We know that love lives in the brain, not in the heart. But where in the brain is it – and is it in the same place as sexual desire? A recent international study is the first to draw an exact map of these intimately linked feelings.

“No one has ever put these two together to see the patterns of activation,” says Jim Pfaus, professor of psychology at Concordia University. “We didn’t know what to expect – the two could have ended up being completely separate. It turns out that love and desire activate specific but related areas in the brain.”

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

painting { François Boucher, Venus Consoling Love, 1751 }

Lu thought that elements of New Yorker style were ridiculous; for instance, our habit of putting points in I.B.M. when I.B.M. itself had long since done without them. […]

“Would you do me a favor?” And when the woman said yes, Lu told her, “Drop dead.”

{ New Yorker | Continue reading | Thanks Sasha }

How do spouses originally meet?
Friends: In the past, couples met through friends (~40% in 1990). Today, less than 30% meet through friends, but it’s still the most likely way to meet a future partner.

Online: Works for about 22% of us.

College: About 11% of us met our spouses in college.

Family: This used to be the most common method, but today it is less than 10%.

Primary & secondary school: A huge shift from 21% in the 1940s to about 5% today.



Who has highest quality relationships?
That would be couples who met in church or in primary or secondary school, followed by those who met online. Those who met through family are less likely to rate the quality of their relationship as high.

Who is more or less likely to break up?
Couples who met in church or primary or secondary school are less likely to break up. Couples who met online are also less likely to breakup. Couples who meet through friends are more likely to break up.

{ DatingWise | Continue reading }

screenshot { Greta Garbo in The Kiss, 1929 }

Is there a difference between love and addiction? Is being addicted to love a disease? […]

A group of French researchers, publishing in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, describe the clinical distinctions between “love passion,” “love addiction,” and “sex addiction”. Using advances in neurobiology to compare clinical, neuropsychological, neurobiological, and neuroimaging data on love and passion.

They begin with the most pertinent question: “Is there any legitimate reason to associate a pathological condition (addiction) and a natural, pleasurable one [love]?” […]

“Addiction would be defined as the stage where desire becomes a compulsive need, when suffering replaces pleasure, when one persists in the relationship despite knowledge of adverse consequences (including humiliation and shame).”

The fact that there is currently no data on the epidemiology, genetics, co-morbidity, or treatment of love addiction lead the researchers to conclude that to place some cases of “love passion” within a clinical disorder spectrum […] would be premature.

{ science left untitled | Continue reading }

A father’s love contributes as much — and sometimes more — to a child’s development as does a mother’s love. That is one of many findings in a new large-scale analysis of research about the power of parental rejection and acceptance in shaping our personalities as children and into adulthood.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

You know the young Marx – I don’t idealise Marx, he was a nasty guy, personally – but he has a wonderful logic. He says: ‘You don’t simply dissolve marriage; divorce means that you retroactively establish that the love was not the true love.’ When love goes away, you retroactively establish that it wasn’t even true love. […]

For me, the idea of hell is the American type of parties. Or, when they ask me to give a talk, and they say something like, ‘After the talk there will just be a small reception’—I know this is hell. This means all the frustrated idiots, who are not able to ask you a question at the end of the talk, come to you and, usually, they start: ‘Professor Žižek, I know you must be tired, but …’ Well, fuck you. If you know that I am tired, why are you asking me? I’m really more and more becoming Stalinist. Liberals always say about totalitarians that they like humanity, as such, but they have no empathy for concrete people, no? OK, that fits me perfectly. Humanity? Yes, it’s OK—some great talks, some great arts. Concrete people? No, ninety-nine percent are boring idiots. […]

I especially hate when they come to me with personal problems. My standard line is: ‘Look at me, look at my tics, don’t you see that I’m mad? How can you even think about asking a mad man like me to help you in personal problems, no? […]

They claim sex is healthy; it’s good for the heart, for blood circulation, it relaxes you. They even go into how kissing is also good because it develops the muscles here – this is horrible, my God! […]

I like this idea of sex as part of love, you know: ‘I’m ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.’ There is something nice, transcendent, about it. I remain incurably romantic.

{ Slavoj Žižek | Continue reading }

related/recommended { The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema }

photo { Fernando Gregory }

Do rebelliousness, emotional control, toughness and thrill-seeking still make up the essence of coolness? […] Research has found the characteristics associated with coolness today are markedly different than those that generated the concept of cool. […]

The research is described as the first systematic, quantitative examination of what characteristics recur in popular understandings of the cool personality. […]

Participants in the study still appreciated the traditional elements of cool, such as rebelliousness and detachment, but not as strongly as friendliness and warmth.

{ University of Rochester | Continue reading }

Is there a point at which your efforts become counter-productive? According to a new study, the answer is yes.

