Falling in Love Only Takes About a Fifth of a Second, Research Reveals
ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2010) — A new meta-analysis study conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue reveals falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain. Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.
Results from Ortigue’s team revealed when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.
The findings raise the question: “Does the heart fall in love, or the brain?”
“That’s a tricky question always,” says Ortigue. “I would say the brain, but the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain.”
Ortigue is an assistant professor of psychology and an adjunct assistant professor of neurology, both in The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University.
Other researchers also found blood levels of nerve growth factor, or NGF, also increased. Those levels were significantly higher in couples who had just fallen in love. This molecule involved plays an important role in the social chemistry of humans, or the phenomenon ‘love at first sight.’ “These results confirm love has a scientific basis,” says Ortigue.
Read in Full:Â http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101022184957.htm
By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on November 2, 2010
A new study suggests knowledge of oneself in regard to initial communication with a potential partner can go a long way in creating a fulfilling relationship.
Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, recently completed a study into styles of flirting among dating adults.
His investigation included surveying more than 5,100 people regarding their methods of communicating romantic interest.
“Knowing something about the way you communicate attraction says something about challenges you might have had in your past dating life,†Hall said.
“Hopefully, this awareness can help people avoid those mistakes and succeed in courtship.”
He identified five styles of flirting: physical, traditional, polite, sincere and playful.
- *Physical flirting involves the expression of sexual interest in a potential partner. People who scored high in this form of flirting often develop relationships quickly, have more sexual chemistry and have a greater emotional connection to their partners.
- *Traditional flirts think men should make the first move and women should not pursue men. Because they adopt a more passive role in dating, women with this style are likely to report trouble getting men’s attention and are less likely to flirt or be flattered by flirting. Traditional men often know a potential partner for a longer time before approaching them. Both genders tend to be introverted and prefer a more intimate dating scene.
- *The polite style of flirting focuses on proper manners and nonsexual communication. Although they are less likely to approach a potential partner and do not find flirting flattering, they do tend to have meaningful relationships.
- *Sincere flirting is based on creating emotional connections and communicating sincere interest. Although women tend to score higher in this style, it is advocated by both genders. Relationships involve strong emotional connections and sexual chemistry and are typically meaningful.
- *People with playful flirting styles often flirt with little interest in a long-term romance. However, they find flirting fun and enhancing to their self-esteem. They are less likely to have important and meaningful relationships.
Hall said that for the most part, there was little difference between genders within each flirting style.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/11/02/self-awareness-of-flirting-style-is-key-for-relationships/20441.html
The Most Important Tool For Restoring Emotional Intimacy to Your Marriage
Peggy Ferguson, Ph.D. Updated: Nov 4th 2010
The first thing you must do to restore intimacy to your most important relationship is to increase the amount of time that you spend together. It is not only the first thing that you must do, it is the most important thing you must do if you want to recover that sense of “us-nessâ€.
Partners often come into counseling complaining that they have grown apart, that they are not feeling loved, or that they do not feel important to the other partner. What most of these couples have in common is that they do not spend much time together. They usually believe that they do not spend any less time together than their friends spend with their spouses. They may be correct. However, when couples are missing the closeness that they once had and not feeling loved, a lack of time together is a major part of the problem.
Of course, many couples are in chronic conflict with each other. Chronic conflict makes it difficult to enjoy the moment with your partner when you are primed and ready to see everything they say or do as negative and motivated by a desire to hurt you in some way. Ongoing conflict and negative feelings about the partner and the relationship play a role in avoiding spending time with each other. Who wants to expose himself or herself to a person or situation that is just going to hurt their feelings? Athough this couple has to work through the conflict to restore a desire to spend time together, they have to spend time together to work through the conflict.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41059&cn=289
Dana Vince, M.A., LPC, MHSP Updated: Nov 5th 2010
All marital partners, at some point in their marriage, will feel disconnected from one another. This is a normal occurrence in marriage. However, if it is not recognized as normal, if steps are not taken to prevent it, recognize it, or recover from it, it can make a couple vulnerable to infidelity.
What does it mean to be connected? It means being emotionally in tune with each other. You know when your partner has had a good or bad day, who are their best friends and who are their enemies, what’s going on at work or with extended family. On a larger scale, what their dreams and goals are, what makes them sad and what makes them happy. What their scared of and what they most aspire to be. These are things that two people who are connected know about and care about each other. It requires openness and honesty, genuineness and kindness.
When do couples become disconnected? A couple experiences disconnection for many reasons. There are times in a couples life when they are extra vulnerable to disconnection; the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or any other major life change. Disconnection can also happen from not taking the time to be alone with one another, to talk to each other. Not making your marriage a priority and letting other life happenings get in the way.
