Hi everyone!
Wouldn't it be fascinating to have some scientific
insights into the question why some relationships work and others don't? As I
was trying to find answers to this question, I stumbled on the work of Dr.
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist from the New York University, who works on the
question why we fall in love and who we fall in love with.
So far it has only been known that we are attracted to
people with the same general level of good looks, intelligence and education
and the same cultural background. Still you can be in the same room with those
people and not be attracted to any of them. So what is it that makes you feel
attracted to one person rather than the other? The answer that Dr. Fisher gives
lies mainly in our genes.
Our personality is a combination of inherited
attributes one can call "temperament" and experiences that shape our
character. So far scientists don't really know which attributes of our
personality can be inherited. But some temperament traits always seem to occur
together. So, researchers came up with the hypothesis of different "personality
types". The idea was that those character traits that usually occur
together must be associated with the same gene that is expressed at different
levels in every person. This explains why these personality types can be
inherited through the generations and are independent from the
cultural background. For example, if a person is novelty seeking, this
person is also likely to be spontaneous, risk taking, curious and creative
because all these attributes are caused by one and the same gene.
According to Dr. Fisher every person shows a unique mix
of four personality types that are associated with the expression of four
different neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and
estrogen.
People who express high general levels of dopamine
are, as I described before, novelty seeking, willing to take risks,
spontaneous, curious, creative, optimists, enthusiasts and have high levels of
energy and mental flexibility. Those people Dr. Fisher called
"explorers".
On the other hand people who express high levels of
serotonin are calm, social, cautious, persistent, loyal, orderly and fond of
rules and facts. Dr. Fisher called them "builders".
Testosterone which is expressed in both men and women
is associated with the ability of analytical and logical thinking, extracting
and strategizing, tough-mindedness and emotional containedness. Those people
were called "directors".
Finally it remains to describe
the estrogen associated type: the "negotiator"
sees the big picture and does connect disparate facts in a
contextual and holistic way of thinking, also referred to as "web
thinking". Additionally the negotiator has superior verbal
skills, is good at reading facial expressions, gestures, postures and tone of
voice, is intuitive, sympathetic, nurturing, agreeable, altruistic and
emotionally expressive.
The next part is about the procedure Dr. Fisher used to prove her idea. If you are not interested in it, go right to the results part :)
In the next step Dr. Fisher tried to determine which
personality types are attracted to each other. In order to do so, there needed
to be an easy and efficient way to measure which person belongs to which
personality type. So, she developed a questionnaire that proposed
statements like "I do things in the spur of the moment". Only
the explorer would agree strongly with this statement. For each
personality type she included statements, so in the end it is possible to
determine the personality type based on which statements the person agreed
with. Of course, the validity of this test has been verified by
saliva and blood samples of test persons before the questionnaire was
released.
Now that Dr. Fisher had developed a test to
successfully determine the personality type of a person, the next step was to
determine, if certain personality types are drawn towards each other. In order
to do so, the test was released on a dating website call
"chemistry.com", where she analysed the data of 39,913 members and
focused on the question which personality types were attracted to each other.
It turned out to be true that our personality types
contribute to our mate choice. People with high dopamine expressions, the
explores, are drawn to other explorers. The same is true for people with high
serotonin expression called the builders who are drawn to other builders. In
contrast to that, directors with high testosterone levels are attracted to
negotiators with high estrogen expression and the other way around. In addition
to that it's not only the neurotransmitter that we express the most that decides
which partner we choose. Also the second neurotransmitter has a big impact.
Now, some people might say that explaining love might
take its magic away. Dr. Fisher gave a very nice response to that: Only because
I know all the ingredients of a chocolate cake it doesn't make it any
less delicious.
I must say that I have been pretty impressed by the
work of Dr. Fisher. At first I have to admit that I mainly felt the joy of a
scientist who just discovered that science can give explanations to
something that so far seemed not explainable. But I also like it when I
discover something new about myself. Of course I took the test and it turned
out the I was a NEGOTIATOR/explorer. And most characteristics that have
been described for the personality types are so true that it actually made
me laugh! So, Dr. Fishers work helped me to get to know myself a little better,
I made me realize why relationships didn't work in the past and it gave me some
ideas of what to look for in a man. Actually it really enhances a
conversation with most people and brings them to a deeper level when
you secretly work in some of the questions from the test. At least I
always end up having some very nice conversations ;)
But, back to the main topic. How can you take the test
yourself? Chemistry.com still provides the test but you will have to register
for free and give them some personal information in exchange (nothing that
Facebook doesn’t know anyway ;) ). Test chemistry.com
I can highly recommend to take the test. It might
explain why your last relationship didn't work, why your partner is right for
you and it will certainly improve your the conversations you have!
All the best!
Stefanie
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