Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

I 'd like to talk today about the two biggest social trends in the coming century , and perhaps in the next 10,000 years . But I want to start with my work on romantic love , because that 's my most recent work . What I and my colleagues did was to put 32 people , who were madly in love , into a functional MRI brain scanner . 17 who were madly in love and their love was accepted ; and 15 who were madly in love and they had just been dumped . And so I want to tell you about that first , and then go on into where I think love is going . " What ' tis to love ? " Shakespeare said . I think our ancestors -- I think human beings have been wondering about this question since they sat around their campfires or lay and watched the stars a million years ago . I started out by trying to figure out what romantic love was by looking at the last 45 years of research on -- just the psychological research , and as it turns out , there 's a very specific group of things that happen when you fall in love . The first thing that happens is what I call -- a person begins to take on what I call , " special meaning . " As a truck driver once said to me , he said , " The world had a new center , and that center was Mary Anne . " George Bernard Shaw said it a little differently . He said , " Love consists of overestimating the differences between one woman and another . " And indeed , that 's what we do . ( Laughter ) And then you just focus on this person . You can list what you do n't like about them , but then you sweep that aside and focus on what you do . As Chaucer said , " Love is blind . " In trying to understand romantic love , I decided I would read poetry from all over the world , and I just want to give you one very short poem from eighth-century China , because it 's an almost perfect example of a man who is focused totally on a particular woman . It 's a little bit like when you are madly in love with somebody and you walk into a parking lot . Their car is different from every other car in the parking lot . Their wine glass at dinner is different from every other wine glass at the dinner party . And in this case , a man got hooked on a bamboo sleeping mat . And it goes like this . It 's by a guy called Yuan Chen : " I can not bear to put away the bamboo sleeping mat . The night I brought you home , I watched you roll it out . " He became hooked on a sleeping mat , probably because of elevated activity of dopamine in his brain , just like with you and me . But anyway , not only does this person take on special meaning , you focus your attention on them . You aggrandize them . But you have intense energy . As one Polynesian said , he said , " I felt like jumping in the sky . " You 're up all night . You 're walking till dawn . You feel intense elation when things are going well , mood swings into horrible despair when things are going poorly . Real dependence on this person . As one businessman in New York said to me , he said , " Anything she liked , I liked . " Simple . Romantic love is very simple . You become extremely sexually possessive . You know , if you 're just sleeping with somebody casually , you do n't really care if they 're sleeping with somebody else . But the moment you fall in love , you become extremely sexually possessive of them . I think that that is a Darwinian -- there 's a Darwinian purpose to this . The whole point of this is to pull two people together strongly enough to begin to rear babies as a team . But the main characteristics of romantic love are craving : an intense craving to be with a particular person , not just sexually , but emotionally . You 'd much rather -- it would be nice to go to bed with them , but you want them to call you on the telephone , to invite you out , et cetera . To tell you that they love you . The other main characteristic is motivation . The motor in your brain begins to crank , and you want this person . And last but not least , it is an obsession . When I put these people in the machine , before I put them in the MRI machine , I would ask them all kinds of questions . But my most important question was always the same . It was : " What percentage of the day and night do you think about this person ? " And indeed , they would say , " All day . All night . I can never stop thinking about him or her . " And then , the very last question I would ask them -- I would always have to work myself up to this question , because I am not a psychologist . I do n't work with people in any kind of traumatic situation . And my final question was always the same . I would say , " Would you die for him or her ? " And , indeed , these people would say " Yes ! , " as if I had asked them to pass the salt . I was just staggered by it . So we scanned their brains , looking at a photograph of their sweetheart and looking at a neutral photograph , with a distraction task in between . So we could find -- look at the same brain when it was in that heightened state and when it was in a resting state . And we found activity in a lot of brain regions . In fact , one of the most important was a brain region that becomes active when you feel the rush of cocaine . And indeed , that 's exactly what happens . I began to realize that romantic love is not an emotion . In fact , I had always thought it was a series of emotions , from very high to very low . But actually , it 's a drive . It comes from the motor of the mind , the wanting part of the mind , the craving part of the mind . The kind of mind -- part of the mind -- when you 're reaching for that piece of chocolate , when you want to win that promotion at work . The motor of the brain . It 's a drive . And in fact , I think it 's more powerful than the sex drive . You know , if you ask somebody to go to bed with you , and they say , " No thank you , " you certainly do n't kill yourself or slip into a clinical depression . But certainly , around the world , people who are rejected in love will kill for it . People live for love . They kill for love . They die for love . They have songs , poems , novels , sculptures , paintings , myths , legends . In over 175 societies , people have left their evidence of this powerful brain system . I have come to think it 's one of the most powerful brain systems on earth for both great joy and great sorrow . And I 've also come to think that it 's one of three , basically different brain systems that evolved from mating and reproduction . One is the sex drive : the craving for sexual gratification . W. H. Auden called it an " intolerable neural itch , " and indeed , that 's what it is . It keeps bothering you a little bit , like being hungry . The second of these three brain systems is romantic love : that elation , obsession of early love . And the third brain system is attachment : that sense of calm and security you can feel for a long-term partner . And I think that the sex drive evolved to get you out there , looking for a whole range of partners . You know , you can feel it when you 're just driving along in your car . It can be focused on nobody . I think romantic love evolved to enable you to focus your mating energy on just one individual at a time , thereby conserving mating time and energy . And I think that attachment , the third brain system , evolved to enable you to tolerate this human being -- ( Laughter ) -- at least long enough to raise a child together as a team . So with that preamble , I want to go into discussing the two most profound social trends . One of the last 10,000 years and the other -- certainly of the last 25 years -- that are going to have an impact on these three different brain systems : lust , romantic love and deep attachment to a partner . The first is women working , moving into the workforce . I 've looked at 150 -- 130 societies through the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations . And everywhere in the world , 129 out of 130 of them , women are not only moving into the job market -- sometimes very , very slowly , but they are moving into the job market -- and they are very slowly closing that gap between men and women in terms of economic power , health and education . It 's very slow . For every trend in -- on this planet , there 's a counter-trend . We all know of them , but nevertheless -- the old Arab saying . The Arabs say , " The dogs may bark , but the caravan moves on . " And , indeed , that caravan is moving on . Women are moving back into the job market . And I say back into the job market , because this is not new . For millions of years , on the grasslands of Africa , women commuted to work to gather their vegetables . They came home with 60 to 80 percent of the evening meal . The double income family was the standard . And women were regarded as just as economically , socially and sexually powerful as men . In short , we 're really moving forward to the past . Then , women's worst invention was the plow . With the beginning of plow agriculture , men's roles became extremely powerful . Women lost their ancient jobs as collectors , but then with the industrial revolution and the post-industrial revolution they 're moving back into the job market . In short , they are acquiring the status that they had a million years ago , 10,000 years ago , 100,000 years ago . We are seeing now one of the most remarkable traditions in the history of the human animal . And it 's going to have an impact . I generally give a whole lecture on the impact of women on the business community . I 'll only just say a couple of things , and then go on to sex and love . There 's a lot of gender differences ; anybody who thinks men and women are alike simply never had a boy and a girl child . I do n't know why it is that they want to think that men and women are alike . There 's much we have in common , but there 's a whole lot that we are not -- do not have in common . We are -- in the words of Ted Hughes , " I think that we were built to be -- we 're like two feet . We need each other to get ahead . " But we did not evolve to have the same brain . And we 're finding more and more and more gender differences in the brain . I 'll only just use a couple and then move on to sex and love . One of them is women's verbal ability . Women can talk . Women's ability to find the right word rapidly , basic articulation goes up in the middle of the menstrual cycle , when estrogen levels peak . But even at menstruation , they 're better than the average man . Women can talk . They 've been doing it for a million years ; words were women's tools . They held that baby in front of their face , cajoling it , reprimanding it , educating it with words . And , indeed , they 're becoming a very powerful force . Even in places like India and Japan , where women are not moving rapidly