50% of women still married after four years said, given the chance to do it all again, they would not marry the same man. (…) By that time, the average couple is down to four minutes of meaningful conversation a day.

{ Erotic Review | Continue reading }

Feminism is generally associated with modern, progressive society. Yet few people know that ancient Sparta - infamous for its militarism - granted women exceptional rights. Spartan women could inherit, own, and bequeath property; they were fed and schooled as much as men; they had complete freedom of movement; they married later and could even get away with adultery. So why would the tough Spartan men allow this to happen? Upon subjugating its neighbors - whose population vastly outnumbered Sparta’s - Sparta needed its males to focus entirely on training for war and its females to focus on managing the subjugated population and estates. To give the women sufficient capability and incentive, especially in the absence of men, the men had to grant the extra rights to women, the authors of a new study argue. However, as in modern times, more autonomy for women was associated with lower fertility, which ultimately led to Sparta being unable to field a large enough army, losing control of its subjugated neighbors, and rescinding the rights of its women.

{ Boston Globe | Continue reading }

{ Former glamour model confesses to bigamy - after marrying husband No.5 }

Researchers have noted for decades that children view their home environment and relationship with their parents as “models,” and that this is usually reflected in how these children interact in new environments in the future. For example, children who are exposed to highly aggressive parenting are in turn more likely to use hostility and aggression as means to attain their own goals. Children also model positive behaviors. For example, children who see parents reach amicable resolutions to conflicts are also more likely to learn better conflict resolution skills.

Following this line of research, some investigators have examined whether child exposure to specific bonding or attachment styles are also likely to affect how these children act in their own close relationships later on. To answer this question, a research group from Rider University examined the role of the quality of father-daughter bond in the development of positive romantic relationships during young adulthood. (…)

The data seem to show that the quality of bond between daughters and fathers, specifically communication and trust (albeit not time), predicts better communication and trust with their boyfriends.

{ Child Psychology Research Blog | Continue reading }

photo { Frank Zappa with parents Francis and Rosemary in Frank’s home. Los Angeles, 1970 | John Olson/Life }

Suppose Romeo is in love with Juliet, but in our version of the story, Juliet is a fickle lover. The more Romeo loves her, the more she wants to run away and hide. But when he takes the hint and backs off, she begins to find him strangely attractive. He, on the other hand, tends to echo her: he warms up when she loves him and cools down when she hates him.

What happens to our star-crossed lovers? How does their love ebb and flow over time? That’s where the math comes in. By writing equations that summarize how Romeo and Juliet respond to each other’s affections and then solving those equations with calculus, we can predict the course of their affair. The resulting forecast for this couple is, tragically, a never-ending cycle of love and hate. At least they manage to achieve simultaneous love a quarter of the time. (…)

Although these examples are whimsical, the equations that arise in them are of the far-reaching kind known as differential equations. They represent the most powerful tool humanity has ever created for making sense of the material world. Sir Isaac Newton used them to solve the ancient mystery of planetary motion. (…)

The silly idea that love affairs might progress in a similar way occurred to me when I was in love for the first time, trying to understand my girlfriend’s baffling behavior. It was a summer romance at the end of my sophomore year in college. I was a lot like the first Romeo above, and she was even more like the first Juliet. The cycling of our relationship was driving me crazy until I realized that we were both acting mechanically, following simple rules of push and pull. But by the end of the summer my equations started to break down, and I was even more mystified than ever. As it turned out, the explanation was simple. There was an important variable that I’d left out of the equations — her old boyfriend wanted her back.

In mathematics we call this a three-body problem. It’s notoriously intractable, especially in the astronomical context where it first arose. After Newton solved the differential equations for the two-body problem (thus explaining why the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun), he turned his attention to the three-body problem for the sun, earth and moon. He couldn’t solve it, and neither could anyone else. It later turned out that the three-body problem contains the seeds of chaos, rendering its behavior unpredictable in the long run.

{ The Wild Side/NY Times | Continue reading | n-body problem }

illustration { Adrien Tomine }

Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who’ve discovered a group they call “super-recognizers”: those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.

The new study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among humans. Previous research has identified as much as 2 percent of the population as having “face-blindness,” or prosopagnosia, a condition characterized by great difficulty in recognizing faces. For the first time, this new research shows that others excel in face recognition, indicating that the trait could be on a spectrum, with prosopagnosics on the low end and super-recognizers at the high end. (…)

“Super-recognizers have these extreme stories of recognizing people,” says Russell. “They recognize a person who was shopping in the same store with them two months ago, for example, even if they didn’t speak to the person. It doesn’t have to be a significant interaction; they really stand out in terms of their ability to remember the people who were actually less significant.”

One woman in the study said she had identified another woman on the street who served her as a waitress five years earlier in a different city. Critically, she was able to confirm that the other woman had in fact been a waitress in the different city. Often, super-recognizers are able to recognize another person despite significant changes in appearance, such as aging or a different hair color.

{ Harvard Gazette | Continue reading | Read more: Gene Expression }

photo { Richard Avedon }

Fundamentally, we are made for deep, lifelong love for one mate. Humans are among just 3 percent or so of mammals that seem to be hardwired for monogamy. This small set of monogamous mammals — including the prairie vole, the titi monkey, and the fat-tailed dwarf lemur — have a unique receptivity to oxytocin, the brain chemical that enables us to form the deep bond we know as love.

Most male animals mate early and often, with as many partners as possible. This system has reproductive advantage for the male of the species: The more eggs he can fertilize, the better the chances that some of his offspring will live to reproduce, passing along his genes.

There’s a famous and probably apocryphal story about President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace Anna. As the tale goes, the Coolidges visited a farm, where, on separate tours, they were each impressed by the amorous prowess of the top rooster. Mrs. Coolidge and her guide paused by the chicken coop, and she asked him how often the rooster copulated.

