoting bonding between partners.
Thus, when falling in love, humans mate and bond similarly to a small North American rodent. With this, it is clear that romance is alive and well. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.