into the regular job market , they 're moving into journalism . And I think that the television is like the global campfire . We sit around it and it shapes our minds . Almost always , when I 'm on TV , the producers who call me , who negotiate what we 're going to say , is a woman . In fact , Solzhenitsyn once said , " To have a great writer is to have another government . " Today 54 percent of people who are writers in America are women . It 's one of many , many characteristics that women have that they will bring into the job market . They 've got incredible people skills , negotiating skills . They 're highly imaginative . We now know the brain circuitry of imagination , of long-term planning . They tend to be web thinkers . Because the female parts of the brain are better connected , they tend to collect more pieces of data when they think , put them into more complex patterns , see more options and outcomes . They tend to be contextual , holistic thinkers , what I call web thinkers . Men tend to -- and these are averages -- tend to get rid of what they regard as extraneous , focus on what they do , and move in a more step-by-step thinking pattern . They 're both perfectly good ways of thinking . We need both of them to get ahead . In fact , there 's many more male geniuses in the world . When the -- and there 's also many more male idiots in the world . ( Laughter ) When the male brain works well , it works extremely well . And I -- what I really think that we 're doing is , we 're moving towards a collaborative society , a society in which the talents of both men and women are becoming understood and valued and employed . But in fact , women moving into the job market is having a huge impact on sex and romance and family life . Foremost , women are starting to express their sexuality . I 'm always astonished when people come to me and say , " Why is it that men are so adulterous ? " And I say , " Why do you think more men are adulterous than women ? " " Oh , well -- men are more adulterous ! " And I say , " Who do you think these men are sleeping with ? " And -- basic math ! ( Laughter ) Anyway . In the Western world , little girls start -- women start sooner at sex , have more partners , express less remorse for the partners that they do , marry later , have fewer children , leave bad marriages in order to get good ones . We are seeing the rise of female sexual expression . And , indeed , once again we 're moving forward to the kind of sexual expression that we probably saw on the grasslands of Africa a million years ago , because this is the kind of sexual expression that we see in hunting and gathering societies today . We 're also returning to an ancient form of marriage equality . They 're now saying that the 21st century is going to be the century of what they call the " symmetrical marriage , " or the " pure marriage , " or the " companionate marriage . " This is a marriage between equals , moving forward to a pattern that is highly compatible with the ancient human spirit . We 're also seeing a rise of romantic love . 91 percent of American women and 86 percent of American men would not marry somebody who had every single quality they were looking for in a partner , if they were not in love with that person . People around the world , in a study of 37 societies , want to be in love with the person that they marry . Indeed , arranged marriages are on their way off this braid of human life . I even think that marriages might even become more stable because of the second great world trend . The first one being women moving into the job market , the second one being the aging world population . They 're now saying that in America , that middle age should be regarded as up to age 85 . Because in that highest age category of 76 to 85 , only -- as much as 40 percent of people have nothing really wrong with them . So we 're seeing there 's a real extension of middle age . And I looked -- for one of my books , I looked at divorce data in 58 societies . And as it turns out , the older you get , the less likely you are to divorce . So the divorce rate right now is stable in America , and it 's actually beginning to decline . It may decline some more . I would even say that with Viagra , estrogen replacement , hip replacements and the incredibly interesting women -- women have never been as interesting as they are now . Not at any time on this planet have women been so educated , so interesting , so capable . And so I honestly think that if there really was ever a time in human evolution when we have the opportunity to make good marriages , that time is now . However , there 's always kinds of complications in this . In these three brain systems : lust , romantic love and attachment -- do n't always go together . They can go together , by the way . That 's why casual sex is n't so casual . With orgasm you get a spike of dopamine . Dopamine 's associated with romantic love , and you can just fall in love with somebody who you 're just having casual sex with . With orgasm , then you get a real rush of oxytocin and vasopressin -- those are associated with attachment . This is why you can feel such a sense of cosmic union with somebody after you 've made love to them . But these three brain systems : lust , romantic love and attachment , are n ' t always connected to each other . You can feel deep attachment to a long-term partner