How do we prevent becoming disconnected: one major way to avoid disconnection is by making your marriage a top priority and always taking time to spend with one another. When there is conflict, to deal with it by talking openly and in a caring way with one another so conflict can be discussed and resolved. Don’t allow resentments to build, talk to each other and stay in tune with each other’s emotions.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=40916&cn=289
Can you excuse your extramarital affair or marrying without love?
Even a good excuse is still an excuse.
Published on October 30, 2010
by Aaron Ben-Zeév
“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” George Washington.
“Good taste is the excuse I’ve always given for leading such a bad life.” Oscar Wilde
Romantic behavior, like other kinds of behavior, sometimes involves actions that generate negative consequences. Two major means for defending such wrong deeds are excuses and considering the action to be a compromise. Both are useful in different circumstances. I examine these by considering two types of circumstances: The extramarital affair and marrying without love.
Let me take the following two cases as circumstances that require the use of two different defense mechanisms: (a) a woman had a brief extramarital sexual affair, and (b) a woman decided to marry a man whom she did not love. Both actions have profound negative effects, but the tactics used to minimize the blame are different: In the first case, the woman is likely to find an excuse for her behavior, while in the second case she is likely to consider her behavior to constitute a case of compromise.
Excuses are a type of defense mechanism that offers an indirect rational justification for an erroneous deed. While the excuse does not refute the negative value of the deed, it describes mitigating circumstances that indicate why the agent acted in that manner, and in this sense it defends the agent-often by showing or implying that the consequences were unintended and that in any case the agent was not fully responsible for it.
Likewise, when people make compromises, they do not consider the compromising situation to be flawless, but they cite mitigating circumstances in order to explain why they chose to make that compromise. Despite the fact that the agent relinquished some of her values or her dreams, her appeal to the mitigating circumstances removes at least some of the blame from her.
In both excuses and compromises it is not easy to understand why the agent deviated from her norms. In any case, the case against the path she chose seem stronger than those in its favor. Providing an excuse or describing the deed as compromise, might explain the agent’s behavior, but it does not yet make the deed positive. A friend of mine once said that “even a good excuse is still an excuse.” Similarly, we can say that “even a good compromise is still a compromise.” In both cases, it is very difficult to remove the connotations of negativity.
Read in Full:Â http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/201010/can-you-excuse-your-extramarital-affair-or-marrying-without-love
Divorce – Moving on and Letting Go
Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT Updated: Nov 5th 2010
Even if you wanted the divorce, it entails loss. Aside from the ending of the relationship with your spouse, you may be losing your home, time with your children, in-laws, extended family, and even friends. There are inevitable financial losses, loneliness, a change of lifestyle, imagined losses of what might have been, and of memories of what once was. It may involve a move to a different city, a change of jobs or schools, or a homemaker entering the work force for the first time.
Divorce is harder one the spouse who is less prepared or feels “left.” It can shatter one’s self-esteem, particularly if it was unexpected, or if a spouse leaves because he or she loves someone else. Not usually talked about is the loss of identity that occurs – as a wife, a husband, and possibly as a father or mother. To successfully move on, each loss must be mourned. Much of the grief work can precede the physical and legal divorce and smooth the way. It can be useful to recognize Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Not mentioned is fear, which is a predominant emotion in times of transition. All change is stressful. Facing the unknown is provokes anxiety. So many important elements of ones life are in transition all at once, that the stress is enormous.
Divorce frequently rekindles the pain associated with past losses, such as an abortion, a death, immigration, or your own parents’ divorce. One man so looked-up to his late father who had died when he was only four years old, that when his own son reached four, he not only divorced, but moved out of state, claiming he needed to get away from his ex. But the proximity to his ex-wife was not the real motivation. It was the painful, hidden memory of his father’s abandonment and the prospect of tarnishing his father’s idealized reputation by meeting his own son’s needs.
Many times, there have been both a prior loss and lack of separation from a parent, as in the case of a woman who was overly close with her mother following the death of her father. With such spouses the threat of loss is overwhelming. She hadn’t finished grieving her father, and hadn’t separated emotionally from her mother. This made “letting go” of her marriage nearly impossible. She created disputes and obstacles to settlement in order to postpone the divorce, thereby avoiding their grief, feelings of helplessness, emptiness and abandonment. In such cases, anger helps to separate, yet on-going fighting is a way of staying in contact. Often spouses fluctuate between attachment and separation, sometimes being compliant, then resistant. They cannot cooperate without feeling they are giving up a part of themselves. For example, everything can be agreed upon but one insignificant item – one piece of art, or custody on Halloween.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41074&cn=42
8 Strategies for Maintaining Resilience in Your Couple Relationship When Cancer Joins The Family
Sally Connolly Updated: Nov 3rd 2010
Receiving and living with a cancer diagnosis is one of the most stressful things that someone can experience, especially the patient; however, it also affects the whole family.
