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Monday, February 10, 2014

STEM of Love

Hello World!
Happy Saint Valentines! Today is a day of love for many people. For me it is about all types of love, family and friends as well as romantic. Did you know that love is a field of study? One of my favorite books from school was a book titled "Psychologists who defied the crowd and won" (http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/431681A.aspx) and in this book was a chapter about Ellen Bersheid, one of the first love researchers. She was actually set to retire when a person took great offense to her studies and gave her the Golden Fleece award (which is a mock award for "useless" science). At the same time, the general public appreciated her research so much they begged her for more data and appreciated her insights. This launched her into a series of studies that showed her research was nothing to make a mockery of and highly useful. I admire that she persisted despite such a frustrating start. Love as a science is well established now and you can enjoy reading about it here 

http://www.economist.com/node/2424049 
or here 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/
Or at this lab's page, where they discuss physiology and family relationships https://www.gottman.com/research/the-love-lab/

Science shows that activities with adrenaline (sports or scary movies) or bonding (feel good movies) will increase your love potential (just don't whack the person with your elbow if you elect sports, as I once did!) whatever you do,
I hope you have a lovely day today, filled with oxytocin and other love elements :) 


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