while you feel intense romantic love for somebody else , while you feel the sex drive for people unrelated to these other partners . In short , we 're capable of loving more than one person at a time . In fact , you can lie in bed at night and swing from deep feelings of attachment for one person to deep feelings of romantic love for somebody else . It 's as if there 's a committee meeting going on in your head as you are trying to decide what to do . So I do n't think , honestly , we 're an animal that was built to be happy ; we are an animal that was built to reproduce . I think the happiness we find , we make . And I think , however , we can make good relationships with each other . So I want to conclude with two things . I want to conclude with a worry . I have a worry -- and with a wonderful story . The worry is about antidepressants . Over 100 million prescriptions of antidepressants are written every year in the United States . And these drugs are going generic . They are seeping around the world . I know one girl who 's been on these antidepressants , serotonin-enhancing -- SSRI , serotonin-enhancing antidepressants -- since she was 13 . She 's 23 . She 's been on them ever since she was 13 . I 've got nothing against people who take them short term , when they 're going through something perfectly horrible . They want to commit suicide or kill somebody else . I would recommend it . But more and more people in the United States are taking them long term . And indeed , what these drugs do is raise levels of serotonin . And by raising levels of serotonin , you suppress the dopamine circuit . Everybody knows that . Dopamine is associated with romantic love . Not only do they suppress the dopamine circuit , but they kill the sex drive . And when you kill the sex drive , you kill orgasm . And when you kill orgasm , you kill that flood of drugs associated with attachment . The things are connected in the brain . And when you tamper with one brain system , you 're going to tamper with another . I 'm just simply saying that a world without love is a deadly place . So now -- ( Applause ) -- thank you . I want to end with a story . And then , just a comment . I 've been studying romantic love and sex and attachment for 30 years . I 'm an identical twin ; I am interested in why we 're all alike . Why you and I are alike , why the Iraqis and the Japanese and the Australian Aborigines and the people of the Amazon River are all alike . And about a year ago , an Internet dating service , Match . com , came to me and asked me if I would design a new dating site for them . I said , " I do n't know anything about personality . You know ? I do n't know . Do you think you 've got the right person ? " They said , " Yes . " It got me thinking about why it is that you fall in love with one person rather than another . That 's my current project ; it will be my next book . There 's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another . Timing is important . Proximity is important . Mystery is important . You fall in love with somebody who 's somewhat mysterious , in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain , probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love . You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your " love map , " an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up . And I also think that you become -- gravitate to certain people , actually , with somewhat complementary brain systems . And that 's what I 'm now contributing to this . But I want to tell you a story about -- to illustrate . I 've been carrying on here about the biology of love . I wanted to show you a little bit about the culture of it , too -- the magic of it . It 's a story that was told to me by somebody who had heard it just from one of the -- probably a true story . It was a graduate student at -- I 'm at Rutgers and my two colleagues -- Art Aron is at SUNY Stony Brook . That 's where we put our people in the MRI machine . And this graduate student was madly in love with another graduate student , and she was not in love with him . And they were all at a conference in Beijing . And he knew from our work that if you go and do something very novel with somebody , you can drive up the dopamine in the brain . And perhaps trigger this brain system for romantic love . ( Laughter ) So he decided he 'd put science to work , and he invited this girl to go off on a rickshaw ride with him . And sure enough -- I 've never been in one , but apparently they go all around the buses and the trucks and it 's crazy and it 's noisy and it 's exciting . And he figured that this would drive up the dopamine , and she would fall in love with him . So off they go and she 's squealing and squeezing him and laughing and having a wonderful time . An hour later they get down off of the rickshaw , and she throws her hands up and she says , " Was n ' t that wonderful ? " And , " Was n ' t that rickshaw driver handsome ! " ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) There 's magic to love ! But I will end by saying that millions of years ago , we evolved three basic drives : the sex drive , romantic love and attachment to a long-term partner . These circuits are deeply embedded in the human brain . They 're going to survive as long as our species survives on what Shakespeare called " this mortal coil . " Thank you . ( Applause ) </content