The impact of cancer is like dropping a stone into a pool of water. The effects of the diagnosis ripple through the family and result in many changes to the lives, routines and identity of each person in the family.
For a spouse, it is hard to live with fear of the loved ones’ death, uncertainty about the future, and finding ways to meet the emotional needs of the patient. Studies have shown that spouses can become as distressed as the cancer patient and that each one’s reaction to the stress affects the other.
My husband and colleague, John Turner, and I were recently invited to meet with a group of couples living with cancer at our local Gilda’s Club. Gilda’s Club, named after comedian Gilda Radner, provides support and resources for people living with cancer and for their families.
We were asked to talk to couples who are living with cancer in either one of the spouses or with a child. The focus was on building and enhancing their resilience. Our goal was to remind them how to keep connected to the good and positives in their relationship while dealing with a high level of change, fear and stress.
We want to share with you what we shared with that group, our Eight Strategies for Maintaining Resilience When Living with Cancer.
1. Appreciate all of the good in your life and in your couple relationship right now and continue that focus on your journey.
Keep reminders, photos, souvenirs and mementos and talk about happy times. You and your relationship are much more than the cancer. While there are certainly times to think, talk and feel about the cancer, it is only one part of your life. Enjoy and celebrate all of the other goodness that is there, the parts that make the “whole†of you.
2. Maintain some sense of normalcy. Keep to rituals and routines as much as possible. The person living with the cancer diagnosis, as well as all of the family members, need to find ways to think and act as normally as is possible.
Retaining some of the rituals and routines such as meals together, family gatherings and special rituals for weekends, helps couples recover from the stress that the barrage of changes from cancer and cancer treatment bring.
3. Allow acceptance and embrace scary and negative feelings and then, together, find a way to move on. Denial may feel right at first; however, in the long run, it is not helpful for anyone. Give yourselves the opportunity to think and talk about your fears, worries and anger.
Make sure not to “camp out†there, however. Find ways to put those feelings aside and focus on a move back into the present and to the good about your life and your family.
4. Give each other the benefit of the doubt. This is a long and scary road to walk. Recognize that you both have the same goals and desires in mind, you just may have different ways to go about them and periods when you have more energy, the ability to be positive, strong and hopeful.
Recognize that, sometimes when your spouse is grumpy, angry or depressed, that it may have a lot to do what is happening in your lives right now. Give him or her the benefit of the doubt.
5. Don’t be lonely heroes. Ask for and receive help.
6. Keep humor alive. Gilda’s Club is devoted to helping cancer patients and their families find ways to laugh. A lot of research found that laughter can stimulate organs and release those natural uppers called endorphins as well as produce the body’s own natural painkillers that help to fight stress.
Watch funny movies, read humorous books, spend time with people that make you laugh.
7. Find your joy. Remain hopeful. Miracles do happen. Patients do recover. Research brings amazing results and new medications and treatments are discovered all of the time.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=41044&cn=26
By Daniel Tomasulo, Ph.D.
I detest love lyrics. I think one of the causes of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on love lyrics. – Frank Zappa
Since more marriages in the United States fail rather than succeed, it is clear that most people have unrealistic expectations and lack the skills necessary to maintain a good relationship.
What goes into being in love? Is it love at first sight, or something else?
In the January/February 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind, Robert Epstein outlines a series of exercises which emphasize vulnerability and which research has shown to enhance feelings of love.
Here’s what we know about mutual gazing, bungee jumping, and arranged marriages.
Gazing at someone increases positive feelings toward them. The key word here is mutual. Mammals stare at other mammals as a sign of intimidation, but if the gaze is mutual there is a shift toward emotional bonding. It is the vulnerability shared by the mutuality of the experience that ushers in the positive experiences.
Allowing yourself to look into the eyes of a willing participant tends to create a vulnerability that warms us up and helps us feel drawn to the other person. While the degree of attraction may differ, it is in a positive direction.
The article mentioned above also included 10 techniques for enhancing our intimate relationships. These 10 activities are drawn from Epstein’s research and mirror the kinds of activity identified by people in arranged marriages.
For example, about 95 percent of marriages in India are arranged. While couples can choose whether to act on the arrangement, the bottom line is that India has one of the world’s lowest divorce rates. Couples not only stay married, they tend to feel more satisfied in their love relationships when compared to Westerners.
Improving Your Love Bonds with Your Partner
Here are the 10 ways to enhance your intimate bonds with another.
- 1. Arousal through means of exercise — bungee jumping, amusement park rides, dancing and the like — tends to create an emotional bond.
- 2. Proximity and familiarity — simply being around others for a period of time — tends to induce positive feelings. This is particularly enhanced when individuals allow themselves to be vulnerable and permit each other to occupy some of their personal space.
- 3. Birds of a feather flock together, and for good reason. Similarity to others in areas such as intelligence, background and level of attractiveness increases a sense of closeness.
