In this episode, I discuss the psychology and biology of desire, love and attachment. I explain how childhood attachment types are thought to inform adult attachment styles to romantic partners, and I describe some of the major theories of human mate selection, relationships and infidelity. Additionally, I explore the neurobiology and proposed subconscious processing underlying desire, love and attachment, including the roles of empathy and “positive delusion." I outline how self-awareness can shift one’s relationship attachment style towards securely bonded partnerships. Finally, I describe specific tools and supplements that have been researched to increase libido and sex drive. Throughout the episode, I explain the science and key mechanisms underlying romantic love and outline tools for those seeking to find a strong, healthy relationship, or for those wanting to strengthen an existing relationship.
For the full show notes, visit hubermanlab.com.
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<h2>Timestamps</h2>
(00:00:00) Desire, Love & Attachment
(00:02:59) Odor, Perceived Attractiveness & Birth Control
(00:08:21) Sponsors: AG1, LMNT
(00:14:13) Romance: Balancing Love & Desire
(00:19:00) Animal Studies, Vasopressin & Monogamy
(00:22:06) Strange Situation Task, Childhood Attachment Styles
(00:32:52) Adult Attachment Styles
(00:38:50) Secure Attachment
(00:41:23) Autonomic Arousal: The “See-Saw”
(00:50:39) Tool: Self-Awareness, Healthy Interdependence
(00:53:11) Neurobiology of Desire, Love & Attachment
(00:58:02) Empathy & Mating & the Autonomic Nervous System
(01:10:02) Positive Delusion, Touch
(01:15:20) Relationship Stability
(01:21:22) Selecting Mates, Recognition of Autonomic Tone
(01:38:28) Neural Mechanisms of Romantic Attachment
(01:47:43) Autonomic Coordination in Relationships
(01:56:13) Infidelity & Cheating
(02:08:56) “Chemistry”, Subconscious Processes
(02:12:44) Tools: Libido & Sex Drive
(02:20:20) Maca (Maca root)
(02:25:58) Tongkat Ali (Longjack)
(02:28:56) Tribulus terrestris
(02:33:14) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify/Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Instagram, Twitter, Supplements
Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac
Disclaimer
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
Today, we're going to talk about the psychology and the biology of desire, love, and attachment. Today happens to be Valentine's Day, 2022.
However, the themes we are going to discuss pertain to desire, love, and attachment on any given day.
The mechanisms we are going to discuss almost certainly were at play thousands of years ago, hundreds of years ago, and no doubt will still be at play in our minds and in our bodies and in our psychologies for the decades, centuries, and thousands of years to come. Indeed, today I want to focus on core mechanisms that lead individuals to seek out other individuals with whom to mate with, with whom to have children with or not, with whom to enter short or long-term relationships with,
To end those relationships or to seek relationships on the side, so-called infidelity. I'm certainly not going to encourage or discourage any of these behaviors. I'm simply going to cover the peer-reviewed scientific data on all these aspects of desire, love, and attachment. I'm going to discuss how our childhood attachment styles, as they're called, influence our adult attachment styles. Yes, you heard that right. How we attached or did not attach to primary caregivers in our childhood has much to do with how we.
Or fail to attach to romantic partners as adults, because the same neural circuits, the neurons and their connections in the brain and body that underlie attachment between infant and caregiver, between toddler and parent or other caregiver, and during adolescence and in our teenage years are repurposed for a.
Adult romantic attachments. I know that might be a little eerie to think about, but indeed that is true. Now, the fortunate thing is that regardless of our childhood attachment styles and experiences, the neural circuits for desire, love, and attachment are quite plastic. They are amenable to change in response to both what we think and what we feel, as well as what we do. However, all three.
Aspects that we're discussing today, desire, love and attachment are also strongly biologically driven. We're going to talk about biological mechanisms such as hormones, biological mechanisms such as neurochemicals, things like dopamine, oxytocin and serotypes.
And neural circuits, brain areas, and indeed areas of the body that interact with the brain that control whether.
Whether or not we desire somebody or not, whether or not we lose or increase our desire for somebody over time, whether or not we fall in love, what love means.
And whether or not the relationships we form continue to include the elements of desire and love over time or not.
In order to illustrate just how powerfully our biology can shape our perception of the attractiveness of other people, I want to share with you the results of a couple of studies.
Both studies explore how people rate other people's attractiveness. And in both studies...
The major variable is that women are at different stages of their menstrual cycle. Now in the first study.
Men are rating the attractiveness of women according to the smell of those women.
Now they're not smelling them directly, they're smelling clothing that women wore for a couple of days at different phases of their menstrual cycle.
Find is that men will rate the odors of women as most attractive if those.
In the pre-ovulatory phase of their cycle. Okay, so this is.
Not to say that men do not find women attractive at other stages of their cycle. It is to say that men find women's odors particularly attractive.
If those odors were worn by women that are in the pre-ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle. Okay?
There was also a study that was done where women at different stages of their menstrual cycle are rating the odors of men.
And a similar but mirror symmetric result was found such that women who are in the pre-ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle will rate men's odors.
It's more attractive than at other stages of their cycle. So the simple way to put this is that there seems to be something special about the pre-ovulatory phase of a woman's menstrual cycle that makes men rate.
Is more attractive during that time. And women rate men as more attractive during that particular time as well.
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