Sign in or 
- EasyEdit
- Edit tags
-
(what's this?What are these tools?
People just like you can add or edit the content on this site. If you want to try editing, but aren't ready to add to this site, try our demo area.
Read more about editing pages at Wetpaint Central.
) - Report page
Share this
Love at first sight
In human life, love at first sight is the process in which one or two people fall in love with each other instantaneously at first visual contact. Statistically, about 2/3 of people believe in love at first sight and 20% fall in love and marry that person. [1] One of the first detailed studies of this phenomenon was conducted by American market research Earl Naumann and published in his 2001 book Love at First Sight - the Stories and Science behind Instant Attraction. [2] A related, albeit less common, phrase is "love at first smell", in which the smell of someone triggers instant attraction. [3]Overview One of the first studies done on the phenomenon of “love at first sight”, published in 1970, found that in a survey of 679 men and women, 30% reported to have fallen in love at an initial glance. [4] A recent 1999 survey of one-hundred American couples, however, found that only 11% of men and women had fallen in love the moment they set their eyes on each other. [5]
In the late 1990s, American market research Earl Naumann interviewed 1,495 people across American, by phone, whose answers to questions on their views about “love at first sight” were tape recorded, documented, and statistically analyzed. [1] On this topic, according to Naumann, as we perceive our environment, and the inclusive “potentials” in that environment, through our senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing that it is sensor information that triggers the chemical reaction of love. [6]
The results of his studies found that nearly two-thirds of the population believes in love at first sight; that of believers, more than half have experienced it; that 55% of those who experience love at first sight married the object of their affection and that three-quarters of those who married as a result of love at first sight have stated married well over the national average. In a nutshell, this means, approximately, that 20% of people will fall in love at first sight, solely by the operation of a visual field particle stimulus (photons), marry that person, and that of those people, three-fourths will stay marry better than the national average.
Subsequently, the visual stimulus of sight, as is the case with most sensor information, will enter the brain system through the optic nerve and go to the thalamus (the brain's translator); these messages, in turn, are then simultaneously sent to the neocortex (the thinking part) and the amygdala (the place where deep memories and fear are stored). The amygdala then sends messages to the hypothalamus (the part that connects the nervous system to the endocrine system), which then directs the pituitary gland to release the appropriate hormones and neurochemicals.
In short, love at first sight is translated by the thalamus as a "desired human chemical reaction", a important message which is then sent to the amygdala (the core memory center), resulting in the flooding of endorphins and other neurochemicals, such as oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine, in the emotional center of the brain, the “limbic system”. As such, according to Naumann’s findings, “the implication is that there is not just a single chemical reaction taking place in our bodies … there are a whole series of reactions that result in the emotion of love."
References
1. Fisher, Helen. (1992). Anatomy of Love - a Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why we Stray, (section: "Love at First Sight", pgs.49-50). New York: Fawcett Columbine.
2. (a) Naumann, Earl. (2001). Love at First Sight – the Stories and Science Behind Instant Attraction, (ch. 2: “The Chemistry of Love”, pgs. 23-42 [35]). Naperville, IL: Casablanca Press.
(b) Earl Naumann – the Science behind Instant Attraction.
3. Fisher, Helen. (2004). Why We Love - the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, (section: "Love at First Sight", pgs. 41-42; section: "Love at First Smell", pg. 43). New York: Henry Holt and Co.
4. Kanin, E.J., Davidson, K.R., and Scheck, S.R. (1970). “A research note on male-female differentials in the experience of heterosexual love”. Journal of Sex Research 6(1): 64-72.
5. Pines, A.M. (1999). Falling in Love: Why We Choose the Lovers We Choose. New York: Routledge.
6. See: Love - the chemical reaction.
Sadi-Carnot |
Latest page update: made by Sadi-Carnot
, Jun 22 2008, 2:03 PM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by Sadi-Carnot
1 image added view changes - complete history) |
|
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
