Helen Fisher
Helen Fisher
Helen E. Fisher is an American anthropologist, human behavior researcher, and self-help author. She is a biological anthropologist, is a Senior Research Fellow, at The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, and a Member of the Center For Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Prior to Rutgers University, she was a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth31 May 1945
CountryUnited States of America
Romantic love is deeply embedded in the architecture and chemistry of the human brain, ... Why We Love.
The brain system for romantic love is associated with intense energy, focused energy, obsessive things - a host of characteristics that you can feel not just toward a mating sweetheart, ... there's every reason to think that girls can fall in love with other girls without feeling sexual towards them, without the intention to marry them.
It is very much like a drug high. When you're madly in love, you think this person is more special than anyone else on Earth. You focus all your attention on them. You have personality changes. You're willing to take great risks to win the person's affection. And you have a tolerance level -- you see the person a couple of times a week at first, and that's OK for a while, and then you've got to see them every night.
The double-income family was the standard. We are really moving back to the past.
Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.
People live for love. They kill for love. They die for love. They have songs, poems, novels, sculptures, paintings, myths, legends. It's one of the most powerful brain systems on Earth for both great joy and great sorrow.
Barriers tend to intensify romance. It's called the 'Romeo and Juliet effect.' I call it 'frustration attraction.'
love is like Someone is camping in your head
From my studies of genetics and neuroscience I have come to believe that people fall into four broad personality types - each influenced by a different brain chemical: I call them the Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator.
A world without love is a deadly place.
There's magic to love... Millions of years ago we evolved three basic drives: the sex love, romantic love, and attachment to a long-term partner. These circuits are deeply embedded in the human brian. They're going to survive as long as our species survive on what Shakespeare called, this "mortal coil."
A woman of 40 or 50 or 60 can take estrogen replacements, get facelifts, spend her money in bars.
Women are better at reading body language everywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, it's associated with the female hormone estrogen. Women are better at figuring out of tone of voice, reading your face and posture and gesture.
Romantic love is an addiction: a perfectly wonderful addiction when it’s going well, and a perfectly horrible addiction when it’s going poorly.