Cupid's Comeuppance

8/7/2019 Cupid's Comeuppance

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Published on Psychology Today(http://www.psychologytoday.com)

Cupid's Comeuppance

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Created Sep 20 2004 - 11:00pm

To capture the mystery, caprice and force oromantic love, the ancients conjured Cupid, a mischievous immortal in whose thrall we are whollypowerless. Science provides a different view. By exploring human nature, we discover that being smittenat first or foreveris a function of invisible forces, but there's little that's capricious about them. The realarrows in Cupid's quiver distill personal history and serendipity into a cache of chemicals that bathes thebrain, compelling us to act in ways that are mistaken for fate or folly. Understanding the hidden power ofbiology to shape our most cherished relationships may banish Cupid to the Sistine ceiling forever.

MAKING LOVE'S FIRST BLUSH LINGER ON

Who has not felt that they are the happiest, the luckiest and the only human to fall so completely in love?The physical and emotional fanfare that heralds love's arrival is hard to forgetand more difficult still tosustain. If the romance goes well, the heart-stopping phone calls you once anticipated with fervor becoma familiar ring; that furtively glimpsed visage may be the first and last face you see each day. Enduring loinevitably progresses to this stage: an attachment that is deeper, but far less exciting, than initialinfatuation.

Indeed, the experience of love may best be viewed as a biological drive that comprises lust, romantic lovand attachment. These three states are experientially different, but share the goal of successfulreproduction. Lust gets us on the hunt for potential mates, and romantic love narrows our focus and enerto just one person, while attachment encourages us to stick with this partner long enough to raise childre

These three systems are expertly choreographed at the neurochemical level, each with attendantneurohormones, contends Helen Fisher, a research anthropologist at Rutgers University in NewBrunswick, New Jersey. It's the neurochemical dopamine in particular that allows us to maintain romanticlove's unique, intoxicating properties, even as we tread water in the tranquil sea of long-term attachment.

Dopamine and norepinephrine levels surge when a person is confronted by the unknown. In the initialphase of romantic love, they engender such exhilaration that we lose the desire to eat or sleep. The Frenrefer to this as le coup de foudre ("lightning bolt"). Less romantic Anglophones call it lovesickness. Fisherfor her part, equates romantic love with addiction. She argues that whether the motivator is cocaine orCindy in apartment 4B, elevated levels of dopamine and norepinephrine electrify the reward system in thbrain. "Romantic love is an urge, a craving, a homeostatic imbalance that drives you to pursue a particul

partner, and to [experience] emotions like elation and hope, or despair and rage," explains Fisher.


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The awe of dopamine eventually subsides, followed by love's rear guard, vasopressin and oxytocin,hormones that lead to long-lasting attachment. Researchers hypothesize that these "cuddle chemicals,"released during sex, facilitate the bond needed to raise children. Warm and fuzzy though they make usfeel, these hormones can't match dopamine's edgy high. Oxytocin, in particular, may subdue levels ofdopamine and norepinephrine.

It may be wise to invoke the thrill and power of dopamine by embracing new adventures, since noveltyprompts the brain to pump out this chemical. "Novelty drives up dopamine levels and probably lowers thethreshold for your ability to feel romantic love," Fisher explains. In other words, new and varied stimuli canbe sufficiently arousing to recapture what was initially so exciting about your mate. "When you do novelthings, you're not ingesting any substance; you're just creating an internal reactionjust as romantic love

creates an internal reaction," says Fisher.

Indeed, several studies have shown that couples who share exciting experiences report more relationshisatisfaction, as well as more romance, than do couples with more mundane habits.

Novelty may be so critical to romantic love that it helps account for the success of arranged marriages.Many Westerners roll their eyes at the practice, trampling as it does on our notions of courtship and thesoul mate. But Fisher suggests that an arranged union offers suspense about one's partner-to-be, thefulfillment of a long-anticipated promise and the thrill of wedding pageantryexperiences that can drive udopamine levels to such a degree that romantic love may thrive.

