Saturday 22 January 2011

From the department of irrelevant prescriptions

Before the results came in, Brown told me to keep my expectations low. The sex regions might stay dark. She told me, "I actually think men in your situation" — meaning married with young kids — "should be encouraged to go to the Internet and look at pornography, because it brings novelty into the home. When you look at [porn], you're going to have some hormonal flooding. Which is needed in the 'captivity' situation."
My limited unscientific surveys of men in that situation suggests that such prescriptions may have no effect on the extensive margin.

The recommendation comes from Helen Fisher, Prof of Anthropology at Rutgers who specializes in the neurochemistry of love.

Fisher put A.J. Jacobs, author of the Esquire piece linked, into an MRI machine to see how much he loves his wife. They mapped his brain while he looked at pictures of his wife compared to pictures of Angelina Jolie. Noted Fisher:
When I told friends and family I was trying to scientifically assess my love for Julie, they all had the same response: "No good can come of this."
Lots of fun pop neuroscience in the article.

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