The Nature of Love

On Mate Poaching and Jealousy

“Mother Nature is a wicked old witch,” it has been said. We like to believe that Lisa Nowak and all the rest of those who succumb to romantic jealousy are fragile victims of a bad childhood or are weak, narcissistic or deranged. 

But Mother Nature plays a role in jealousy. In an article in the Los Angeles Times on February 14th, David Buss, a leading evolutionary psychologist, wrote that some 93% of American men and 82% of American women were the focus of an attempted seduction while they were in a relationship.  Moreover, 53% of men and 41% of women had lost their partner to a romantic rival: mate poaching.

No wonder, as an Australian Aborigine wisely said, “We are a jealous people.”  We can turn murderous, too.  In a study of 5,000 people in six cultures, 84% of women and 91% of men admitted to having had at least one fantasy about murdering a sweetheart or a romantic rival.  Many of us contain this “green eyed monster,” as Shakespeare called jealousy. But many don’t. Buss reports that sexual jealousy is “the leading cause of spousal murder worldwide.”

Which leads to the point of this blog: How do we help (and punish) Lisa Nowak, a woman who drove some 950 miles in diapers carting a mallet, knife, rubber hose and garbage bags--all carefully purchased to terrorize, if not maim, a romantic rival?

On Valentine’s Day evening a major American news channel invited a psychologist to help us understand Lisa. With utter confidence, this woman blamed all the usual suspects: Lisa’s possible “attachment” problems as a child and the stress of her current marital situation.

I don’t believe her. As we learn more about the brain, it is becoming evident why so many people around the world lose control when jealous. Jealousy triggers activity in the amygdala and hypothalamus, brain regions that can initiate violent aggression. Not just in humans. When dominant male rhesus monkeys watch a “consort” copulate with a rival, these males also show more activity in the amygdala. Many become aggressive too.

When will American psychologists stop blaming all of our misdeeds on poor parenting? I suspect: never. Because they feel they can “fix” the patterns we built as children. And they don’t know how to “fix” our biology.

I don’t either. But ignoring biology is not the solution. As we learn more and more about the brain, we will have to cope with all these data. In fact, I suspect this may become a prominent 21st century issue: How to help and punish all those unfortunate human beings who lost their fight against this (sometimes) wicked old witch: Mother Nature.

Pepper Spray, Diapers and Rejection

The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. Indeed, love and hate have much in common, including intense energy, focused attention, motivation, goal oriented behaviors and craving. And because of the way the brain is built, we can feel both intense romantic love and deep “hate/rage” almost simultaneously.  It’s a bad combination.

I say this, of course, in response to the tragic story of Lisa Nowak, esteemed astronaut who drove 950 miles wearing diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop, donned a trench coat and wig, and stalked her romantic rival as this woman walked to her car in an airport parking lot. Through a two inch slit in the car window, Lisa then sprayed her competitor with pepper spray.And after the woman sped away, she disposed of her cache of questionable utensils in a garbage can: a BB pistol, a steel mallet, some rubber tubing, several plastic garbage bags, a fresh knife with four inch blade and some $600.

Why are Americans transfixed by this story? Can we remember times when we, too, wanted to maim a rejecting lover or romantic rival? Do we feel that if an astronaut can “lose it,” maybe we might?

I have something to add. I and my colleagues have just completed a study of the rejected brain in love. We put 15 men and women into a brain scanner and watched what happens when a spurned man or woman looks at the photo of their abandoning sweetheart.  Several brain regions become active: Among them is a region associated with taking big risks for big gains and big losses, as well as a brain factory that registers physical pain. Other areas that “lit up” included those for obsessive-compulsive behaviors and for controlling anger.

This brain circuitry is no excuse to terrorize an innocent human being. But in Lisa’s case, her brain centers for impulse control were no match for her romantic ardor, pain and fury.

“Parting,” Emily Dickinson wrote, “is all we need to know of hell.” I suspect that many of us have felt murderous at some point in our lives—but we controlled ourselves.  Othello, however, Shakespeare’s tragic character who murdered his adored wife out of jealousy, represents the many who have fallen prey to this primordial, powerful and sometimes horribly destructive brain system: romantic love.

Semper ad astra,   Helen