Novelty-generating forces are available to most relationships. Prime among them are humor (neverunderestimate the power of the unexpected quip) and sex. Sex elevates testosterone levels, which in turnrev up dopamine, allowing partners to recapture the thrill of romantic love, if only temporarily.

The simplest way to shake up your relationship is well documented by the likes of Homer or TennesseeWilliams: enforced separation and knock-down, drag-out fights. Arguments trigger a rush of adrenaline,which kicks in during risky, dangerous or new situations. This may explain the high-voltage couple whodramatically splits only to reconcile with still more gusto. Separation from a beloved moves dopamine andnorepinephrine production into high gear by activating goal-driven pathways associated with theseneurotransmitters. "When a reward is delayed, these brain circuits sustain their activity, which is probablwhat gives you the feeling of frustration attractionwanting the person more when barriers are increasedexplains Fisher.

There's just one catch in Fisher's prescription for novelty: A couple's conception of behavior that iscomfortable or challenging must be in sync for fresh experiences to have the desired effect. Unfortunatelnot everyone is in sensory agreement.

SENSATIONALLY OUT OF STEP

Let's face it: We live in a fast-paced world. Gone is the serenity of Victorian idylls that still infuse our visionof romance, complete with slow-motion Sundays in the park and picnics by pristine lakes.

While the recesses of our brain reserved for romance marinate in some melange of fiction and hope, ournerve endings snap to attention against a shortage of time. Communication is often curt as couples jugglbills, office deadlines and babysitters who don't show1

This is the nature of life in the 21st century. Elegant and gracious it is not.

Against this backdrop, relationships struggle to survive once the exhilaration of courtship gives way to theroutines of partnership. And couples struggle to achieve a congruence that is generally out of the reach oawarenessbut that exerts a powerful centripetal pull nonetheless.

One factor that may prove unifyingor divisiveis the degree to which two nervous systems are naturalinclined to pursue novel and stimulating experiences. We are not talking about conjoint bungee-jumping,


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rather about the openness each person has toward change and his or her appreciation of variety andintensity of experience, as well as each one's strong positive emotional reactivity to new situations.

People normally differ in the degree to which they seek stimulation. But the most enduring couples, it turnout, are those whose natural levels of sensation seeking, whether high, low or in between, are very closelaligned.

People who strongly possess the capacity for sensation seeking are tuned in to an internal thrum andchoose environments that augment internal sensations. They are usually very social, seeing others as asource of stimulation, although they answer more to their own needs than to social conventions. And thecompany they prefer is interesting, going on exotic.

The degree of sensation seeking is usually well-correlated between happily married partners. In studies athe University of Delaware, psychologist Marvin Zuckerman has found a large discrepancy in thesensation-seeking scores of husbands and wives undergoing marital therapy. Usually, he reports, it is thelow-level sensation seeker who drags in the high-level sensation seeker for marital counseling.

The best combination is two people low in sensation seeking. "They're happy with each other and don'tbecome habituated to each other," explains Zuckerman. "Two high [-level] sensation seekers are OK for awhile, but even though their partner might be exciting, they are looking for variety everywhere." Still, theworst combination is high-low, because they just don't understand each other's interests.

A person's inherent need for sensation is not necessarily obvious in the early stages of a relationship,when love itself is a novelty and carries its own thrills. And you don't have to be a high-level sensationseeker to enjoy sex, says Zuckerman.

"It's when the sex becomes routine that problems occur. Initially there can be a great attraction betweenhigh [-level] and a low [-level]. And only later may they realize how fundamentally different they are."

As with all behavior, there is some flexibility built into the system. Up to a point, some low-levels can learnto do things they might not ordinarily choose. And high-levels can modify their sensation needs. But eventhey reach agreement on how to spend their time together, and what to do on vacation, the tempo isalways going to be somewhat unrewarding for one of them. The activities that most satisfy, the kinds ofpeople they like, their interest in socializing at allthe balance points between routine and spontaneity,

between stability and varietyare bound to differ and can drive a wedge between them.

