Why We Love (45 page)

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Authors: Helen Fisher

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short-term partnerships and

stimulated by photographs

traits in

traits of, in animals

in types of love

universal human experience

variations in

see also
brain circuitry for romantic love

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet
(Shakespeare)

Romeo and Juliet effect

Ryden, Hope

sadness

Sappho

Schaller, George

seals

Sedley, Sir Charles

selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

seminal fluid

Sendak, Maurice

separation anxiety

septum

serial monogamy

serotonin

and anger

brain regions

for depression

exercise and

in rejection

in romantic love

stress and

serotonin-elevating drugs

sex

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)

sex drive

brain structures associated with

chemical components of attachment and

dopamine in

testosterone, in

sex hormones

sexual arousal

sexual connection

sexual desire

brain chemicals in

testosterone and

sexual exclusivity

in animals

sexual fantasies

sexual infidelity

sexual intelligence

sexual intimacy

sexual orientation

sexual selection

sexual union

Shakespeare, William

Shaver, Philip

sheep

shorebirds

Shostak, Marjorie

shrew

Silentiarius, Paulus

similarities of background, education, and beliefs

Simpson, Greg

Singh, Devendra

size differences between sexes

sleep problems

Smuts, Barb

Snodgrass, W. D.

social life

social trends, and romantic love

Society for the Study of Broken Hearts

Socrates

Solomon, Robert

Song of Solomon

Song of Songs

sorrow

spatial skills

special meaning

spousal battering

Sprecher, Susan

squirrels

SSRIs,
see
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

stalking

by women

State University of New York at Stony Brook

Sternberg, Robert

Stieglitz, Jonathan

storge

stress

stress hormones

stress system

Strong, Greg

Su Tung-Po

Substance P

suicide

adaptive

men

Sumeria

sunlight

Suzuki, MacGregor

“sweaty T-shirt” experiment

symmetry

Symposium, The
(Plato)

Tagore, Rabindranath

Taita (people)

talents

displaying

evolution of

talking therapy

Tamil peoples

Tannen, Deborah

teenagers

Tempest, The
(Shakespeare)

tenderness

Terence

testosterone

antidepressant effect

and attachment

decline in

dopamine and

fetal

lust and

sex and

in sex drive

testosterone creams/patches

theory of mind

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall

Thompson, Paul M.

Thomson, Andy

Thornhill, Randy

thyroid hormone

tigers

timing

Tinbergen, Niko

tools

traditional societies

Traviata, La
(Verdi)

Tristan and Iseult

Troilus and Cressida

troubadours

Truman, Harry

12–Step approach

tyrosine

Tzu Yeh

University College, London, experiment

unrequited love

vasopressin

in attachment

vengeance, feminine

ventral tegmental area (VTA)

Verdi, Giuseppe

viagra

violence

vision networks

visual images/stimuli

men’s response to

power of

visceral reaction to

visual pornography

Voltaire

waist-to-hip ratio

walking

Walsh, William

Washington, George

Watson, Paul

weasels

web of love

West, Mae

whales

Whitman, Walt

wife (concept)

Wilde, Oscar

Wilson, Lars

Winters, Yvor

Wollstonecraft, Mary

wolves

women

advertising assets visually

brain in love

choosing partner

courting talk

decisions about mating partner

jealousy

in labor market

love sadness

and mating effort

obstetrical dilemma

power and status of

sexual stimulation

symmetry

testosterone

vengeance

vulnerability

waist-to-hip ratios

Woolf, Virginia

Yanomamo

Yates, Donald

Yeats, William Butler

Zeig, Jeffrey

Zeki, Semir

Also by Helen Fisher

The First Sex

Anatomy of Love

The Sex Contract

Praise for
Why We Love

“Fascinating … [Fisher’s] passion keeps the book, which has detailed descriptions of brain function, readable.”

—
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“The most comprehensive and comprehensible account I have ever read of the brain chemistry of attachment. Read it and learn some of the most important lessons anyone can achieve: how and why we—and other living things—love.”

—David P. Barash, professor of psychology, University of Washington, and author of
The Survival Game
and
The Myth of Monogamy

“Fascinating.”

—
The Dallas Morning News

“A fascinating tour of the science and art of love … From sage poets to brain scans,
Why We Love
provides the most gripping and scientifically sound book yet written about this most bafflingly complex human experience.”

—David M. Buss, author of
The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating

“A standout.”

—
The Hartford Courant

“Helen Fisher’s book will entice you, charm away your resistance to its thesis, seduce you into accepting it. It is poetic, sexy, beguiling, and, all at the same time, scientific.”

—Richard Dawkins, author of
The Selfish Gene

“Entertainingly balancing poetic plaudits with scientific sanctions, Fisher presents both the chemistry behind love’s rashest behavior and the understanding necessary to weather the emotional upheavals associated with falling in love.”

—
Booklist

“Very readable and enlightening … Fisher joins a growing chain of very fine writers, including Antonio Damasio, whose book about consciousness,
The Feeling of What Happens
she cites here, and Bill Buford’s current bestseller,
A Short History of Nearly Everything,
books that explain ourselves, our nature and behavior, to the general reader.”

—
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“Intriguing … Well written as a reference tome that provides insight.”

—
Midwest Book Review

About the Author

H
ELEN
F
ISHER
, P
H
.D., is one of this country’s most prominent anthropologists. Prior to becoming a research professor at Rutgers University, she was a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Dr. Fisher has conducted extensive research on the evolution, expression, and chemistry of love. Her two most recent books,
The First Sex
and
Anatomy of Love,
were
New York Times
Notable Books. She lives in New York City.