In general, humans don’t like to have their behavior controlled by others, and the result is that we have an aversion to being persuaded. This is one reason why advice about persuasion often involves the idea of leading somebody to a conclusion, but making them think they got there on their own. Feiler and his colleagues wanted to know if providing additional reasons to do something could increase awareness that a persuasion attempt was occurring, and thus make somebody less likely to do it.

{ peer reviewed by my neurons | Continue reading }

image { Winnie Truong }

“Early love is when you love the way the other person makes you feel,” explains psychiatrist Mark Goulston of the University of California, Los Angeles. “Mature love is when you love the person as he or she is.”

{ Time }

Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness.

{ BBC }

photo { Sam Hessamian }

In every economic downturn some intrepid journalist pens a story about the “Lipstick Effect”  – the tendency for women to buy more beauty products when the economy is in bad shape. In theory, the behavior is driven by evolutionary concerns. With fewer men able to offer the security of financial stability, women must enhance their beauty in order to deal with the increased competition.

{ peer reviewed by my neurons | Continue reading }

photo { Anthony Suau }

HorrendousRex
No one seems to have mentioned it, so I’ll point out that this looks like an M4 Carbine with iron sights, without any magazine inserted (and I have to imagine no bullet round chambered, either).
It appears to have no attachments besides the iron sights, which I thought is surprising as I thought that the foregrip and picatinny rail and ACOG scope were standard attachments for the IDF. I would imagine this is because she is a new recruit (mentioned elsewhere in the thread). [Edit: Apparently no M4 attachments are standard in the IDF, they are either soldier-purchased or disbursed for relevant combat roles.]
The gun might also be the M4A1 automatic variant of the M4, but without any modifications I don’t really know how to tell. [Apparently it might also be a short-barreled variant of the M16 - but isn’t that what an M4 is?]
The umbrella stands belong to “Carlsberg” pale lager, a product of the Carlsberg Group. Their motto is “Probably the best beer in the world”, but it is not the best beer in the world.
I’m having trouble identifying the bikinis but the girl with the gun seems to be wearing a mismatched set, as is often the fashion.
The ass is good.

voodoopredatordrones
you just Sherlocked that picture…for no apparent reason

lampkyter
If he really Sherlocked it he would have told us something like how many times she’s had sex.

imatosserama
I can’t definitively say how many times, or if, she has had sex. What I can say is that it is unlikely that either of the two had orgasmed earlier that day.
Look at the way they hold their hips. When a woman orgasms, there is an involuntary relaxation of several of the hip muscles. The hips are carried in a way that looks relaxed and comfortable, rather unlike the somewhat stiff postures we see here. This effect usually lasts for several hours.
Of course, they could have had sex. Quite a lot, even. But it seems unlikely that they reached an orgasm that day. I could be wrong. But it seems unlikely. A more definite conclusion could be reached if we had a video of them walking.
Edit for proof: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18637995

{ reddit | Continue reading }

Research team at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre has revealed how experiencing strong emotions synchronizes brain activity across individuals.

Human emotions are highly contagious. Seeing others’ emotional expressions such as smiles triggers often the corresponding emotional response in the observer. Such synchronization of emotional states across individuals may support social interaction: When all group members share a common emotional state, their brains and bodies process the environment in a similar fashion.

Researchers at Aalto University and Turku PET Centre have now found that feeling strong emotions makes different individuals’ brain activity literally synchronous.

The results revealed that especially feeling strong unpleasant emotions synchronized brain’s emotion processing networks in the frontal and midline regions. On the contrary, experiencing highly arousing events synchronized activity in the networks supporting vision, attention and sense of touch.

{ Aalto University | Continue reading }

photo { Cypress Gardens, Florida, 1954 }

A Swedish word for love, “kär-lek [love–play]” gave an impetus for this article that aims at defining two mysterious and fascinating phenomena: love and play. They are analogous by many of their features. It is difficult to define them comprehensively and they both develop individually and in stages. Furthermore, as we tried to create an overall picture about these phenomena, we found many combining questions: where does love/play start and to what extent imagination maintains both these phenomena? Both love and play involves joy and pleasure but also insecurity and risks. Or do they both consist merely of work, learning, and practicing? People’s ability to play and love does not disappear with age. Is love thus play and play love?

{ Maxwell Scientific Organization | Continue reading }

photo { Dash Snow }

Human beings are motivated to form and maintain interpersonal relationships. In this context, self-presentation and self-disclosure have been described as strategies to initiate the formation of relationships: Especially in early stages, people have to attract the attention of others by means of self-presentational behavior. Therefore, presenting him- or herself in a positive and elaborated way can be seen as one way to establish new contacts and thereby satisfy the so-called need to belong. The term “impression management” aptly describes this strategy “to convey an impression to others which it is in his interests to convey.” In real-life situations, these impression management behaviors consist of intentional verbal communication (speech, written texts) as well as of possibly unintentional nonverbal expressions.