The high-sensation seekers and the lows also have different brain responses to activity. At the highest enof sensation seeking stand the risk takers of the worldpeople who are impelled to explore unknownterritory, experiment with drugs or engage in dangerous activities. "High-sensation seekers don't need anexplanation. Lows want an explanation about why people do such things," Zuckerman reports.

The highs know. They get an all-around rush, probably brought to them by a surge in the neurotransmittedopamine. Among sensation seekers, Zuckerman has found, dopamine levels are low and very reactive stimulation. He believes that high-sensation seekers have reduced dopamine levels because they havelow levels of monoamine oxidase (MAO), a brain-active enzyme that regulates dopamine and otherneurotransmitters. Serotonin levels are also low among sensation seekers. Low serotonin levels are

associated with impulsive behavior. And so the combination of tendencies might be due to the balancebetween serotonin and dopamine in the brain.

In general, women have higher MAO levels than men, while sensation seeking tends to be greater amonmen than among women. Nevertheless, happy husbands and wives can be foundand by extension,ought to be looking for each otherat roughly the same spot on the sensation-seeking scale. "Mostpersonality traits do not show what's called 'assortative mating,'" that is, they do not gravitate toward theiown level in a partner. But sensation seeking does. And that, says Zuckerman, is a clear sign of itsbiological importance.

WHY LOVE MAKES SCENTS


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Dripping candles, perfume-doused letters, red rosesso much of romance leads us by the nose. It turnsout that one of the most subtle but important forces steering love is the body's own unadulterated scent.a couple's odor-prints don't match, they won't make sense together.

Scent is a driving force at all stages of a relationship, argues Rachel Herz, visiting assistant professor ofpsychology at Brown University. She has found that scent is the second most important criterion forwomen (after a pleasant disposition). Women are more interested in scent than in appearance, voice ormuscle tone. While men also rank scent highly, Herz argues that women are the more aromaticallysusceptible sex. Because women bear the brunt of reproduction, they have evolved to regard smell as amore significant signal.

People know which cologne drives them crazy, but their preference for one person's smell over another'sis at the mercy of biological processes that generally operate below the level of conscious awareness.

The source of each person's one-of-a-kind odor is, in fact, his or her unique immune system. The segmeof our DNA called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) controls proteins involved in immunityanin producing our own singular smell. Immunity is inherited from both parents, and because the humanspecies is best protected by the broadest array of disease resistance, we are designed to mate with apartner whose MHC profile differs from our own. As such, studies suggest that we like the scent of peoplwith immune systems unlike ours. Couples with similar immune systems have a higher risk of spontaneomiscarriages and have more trouble conceiving.

A classic set of experiments reveals the degree to which MHC-driven scents silently engineer matepreferences. Claus Wedekind of the University of Bern in Switzerland asked women to sniff and selectcotton clothes that were worn by various men. The women not only favored the shirts of men whose MHCprofiles differed from theirs but also said these aromas reminded them of current or ex-loversproof thatMHC profiles influenced their romantic choices in the past. T-shirts worn by men who had similar immunesystems to the women conjured up fathers or brothers instead.

Women taking oral contraceptives, however, were dangerously misled in partner preference: They foundthe dad-and-brother-like smells most attractive. The pill tricks a woman's body into acting as if she'spregnant. One theory holds that the olfactory system knows it is advantageous for a woman to be aroundkin when she is in such a vulnerable state.

Perhaps, Herz suggests, the widespread use of the pill is a factor in our sky-high divorce rates: "Marriagecounselors say that a [top] complaint from women who want to end a relationship is, 'I can't stand hissmell.'"

A few years into marriage, a woman may stop using birth control only to find herself less interested in hermate without knowing why. Herz now advises women who use the pill to try alternate means of birth contbefore settling down with a partner.

But a change in scent perception will not necessarily make a woman turn up her nose for good. Once twopeople are emotionally attached, they are disposed to seeand smelleach other in a positive light.

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Cupid's Comeuppance