- 4. Humor goes a long way in a relationship. Research shows that women prefer male partners who can make them laugh, and happy marriages that last are those where spouses know how to tickle each other’s funny bone.
- 5. Doing something new together brings us closer. When our senses are stimulated with something different we are vulnerable; this helps us connect.
- 6. As anyone who ever met someone he or she started dating at a cocktail party will tell you, becoming less self-conscious and lowering your inhibitions can allow you to open up and connect. But it doesn’t have to involve alcohol. Anything that lets you feel less inhibited will work. Maybe it’s time to take that acting class, hmmm?
- 7. Opportunities for spontaneity occur throughout the day, particularly though the act of being spontaneously kind to others. Research shows that simply counting the number of times each day you engage in kindness can make you happier. In fact, kindness, sensitivity, thoughtfulness and forgiveness increase our desire and capacity to bond.
- 8. As you might imagine, touch and sexuality are part of what attracts us to each other. Consider an experiment where subjects were able to correctly identify the 10 emotions conveyed through touch by an unseen person. Our nonverbal somatic vocabulary is exquisite and much can be conveyed by touch.
- 9. Self-disclosure to each other via secrets and personal thoughts and feelings generates a vulnerability that helps us link to each other in positive ways.
Too Many Sisters Affect Male Sexuality
Article Date: 23 Oct 2010 – 0:00 PDT
Growing up with lots of sisters makes a man less sexy. For rats, anyway. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the sex ratio of a male rat’s family when he’s growing up influences both his own sexual behavior and how female rats respond to him.
David Crews, a psychobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, is interested in how early life affects behavior later. This is an area that has received a lot of attention recently, such as research showing that the position of a fetus in the uterus matters. For example, a female fetus that spends the pregnancy sandwiched between two brothers grows up to be more masculinized, because she’s been exposed to their hormones. Other researchers have found that sex ratio of the litter itself affects adult behavior. But Crews wanted to separate the effects of life before and after birth. “Life is a continuous process: you’re a fetus, then you’re born into a family. Each one of these periods can be important,” he says – and they don’t necessarily have the same effects.
By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 26, 2010
New research discovers that young men vary in their ability to remember if a woman expressed sexual interest or rejection.
University of Iowa researchers say the finding holds true even if a woman is perfectly clear in expressing her intent.
Overall, college-aged men were quite good at recalling whether their female peers — in this case, represented through photos — showed interest.
Their memories were especially sharp if the model happened to be good-looking, dressed more provocatively, and conveyed interest through an inviting expression or posture.
But as researchers examined variations in sexual cue recall, they found two noteworthy correlations: men with a history of more frequent serious relationships did a better job remembering the cues, while men who scored higher on a sexual aggression survey performed worse.
“Tracking and remembering a partner’s emotions may play a role in the initiation and maintenance of a serious romantic relationship,†said lead author Teresa Treat, a psychologist in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“Likewise, misremembering a woman’s level of sexual interest could prompt some men to make unwanted sexual advances and become frustrated when a woman doesn’t respond as anticipated.”
Published this month in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, the study by Treat and colleagues at Indiana University involved 232 men with an average age of 19.
The men viewed full-body photos of models who varied in attractiveness, attire and whether they were expressing interest. A short time later, the men were presented with the previously viewed photos, along with new photos of the same women communicating the opposite cue. They were asked which exact photos they’d seen before.
Dana Vince, M.A., LPC, MHSP Updated: Oct 29th 2010
I see a lot of couples, and it is quite common in marriage, to get into fights about nothing. It seems you are fighting all the time about little things that after a while, you don’t even remember how it started. Usually when a couple finds themselves fighting a lot, there are issues beneath the surface that are not being addressed. In this article I will discuss one common theme among fighting couples.
Think of the saying, “the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifferenceâ€. What does this mean? When there is love and when there is hate, there is connection. When there is indifference there is no connection. To further explain, if I can push your buttons and get a reaction out of you, then I know you care. I know I can get to you, reach you somehow. But if I get no reaction, if you are indifferent, that is a whole other story. In relationships, we all need to know that our partner cares. We want to feel we matter in the lives of one another. So what happens if I am feeling like I don’t matter?
Isolation is among the most painful of human experiences. The most severe punishment for inmates is to be put in isolation. To be ignored, or to feel alone, this is what we ward against. We are wired for human connection.
So now think about your intimate relationship. In order to feel connected, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable. To feel in tune with our partner, we must open ourselves up to be seen. Well this can be very scary. So what might we do instead? If I don’t want to be vulnerable, but I still want to be connected, I’ll fight.
Often when couples want to feel noticed, cared for, not ignored, instead of being vulnerable to get this from their partner, they will start a fight. This way I don’t have to be exposed, but I still know you care about me because you are reacting to me.
Read in Full:Â http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=40914&cn=289