For longer than anyone could remember, love has always been a mystery, with fragments of it becoming unveiled and many others still perplexing scientists, psychologists, biologists, and even anthropologists to this day. Within Benedict Carey’s essay “The Brain in Love”, a myriad of sources from different scientists are utilized to depict the different perspectives on Romantic attraction based on various studies and whether or not biology drives attraction. From Helen Fisher’s physical analysis and experimentation on the brains of lovestruck college students with MRI scans, to other pattern based experiments and surveys that could explain more about romantic attraction. From analyzing the outcomes and results of the many experiments scientists within this essay scientists have conducted, it is logical to say that many of the results make sense and are agreeable with.
Helen Fisher is an anthropologist who came up with the inference that romantic attraction relates to the biological drive of choosing a mate so that individuals can focus on one person over all the others(401). Fisher tests this idea of lovestruck individuals having a different reaction to the person they claim to love, by utilizing MRI scans on lovestruck college students to observe any potential brain activity patterns. Upon inspecting the results of more than 3000 brain scans, neurobiologists Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki came to the conclusion that “the experience of romantic attraction activated those pockets of the brain with a high concentration of receptors for dopamine, the chemical messenger closely tied to states of euphoria, craving and addiction”(401). Suggesting that people in love seem to have a different chemical reaction when exposed to images or the presence of their lover, when compared to being exposed to any other potential lover. Another source that Carey cites is a study performed by researcher Ellen Berscheid in which a group of men and women were asked to make a list of people that fell in the categories of individuals they loved, found sexually attractive, are friends with, and people they are in love with(401). The results were that the people they were in love with, happened to fall in all the categories, which led to psychologists making the assumption that people often idealized their lovers to different extents, which became known as the ‘Pink Lens effect’. A form of behavior in which people believe their lovers could be considered perfect, disregarding their potential flaws, producing excuses for their mistakes, believing their relationship to be incomparable to the likes of others. This study led to another researcher, Pamela Regan to believe that some amounts of idealization may be necessary for the longevity and stability of a relationship over many years(402). Indicating that the pink lens effect may not necessarily be an unhealthy form of behavior, as it allows people to be more forgiving over conflicts with their lovers, which as a result would increase the likelihood of a longer relationship with that person. This idea that Pamela Regan proclaimed was tested in a 1996 experiment conducted by psychologists during which a group of 121 dating couples were tracked and given questionnaires that were used to figure out how much they idealized their partners. The reason for this was that psychologists wanted to see if there was a commonly present correlation between a sense of idealization for their partners, and how healthy their relationship was, whether it be emotionally or how long they have been together. The results were that “idealizing seemed to help carry these couples through the inevitable rough spots”(402), along with “What they’re finding is that idealization of a kind can keep people happily married”(402). Suggesting that there is indeed a positive correlation between idealization and the stability or longevity of a relationship. However, according to the lead investigator of this study Ted Huston, another finding was that intense and passionate romance seemed to have a negative correlation with the longevity and stability of a relationship. He describes it as intense Hollywood-type romances being most likely to have a big drop-off later in the relationship, almost like a drug wearing off, and the lovers becoming desensitized to each other(403).
After analyzing the various experiments and studies conducted by many scientists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and even researchers, I have found the results of certain studies to be agreeable with because of their logic, patterns and consistency. The first being Helen Fisher’s idea regarding individuals choosing a mate, as coinciding with their biological drives. I found that the physical observations of surges in chemicals such as dopamine when individuals are exposed to pictures of their lover, cannot be disproven, and that there is definitely some different biological reaction when people are exposed to their lovers. To add on, another experimentational result that I deemed to be logical, is Huston’s conclusion that intense hollywood-like Romance tends to have a much less likely sense of stability and longevity, with an expected drop-off somewhere during the relationship. It correlates to one of the 4 forms of Greek love, Eros, in which it is primarily about the sexually active partners that experience sexual attraction, fulfilling their needs and desires, rather than focusing on the love aspect regarding their partner. It is a form of love that can be addicting, which is why it is mentioned in the essay as being a drug that may eventually lose its kick (403). These results make sense, as intense romantic love focuses more on desires than helping eachother grow and living a healthy relationship. In Alexander Pushkin’s “The Blizzard” we see how Marya Gavrilovna developed fantasies of romantic love after entertaining herself with romantic french novels. According to the text, Pushkin states, “Marya Gavrilovna was brought up on French novels and consequently was in love. Her chosen one was a poor ensign”(20). It later states, “it was intensely gratifying to Marya Gavrilovna’s romantic imagination.” This suggests and goes to show how intense romantic love develops expectations around one’s imagination which may or may not be fulfilled. This is one of the aspects of romantic love that depict a sense of instability in the longevity of the relationship.
As you can see, these various scientists and research studies depict a sense of correlation between romantic attraction, and different patterns within a relationship that may arise, it shows how there are still many developing theories that be may true as a result of consistencies and patterns in various couples or relationships.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