Nowadays, with the help of social networking sites (SNS) on the Internet such as Facebook, further possibilities are given to present oneself to others: Users can, for instance, upload photographs, join groups, and provide personal information. Thus, each profile owner can make use of these specific features by selecting information which presents him/her in a positive and attractive manner. This online impression management can therefore also be useful to attract potential partners. According to previous studies on Web 2.0, self-presentation is one of the major motives for using these websites, besides communicating with friends and finding new contacts. […]

An analysis of 100 online profiles showed that singles disclosed more photographs of themselves on their profiles than people in relationships. The highest numbers of friends and wall postings were shown by people who did not reveal their relationship status. Singles displayed more groups on their profile and were more likely to join user groups dealing with parties, sexual statements as well as fun and nonsense.

{ Cyberpsychology | Continue reading }

Divorce lawyers and wedding planners have been gearing up for the Facebook IPO, waiting for the influx of wealth in Silicon Valley to stir up drama in romantic relationships, for better and for worse.

“When Google went public, there was a wave of divorces. When Cisco went public there was a wave of divorces,” says Steve Cone, a divorce attorney based in Palo Alto, near the social network’s Menlo Park headquarters. “I expect a similar wave shortly after Facebook goes public.”

{ FT | Continue reading }

photo { Vivian Maier }

Meeting new people can be a delicate business. How do you make sure that people get a right impression of who you are and what you’re capable of? Many people therefore tend to keep things formal and are hesitant to brag about themselves. But recent research in the Journal for Social Psychological and Personality Science reveals that it is wise to actually show  your best self when meeting new people. At least, when you want them to really get to know you.

{ United Academics | Continue reading }

Neuroscientists at NYU and Harvard have identified the neural systems involved in forming first impressions of others. […] Making sense of others in a social interaction is not easy—each new person we meet may be a source of ambiguous and complex information. However, when encountering someone for the first time, we are often quick to judge whether we like that person or not. In fact, previous research has shown that people make relatively accurate and persistent evaluations based on rapid observations of even less than half a minute.

{ eScienceNews | Continue reading }

related { Why First Impressions Are So Persistent }

painting { Marcus Harvey, Girl in Burka with Red Underwear II, 2007 }

Ancient philosophy - especially after Aristotle - largely focused on how to achieve self-sufficiency on the one hand, and peace of mind on the other; it thus became fundamentally therapeutic, in nature and goal. Though ancient philosophers are generally known for their praise of friendship, there is an evident tension involved in these positions: the possession of friends seems almost unhelpful, nearly inimical, to self-sufficiency and peace of mind. As fulfilling as friendships generally are, they often lead to mutual dependency and a loss of the tranquility thought to accompany solitude. The problems grow even more acute when one considers other, more intimate forms of human relationships, those celebrated less widely in ancient philosophy, such as sexual intercourse and romantic love, both of which intuitively seem even more threatening to self-sufficiency and mental tranquility than friendship does. Two schools of Hellenistic philosophy in particular, Stoicism and Epicureanism, struggled to find coherent positions on each of these three forms of human relationships, to draw clean lines around what is worth pursuing and what is not, what is acceptable and what is not; ultimately, both schools generally agree that those relationships based on natural feelings are healthy and should be fostered, and those which degenerate into reasonless passion or emotional dependency should be avoided.

{ The Montréal Review | Continue reading }

screenshot { Gary Cooper and Ann Harding in Henry Hathaway’s Peter Ibbetson, 1935 }

A study found that students asked to tell whether someone was gay or straight guessed correctly more often than could be put down to mere chance.

Women had greater accuracy with 65 per cent able to identify someone’s sexuality at a glance, while men were correct 57 per cent of the time.

Evidence suggest it is easier to recognise gay women’s faces than men’s even when photos were shown upside down and with no hairstyle visible.

Researchers in journal PLoS One say the results suggest we may unconsciously make gay or straight decisions when meeting a new face.

{ Telegraph | Continue reading }

still { Manhunter, 1986 }

{ For $75, this guy will sell you 1,000 Facebook ‘Likes’ | NPR | audio }

related { Facebook’s costs are rising considerably faster than its revenues. Simply relying on attracting more and more people to the site won’t do the trick. | The New Yorker | full story }

Power is desirable – it helps us achieve goals, frees us from many social constraints, and allows us to be ourselves. […]

According to recent research by Ena Inesi and colleagues, having power – as a manager, as the higher-paid spouse, or even as the babysitter – leads people to see favors by others as more selfishly motivated.

Across five different studies, Inesi and her colleagues found that power lead people to make cynical attributions about the intentions behind another person’s kind acts.

{ Psych your mind | Continue reading }

photo { Nan Goldin, Nan and Dickie in the York Motel, New Jersey, 1980 }