“Dozens of times a day,” she was told.

“Well,” she said, “please tell that to Mr. Coolidge.”

Mr. Coolidge was duly told and, after a moment of dismay, he asked, “The same hen every time?”

“Oh, no, Mr. President. A different hen every time.”

“Well,” he said, “you tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.”

(…) A male rat who’d copulated to exhaustion with one particular female could somehow manage to get it up and begin all over again when presented with a different female rat in heat. The Coolidge effect is reliable not only in rats but also in most other mammals. A bull will refuse to copulate again with a cow he’s already mounted, no matter how they try to disguise her. When he’s done, she’s done.

Some women might swear that modern men experience the Coolidge effect. But men are not rats, hamsters, or bulls.

{ East Bay Express | Continue reading }

It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.

When women and men converse together, the men use a little more head motion and the women use a little less. But the men and women might be adapting because of their gender-based expectations or because of the movements they perceive from each other.

What would happen if you could change the apparent gender of a conversant while keeping all of the motion dynamics of head movement and facial expression?

“We found that people simply adapt to each other’s head movements and facial expressions, regardless of the apparent sex of the person they are talking to,” Boker said. “This is important because it indicates that how you appear is less important than how you move when it comes to what other people feel when they speak with you.”

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Alexandra Carr }

Attraction can make enemies of the brain and the heart. Take Karen, a successful, good-looking 32-year-old woman who wondered why it always took her several months to find out that a guy she liked was a player (or worse). She would become powerfully attracted to certain men, and know instantly upon meeting them that there were sparks.

What she didn’t realize, in spite of her friends’ chorus of warnings, was that she was attracted to “bad boys.” All she knew was that she was drawn to men with a certain swagger and stride. For all their boldness and bravado, she invariably later felt mistreated. “Am I doomed to just love bastards?” she asked me after one too many took command and then took his leave. (…)

What’s the appeal of the bad boy who gets the girl? (…) The more likely a relationship is to be fleeting, the more likely a woman is to seek a man with high quality genes. Evolutionary psychologists define “good genes” for men as high-testosterone-fueled masculinity, symmetry, height, and, believe it or not, parasite resistance. Men who are blessed with these qualities tend to be confident and dominant. And able to get away with roguish behavior. (…) They offer a primal appeal that would have been advantageous in the ancestral setting—fighting skills, passion, lust for the damsel. (…)

“A distinction between long-term and short-term relationships is important for understanding women’s partner choices.” A love of boldness helps women find strong males as mates. Secretly they harbor the fantasy of turning their genetically gifted cads into loving dads who stick around long-term, long enough to help raise the kids.

{ Psychology Today | Continue reading }

A week ago, my doctor doubled the dosage of my antidepressant and, because I’m not sleeping well, he prescribed Ambien. On Saturday morning, I confused the vials and took two Ambien. I told my wife what happened and that I would probably sleep all day and went to bed. At around 10 p.m., my wife commented on how productive I had been: mowing the lawn, cleaning up, grocery shopping. I remembered none of this and said so. She said her only concern was that I left for “errands” and returned two hours later with nothing in hand. I talked to my doctor Monday, and he told me Ambien can cause amnesia and that some people have reported walking, driving, and cooking in their sleep. I know now what filled the missing two hours. This afternoon, I got a call from a woman who called me “lover” and asked when I wanted to come back. She called me her f–k buddy. This is a woman I had talked to only twice before in social situations. I do not even know where she lives; maybe I phoned her for directions. I do find her attractive, but I am stunned that I did something like this. My wife is vindictive, and if I say anything to her, it will end our marriage. I do not want to continue a relationship with the other woman. What should I do?

{ Dear Prudence/Slate | Continue reading }

A spy informs me that one firm is already telling its employees to avoid shaking hands as a way to lower the risks of swine flu. I can see this sort of policy catching on. My informant wonders what sort of greeting should replace the handshake. I’m on it.

There are few times in history when you have a chance to create a new and lasting custom. I say we put our collective minds together and come up with a business greeting that involves no skin-to-skin contact and no exchange of bodily fluids. I will open the bidding by suggesting the forearm bump. I already use this method jokingly with my friend who has germ issues. It’s like crossing swords except you cross your sleeved forearm. The cooties don’t have time to penetrate two layers of sleeves. Or so he thinks.

{ Scott Adams | Continue reading }

In A.D. 64 the Stoic philosopher Seneca pondered friendship. The Stoics’ intellectual adversaries, the Epicureans, had claimed that a man sought friends for purely instrumental reasons, “for the purpose of having someone to come and sit beside his bed when he is ill or come to his rescue when he is hard up or thrown into chains.” But Seneca knew better. A wise man wanted friends “so that he may have someone by whose sickbed he himself may sit, or whom he may himself release when that person is held prisoner by hostile hands.” Kindness was man’s duty but also his joy: “No one can live a happy life if he turns everything to his own purposes. Live for others if you want to live for yourself.”

{ The Believer | Continue reading }

artwork { Richard Phillips New Museum 2009 | Oil on canvas }

Women, for instance, judge men by their faces. Testosterone levels are reflected in the face, and who is seen as a one-night stand and who as a potential husband depends in part on this physical feature. Similarly, a male face betrays the owner’s underlying aggressiveness and even his business acumen. Facial beauty in either sex is also associated with higher incomes. The latest research, though, cuts to the moral quick. For Jefferson Duarte of Rice University in Houston, Texas, and his colleagues are suggesting that one of a person’s most telling moral features, his creditworthiness, can also be seen in his face.

{ The Economist | Continue reading }