Napsterbater
02-18-2008, 09:35 PM
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005011.html
Rare Few People Maintain New Love Feelings Long Term
For most couples mutual attraction gradually wanes. But for some statistical outliers the initial intense attraction seems to last.
Psychologists studying relationships confirm the steady decline of romantic love. Each year, according to surveys, the average couple loses a little spark. One sociological study of marital satisfaction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Penn State University kept track of more than 2,000 married people over 17 years. Average marital happiness fell sharply in the first 10 years, then entered a slow decline.
Think about all those people becoming steadily less satisfied with each other. The outcomes of natural selection are cruel.
Are those who feel thrilled about their mates for many years different in some neurobiological way? One would expect that to be the case. Some scientists decided to investigate the statistical outliers using brain scans.
About 15 years ago, Arthur Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University, became curious about couples outside the norm. His own work turned up the usual pattern of declining passion. But he was drawn to what statisticians call outliers, points way off the curve. These dots represented people who claimed they'd been madly in love for years. "I didn't know what to make of that," Dr. Aron says. "Was it random error? Were they self-deceiving? Were they deceiving others? Because it's not supposed to happen."
Not supposed to happen? I wouldn't say that. More likely there's a large range of genetic variations that govern how the brain develops in areas related to sex and bonding. Some people probably get genetic variations that make them feel romantically high for decades just like some people are natural optimists who always feel happy even in adverse circumstances.
Brain scans show the perpetually in love as different than the masses. Those people in long term relationships who profess to still feel very excited about their partners have more intense brain activity in the ventral tegmental area of the brain just like the newly fallen in love do.
Days after Mrs. Tucker's brain scan, Dr. Brown, the neuroscientist, sat in her book-lined office looking at the results. "Wow, just wow," she recalls thinking. Mrs. Tucker's brain reacted to her husband's photo with a frenzy of activity in the ventral tegmental area. "I was shocked," Dr. Brown says.
The brain scan confirmed what Mrs. Tucker said all along. But when she learned the result, she too was a bit surprised. "It's not something I expected after 11 years," she says. "But having it, it's like a gift."
The scan also showed a strong reaction in Mrs. Tucker's ventral pallidum, an area suspected from vole studies to have links with long-term bonds. Mrs. Tucker apparently enjoyed old love and new. In the months since, Dr. Brown analyzed data from four more people, including Ms. Jordan, who also showed brain activity associated with new love. The study is ongoing, and more volunteers are being sought.
This research has many ramifications. Do those who stay thrilled have lower rates of divorce? I would expect so. But people who have the neurological tendency to maintain intense romantic love probably are at risk for getting into relationships with people who do not share that tendency. So they can get their hearts broken pretty badly. If they could find each other (neuro-scan dating services that screen to pair people up with neuro-like potential mates) then they could bond to someone who will bond back just as strongly and for just as longly.
Longer term: Neurobiologists will develop a better understanding of why some maintain a long term romantic high off of pair bonding. They will eventually develop the ability to manipulate it. Will people decide to undergo treatments to prevent their romantic feelings from declining with time? Or will they turn down and suppress these feelings so that romance becomes less of a distraction from career ambitions?
What happens once bonding behavior gets traced back to genetic variations and genetic engineering of offspring becomes possible? Will people choose to give their children genetic variations that make them pair up in very stable long-lasting relationships? Or will they give future generations genetic variations that cause serial monogamy or general promiscuity? Also, will parents make male offspring and female offspring more or less different in their mating preferences?
The coming of offspring genetic engineering probably won't unite humanity into a single style of living. I expect society to divide up into groups that make different sorts of decisions about genetic endowments for how their children will form relationships, romantic and otherwise. Some groups will choose genetic variations that make their kids more monogamous. Others will intentionally create children who are more promiscuous. Still others will genetically engineer women to happily join polygamous marriages without jealousy.
Rare Few People Maintain New Love Feelings Long Term
For most couples mutual attraction gradually wanes. But for some statistical outliers the initial intense attraction seems to last.
Psychologists studying relationships confirm the steady decline of romantic love. Each year, according to surveys, the average couple loses a little spark. One sociological study of marital satisfaction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Penn State University kept track of more than 2,000 married people over 17 years. Average marital happiness fell sharply in the first 10 years, then entered a slow decline.
Think about all those people becoming steadily less satisfied with each other. The outcomes of natural selection are cruel.
Are those who feel thrilled about their mates for many years different in some neurobiological way? One would expect that to be the case. Some scientists decided to investigate the statistical outliers using brain scans.
About 15 years ago, Arthur Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University, became curious about couples outside the norm. His own work turned up the usual pattern of declining passion. But he was drawn to what statisticians call outliers, points way off the curve. These dots represented people who claimed they'd been madly in love for years. "I didn't know what to make of that," Dr. Aron says. "Was it random error? Were they self-deceiving? Were they deceiving others? Because it's not supposed to happen."
Not supposed to happen? I wouldn't say that. More likely there's a large range of genetic variations that govern how the brain develops in areas related to sex and bonding. Some people probably get genetic variations that make them feel romantically high for decades just like some people are natural optimists who always feel happy even in adverse circumstances.
Brain scans show the perpetually in love as different than the masses. Those people in long term relationships who profess to still feel very excited about their partners have more intense brain activity in the ventral tegmental area of the brain just like the newly fallen in love do.
Days after Mrs. Tucker's brain scan, Dr. Brown, the neuroscientist, sat in her book-lined office looking at the results. "Wow, just wow," she recalls thinking. Mrs. Tucker's brain reacted to her husband's photo with a frenzy of activity in the ventral tegmental area. "I was shocked," Dr. Brown says.
The brain scan confirmed what Mrs. Tucker said all along. But when she learned the result, she too was a bit surprised. "It's not something I expected after 11 years," she says. "But having it, it's like a gift."
The scan also showed a strong reaction in Mrs. Tucker's ventral pallidum, an area suspected from vole studies to have links with long-term bonds. Mrs. Tucker apparently enjoyed old love and new. In the months since, Dr. Brown analyzed data from four more people, including Ms. Jordan, who also showed brain activity associated with new love. The study is ongoing, and more volunteers are being sought.
This research has many ramifications. Do those who stay thrilled have lower rates of divorce? I would expect so. But people who have the neurological tendency to maintain intense romantic love probably are at risk for getting into relationships with people who do not share that tendency. So they can get their hearts broken pretty badly. If they could find each other (neuro-scan dating services that screen to pair people up with neuro-like potential mates) then they could bond to someone who will bond back just as strongly and for just as longly.
Longer term: Neurobiologists will develop a better understanding of why some maintain a long term romantic high off of pair bonding. They will eventually develop the ability to manipulate it. Will people decide to undergo treatments to prevent their romantic feelings from declining with time? Or will they turn down and suppress these feelings so that romance becomes less of a distraction from career ambitions?
What happens once bonding behavior gets traced back to genetic variations and genetic engineering of offspring becomes possible? Will people choose to give their children genetic variations that make them pair up in very stable long-lasting relationships? Or will they give future generations genetic variations that cause serial monogamy or general promiscuity? Also, will parents make male offspring and female offspring more or less different in their mating preferences?
The coming of offspring genetic engineering probably won't unite humanity into a single style of living. I expect society to divide up into groups that make different sorts of decisions about genetic endowments for how their children will form relationships, romantic and otherwise. Some groups will choose genetic variations that make their kids more monogamous. Others will intentionally create children who are more promiscuous. Still others will genetically engineer women to happily join polygamous marriages without jealousy.